William Tyler
Pearl Harbor: 1941 - 1945
William Tyler - Pearl Harbor, 1941-1945
- So, welcome to everyone. I’ve just been saying to Wendy before we started that I found doing World War II from an American angle has widened my understanding, ‘cause normally I would talk about World War II from a British angle, and one of the challenges of doing it from an American angle is that we’re talking about two major theatres of war. War against Japan in the East, and war against Germany in the West. And I’ve tried to balance that as I go through today’s talk, and I’m trying to give an overarching picture. And if I fail to mention a place in which a member of your family served or sadly may have given their lives, I apologise, but I have to find a way of doing it. So enough of that, I’m going to begin with a quotation from a history of the Pacific War from an American historian called Hugh Ambrose. The book is simply called “Pacific,” and he writes this in his first sentence: “As the 1930s gave way to the 1940s, the people of the United States thought little of the empire of Japan.” And that’s really what we were saying last time. But Ambrose goes on to write specifically of that war in the Pacific against Japan by saying this: He writes, “The Japanese government ruled by military cabal that included Emperor Hirohito had created an ideology to justify its colonial conquest and built a military to enact it. Japan obviously intended to seize other valuable areas along the Pacific rim. The United States controlled some of these valuable areas, and it expected to keep the region open to trade. Roosevelt endeavoured to curb Japan’s expansion by a series of economic and diplomatic measures backed up by the US military.”
Now listen to the last part of this sentence and this quote from Hugh Ambrose, the American historian of the Pacific War. He writes that, “Roosevelt wanted to back up his economic and diplomatic measures by the US military - the smallest and least equipped force of any industrialised nation in the world.” Well, that certainly emphasises the point I’ve been making throughout, that America’s default position in terms of war was isolationism, but that was in terms of Europe. And now, and now it faces a new foe. Because on the 7th of December at ten-to-eight in the morning, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour, the American fleet. The attack lasted around three hours. The Japanese commander wrote of the wave of Japanese aircraft aimed at Pearl Harbour in this way. He writes, “Under my direct command were 49 level bombers. About 500 metres to my right and slightly below me were 40 torpedo planes. The same distance my left but about 200 metres above me were 51 dive bombers. And flying cover for them in a nation, there were 43 fighters.” He’s talking about the attack on Pearl Harbour. It took the American fleet entirely by surprise. A Sunday morning they’d chosen because they thought that the Americans, many of the Americans would be in a religious Christian service at that time of the morning. And indeed some were. And this is what an American who was there, a little boy, well, I say little boy, but a lad of 16, so not very old indeed, who witnessed it.
He was called John Garcia. And John wrote, “I was 16 years old, employed as a pipe fitter apprentice at Pearl Harbour Navy Yard. On the 7th of December, 1941, oh, around 8:00 AM my grandmother woke me. She informed me that the Japanese were bombing Pearl Harbour. I said, 'They’re just practising .’” He meant the Americans were practising , of course. “She said, ‘No, it’s real. The announcer is requesting that all Pearl Harbour workers report to work!’ I went out onto the porch and I could see the anti-aircraft fire up into the sky. I just said, "Oh boy.” Oh boy. America, who had not as yet entered the Second World War is now bombed into it by the Japanese. An FDR loses no time in getting Congress to declare war on Japan, as we said last week. But in terms of Western Europe, it was Hitler who declared war on America. Hitler, of course, Hitler’s Germany being allied to Japan. Now, around Pearl Harbour are many conspiracy theories. There are basically three conspiracy theories. One, FDR had intelligence knowledge of the attack, but preferred to keep quiet so that the Japanese would bomb America into the war, which he wanted to join, but was reluctant to go and put it before Congress. The second conspiracy theory is that Churchill, through British intelligence, knew about it and failed to tell Roosevelt because Churchill desperately needed, by then, America in the war. And the third conspiracy theories are around the view that Churchill and Roosevelt connived at hiding the truth of the coming attack on Pearl Harbour because it suited them both to push America into the war. And funnily enough, between last week and this week, I had some emails from a friend in America, a lockdown friend, who said that he was sure that the British had informed Roosevelt because a friend of his had told him and it was all clear.
And he wrote me two long explanations, which were excellent. And then I think about 24 hours ago, he wrote me another letter. He had done the research, checked out what he’d been told on the date he’d been told, and he checked the White House accounts or address book, really, of who had been to see Roosevelt on that day and there’s no mention of the people his friend had mentioned, no mention at all. So this is the problem. Some documents have actually been faked in America to lead to the suggestion that Roosevelt knew. I have to say, America’s conducted nine, nine official inquiries into these conspiracy theories, and the last one was as late as 1995 and all of them said there was no indication that anyone that is American, British or otherwise knew of the attack that was coming to Pearl Harbour. Indeed, they state quite clearly that it was an American intelligence failure. It was an American underestimate of Japan’s intentions. In other words, put bluntly, it was American incompetence. Now, that’s not a good thing to hear by fellow countrymen, and I think it is from that refusal to believe what looks impossible, that the conspiracy theories arose. But in Sherlock Holmes, you remember that when all theories fail, what you are left with is the truth. And majority, the vast majority of historians, American, British, and otherwise who have had access to papers, which of course weren’t accessible in the 1940s when the first American book came out speaking about conspiracy, Bracket, the person who wrote it was a political opponent to Roosevelt, which alerts one.
But the real truth is that the majority, the vast majority of academic historians reject the idea of a conspiracy. You see, let me just emphasise again, the attack on Pearl Harbour was so unexpected and so disastrous from an American point of view that there had to be a better explanation. And there wasn’t. Incidentally, the Americans should have known better because in the Russian-Japanese war at the beginning of the century, the Japanese had done absolutely the same thing to the Russian Far Eastern fleet. And at the time, the Americans and the British congratulated Japan on striking before declaring war. The very thing that in 1941, both governments criticised Japan for. “Not gentlemanly.” But we had supported them when they sank the Russian fleet. So sometimes history is important. I’ve often wondered whether some of the senior American naval officers had learned about the Russian-Japanese war. Certainly the British officers did because there were British officers actually present as advisors to the Japanese Navy during the Russian-Japanese war. But no one had sort of put two and two together as things were ramping up politically that Japan might do exactly the same as it had done 40 years before or so, less than 40 years before, and attack before war was declared. It doesn’t matter in one sense, because the war was now happening. Caught unawares at Pearl Harbour, the Americans next suffered defeat in the Philippines, where General Douglass MacArthur commanded.
The islands, the Philippine islands were manned by both American and Filipino troops. And they fought hard, but unsuccessfully against the Japanese. Against 55,000 of these troops were forced to make a final stand on the Bataan Peninsula and then surrender. MacArthur had already left, not in flight may I add, but he’d already left for Australia in order to take command of all Allied Forces in the Southwest Pacific in February, 1942. What is that? Two months after Pearl Harbour. As he left and made his speech to his troops who remained, MacArthur made that famous comment, “I shall return,” which, of course, he was to do so. Herman, in his biography of MacArthur, Arthur Herman, quotes the 19th century German writer, von Clausewitz, and von Clausewitz said this in his book “On War,” and Herman, MacArthur’s biographer, applies it to Douglas MacArthur. “There is hardly any celebrated enterprise in war which was not achieved by endless exertion, pains, and privations; and as here the weakness of the physical and moral man is ever disposed to yield, only an immense force of will, which manifests itself in perseverance admired by present and future generations, can conduct us to our goal.” And that certainly applies to MacArthur. But moreover, it applies to American forces in the Pacific War against the Japanese. This was going to turn out to be a very, very nasty war, and a long one. It’s not going to end until 1945, and there’s going to be enormous casualties by both sides. And for the Americans who were taken prisoner, including those on the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines, the outlook was grim indeed as they faced the complete horror of Japanese prisoner of war camps.
I’m sure many of you know, whether you are American or British, Australian, Canadian, or whatever, have met people who were prisoners of war of the Japanese. And they suffered beyond measure. The Japanese were absolutely horrendous in what they did. But I have to say that there is a new book that’s just going to be published in a few days time, I think in about five days time, called “Judgement at Tokyo” by a man called Bass, B-A-S-S. I guess it could be available both in Britain and the States and elsewhere, “Judgement at Tokyo.” And it’s about the trials of Japanese war criminals after the war with a lot of detail, and of the rebuilding of Japan. Now, obviously I haven’t got a copy. I’ve read reviews and it looks good, and I shall get a copy. And if it’s any good, I shall let you know whether it’s worth purchasing and reading. But I suspect it is. But there are so many horror books on the Japanese. It’s one of those subjects that I really don’t like talking about because it is so, so inhuman and barbaric. The forces that MacArthur left behind on the Philippines held out under the American General Jonathan Wainwright, and they held out right through to early May, 1942. So that is a setback for the Americans following the setback at Pearl Harbour. Now, there is now a question, and the question is this: Where is America going to fight? It’s already committed to fighting, it can do nothing else, but to fight the Japanese. After all, Japan can hit with aircraft the American mainland.
But in Europe, Churchill is still in difficulties despite the fact that Hitler has opened a second front against Russia in June of 1941. It’s not plain sailing by any means yet for Churchill, whose island stands alone against Nazism in Europe. France, of course, long since fallen. And so between Roosevelt and Churchill in which there was a good rapport, there is nevertheless this awkward question. Can Churchill persuade FDR to get involved in the European War at the same time as facing the Pacific War? Oh, Britain of course had lost to the Japanese Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaya, and indeed Burma. And Britain is holding the line on the northeast frontier of the Raj of India. It’s by no means sure that Britain can hold with the Indian army, it’s a man called General Slim, can hold India. But America isn’t able to help at that point. And so Britain is fighting on two fronts, if you like. It’s not… How do I put this? If 1940 placed the surrender of France placed Churchill in an appallingly bad position, and he only managed to get through to 1942 because of FDR’s help and eventually Lend-Lease, which we talked about last time, then it is problematic in 1942, as 1942 begins, for FDR. He’s suffering defeat in the Pacific at the Philippines. He started the war with this tiny army, which of course he’s had to grow, but that’s different than having a regular army. They have to be trained. And Britain is fighting a desperate war against German, Italian, and Vichy French forces in North Africa, Britain operating east to west from Egypt westwards. Britain had been pushed back in numerous places, famously at Tuebrook.
And Churchill himself went out to Cairo to make decisions about who should be in charge. Incidentally, if any of you are minded to defeat Biden or Trump, if you are Americans and stand for the presidency, do remember that don’t let the military appoint their own generals. Politically appoint them. Not for political reasons, but to stand aside from the in-fighting in the services and select the best man. And Churchill selected this extraordinary man whom he didn’t particularly like, Bernard Montgomery. And the mark of a good leader is to recognise quality even if you dislike the person themselves. And Monty was full of himself. Churchill doesn’t like people like that. And Monty gained a victory in North Africa in 1942 between October and November at El-Alamein. Now for Britain, that’s an important battle. It’s an important battle historically because it is undoubtedly going to be the last time that Britain fights a major battle on its own. We simply don’t have the number of forces available now, and it doesn’t look as though we ever shall, hence the problem with NATO and Ukraine incidentally. But FDR decided that yes, he would support the North African campaign and he sent General Eisenhower, who landed on the 8th of November, 1942 after El-Alamein to begin what was known as Operation Torch. Now, he lands on the west coast of North Africa. So there’s an American army on the west coast, and there’s a British army on the east moving towards the centre, if you like.
In January, 1943, FDR and Churchill agreed that they would make unconditional surrender of both Germany and Japan a war aim, unlike the mess at Versailles in 1918-19. But what is important first, before they get to Casablanca, is that Eisenhower proved to be an outstanding general. He landed on the 8th of November. By the 16th of November, he has politically manoeuvring with the Vichy French, and militarily moving against the Germans Italians. He swept from west towards the centre of North Africa to join with Montgomery. 250,000, quarter of a million German and Italian troops were trapped in northern Tunisia and surrendered in May, 1943. He had driven the French and broken the German and Italian armies by the 16th of November ‘42. That is basically a week after he arrived. It’s collapsing for the Axis in North Africa. El-Alamein and the arrival of enormous number of forces under Eisenhower breaks the German, Italian, Vichy French. In fact, the Vichy French army largely comes over to the Allied side. Rommel, the general, the Desert Fox, who had caused so much trouble to Britain before El-Alamein is recalled to Berlin, and in 1944 is involved in a plot of generals to assassinate Hitler and is given cyanide to take to commit suicide rather than to be disgraced in court, with it not good news for the Nazi regime, as Rommel as a great hero takes cyanide. And then he’s given a hero’s state funeral. But the war in North Africa is won.
And the next objective is the advance on Sicily, and then to what Churchill describes as the soft underbelly of Europe, that is through Italy, up into central Europe, and hence, to Berlin. This is a book by Rick Atkinson, another American historian, and his book is called “The Day of Battle,” which is the war in Sicily and in Italy. And Atkinson writes in this way. He writes, “In Casablanca, the chiefs of staff-” And remember that is January, 1943. “In Casablanca, the combined chiefs of staff,” British and American, “said in a statement, 'An attack against Sicily will be launched in 1943 with the target date as the period of the favourable July moon.’” So they are committed politically, the Americans, to support Britain. Britain could not have invaded Italy on its own. I don’t think that was possible. It requires an American English force, Anglo American force, to start this attack. Atkinson some goes on to say this: “Beyond Sicily, there was no plan, no grand strategy, no consensus between America and Britain on what to do with the immense Allied army now concentrating in the Mediterranean in North Africa. For this reason, a conference had been convened in Washington. Churchill had harboured ambitions of a campaign on mainland Italy for now nearly a year. In early April he petitioned Roosevelt to go beyond Sicily, which he decried as ‘a modest and even petty objective for our armies. Great possibilities are open in this theatre.’
Knocking Italy from the war he said ‘would cause a chill of loneliness over the German people, and might be the beginning of their doom.’ Seeing American reluctance, Churchill had warned Roosevelt’s advisor, Harry Hopkins, on May 2 of ‘serious divergences beneath the surface’ of Allied friendship. Privately, Churchill told King George VI of his determination to battle the Pacific First advocates in Washington, where many demanded a stronger American effort against Tokyo.” Churchill was petrified that the Americans would not move further north from Sicily to mainland Italy, hence mainland Europe. Churchill was sure that the Americans must come in, and now Churchill felt they could because as Atkinson says, “The green and feeble American army of just a few years earlier now exceeded 6 million led by 1,000 generals, 7,000 colonels, and 343,000 lieutenants.” So when they met, Churchill was able to persuade Roosevelt to support the invasion of Italy. So Roosevelt is again fighting in a major way, both in the Pacific and now in Europe. Britain, I said, had been fighting in Asia and India, but it is this… It is this landing in Italy that is of vital importance if the European countries under Nazi heel are going to be rescued, liberated in the words of the day.
As all this is going on in the Mediterranean, the start of the Sicilian Italian campaign, America had begun to make progress against Japan in the Pacific theatre of war. Between the 3rd and 9th of May ‘42, the American feet sank or disabled more than 25 Japanese ships. That secured the supply lines to Australia. After all, the Japanese had eyes on Australia. Remember, if you are Australian, you know jolly well they bombed Darwin in northern Australia, in northern territories. Because of the American success at sea, the Japanese retaliated by attacking the island of Midway, some 1,100 miles northwest of the island of Hawaii, Pearl Harbor’s Island. Japan deployed 200 ships and 600 planes in the attack, which began on the 3rd of April, 1942. This time, unlike Pearl Harbour, the Japanese were denied the element of surprise as American intelligence had broken the Japanese codes. So they had pre-warning of the attack on Midway. Despite heavy losses, the Americans dug in hard and finally won what we all know and call today the Battle at Midway. This was to prove the last offensive of the Japanese in the Pacific, and thus a turning point in the war. So it hadn’t taken America long since the debacle at Pearl Harbour to hit back by the summer of 1942 in Midway and to stop the Japanese. The American popular historian, Walter Lord, talking about the importance of Midway says this, and it’s a rather important quotation, I think, in terms of the Second World War against these dreadful forces of Japan and Germany.
“Even against the greatest of odds, there is something in the human spirit, a magic blend of skill, faith, and valour that can lift men from certain defeat to incredible victory.” And that is key. World War II Britain knew what morale was as we faced the Battle of Britain street by street and house by house. We knew morale had to be kept high. My grandfather, who was certainly not a young man at the time, had run three miles from the factory which he owned in one part of Bristol through in towards the centre of Bristol, blowing his whistle to tell people to take cover as the German bombers had been sighted. Can I for a moment tell you an extraordinary story from Bristol? I’m sorry to be so personal, but it’s a good story. Bristol always had advanced warning of German bombers, not because it had sophisticated intelligence or whatever, but because of the zoo. In the zoo was a gorilla, a very famous gorilla in Bristol called Alfred. And Alfred could hear or sense, people are not quite sure which, when German bombers were coming towards Bristol and he used to beat his chest. And the zookeepers when they saw Alfred beating his chest would ring up the commander in Bristol and say, “There are German bombers on the way.” And hence why my grandfather amongst many, many others in the home services of one form or another, he was an air raid warden, ran through the streets, blowing their whistles, giving advanced warning. But it was Alfred the gorilla. And Bristolians were so pleased by Alfred that when he died- I remember seeing him as a child, alive in Bristol Zoo, but he died when I was very young. They stuffed him. And if you are ever in Bristol, go into the museum and Alfred is still there looking out for German bombers, or at least that’s what I like to think.
So the Americans took tremendous losses, but morale did not drop. As Walter Lord said, “It can lift men from certain defeat to incredible victory.” Now you need good commanders as well as solid support, but both the British army and the American army had precisely that. This is not like the Japanese army where fear rules rather than love of liberty and all the words you might want to use, and freedom and so on. Having won at Midway, the Americans began what has become known as “island hopping.” The idea was that you would take each Japanese held island in turn as you would vast across the Pacific to the home islands of Japan itself. But there was a counter attack by the Japanese in August, 1942 through to February, 1943 on Guadalcanal. This campaign lasted seven months. Americans suffered over 7,000 killed and 8,000 wounded. The Japanese suffered more. 14,800 killed, 8,000 taken prisoner, 60 planes and pilots brought down, and 9,000 dying from disease. But Guadalcanal, which was then part of the Gilbert Islands and is now the separate country of Kiribati. I bet not one in four of you know of Kiribati, but that’s where it was fought. And the Americans continued to island hop at enormous cost of men, making slow progress towards a home island of Japan with the thought, “How? How can you launch an invasion of Japan itself without incurring the most horrendous losses?” In the book by Alan Axelrod on American history, he gives this little bit of what he calls vital statistics. The Japanese characteristically fought to the death.
Of the 5,000 Japanese troops defending Tarawa, only 17 were taken prisoner when the island fell.“ Sorry, I said Guadalcanal. I’m sorry, I mistook my notes. Guadalcanal, separate. It is Tarawa, which is part of Kiribati today, part of what was the Gilbert Island. Sorry about that. As they move across, the Americans are meeting enormous resistance from the Japanese and taking incredible losses. And more Americans are taken into those horrific Japanese prisoner of war camps, Back in Europe, the Allied Forces land in Italy. They land on the main land in September '43, and the fighting goes on until May '45. To begin with, they’re fighting Italian forces, which they defeat. Mussolini is overturned when Rome is taken. Mussolini is captured, later escapes, and sets up a puppet fascist regime in northern Italy. But because Germany cannot allow Italy to fall to the Allies, because as Churchill said, it was the soft underbelly, German forces are deployed into Italy to strengthen. And the German forces hold the north whilst Italy itself comes out of the war and declares for the Allies. The war was terrible. In Britain we remember it for the losses at Monte Casino, 60 to 70,000 Allied soldiers killed, 38 to 50,000 German soldiers killed. And for many in Britain, and I guess probably in the States as well, the Italian campaign fades from memory as emphasis has put on D-Day, the advance through the Ardenne, and the advance into Germany itself. And I can do no better than to quote from Rick Atkinson’s book on "The Day of Battle,” the history of the Italian campaign, when he talks about, well, you’ll find out, Let me just read what he says.
And he says this, or writes this: “On Memorial Day in 1945, just three weeks after the end of the war in Europe, a stocky, square-jawed American would climb the bunting draped speakers platform and survey the dignitaries before him on folding chairs in the Allied Cemetery in Italy. Then, General Lucian Truscott, who had returned to Italy from France a few months earlier to succeed General Clark as the fifth Army Commander turned his back on the living,” on the chairs in front of the platform. He turned round and he faced the graves. He turned round and faced the graves. An American who witnessed it wrote, “The General apologised to the dead men for their presence here. He said, 'Everybody tells leaders it is not the fault that men get killed in war, but that every leader knows in his heart that this is not altogether true.’” Truscott had commanded in Italy. “He said he hoped anybody here through any mistake of his would forgive him, but he realised that was asking a hell of a lot under the circumstances. He promised that if in the future he ran into anybody, especially old men who thought death in battle was glorious, he would straighten them out.” Now, that I would suggest to you is what I was talking about earlier about morale.
This general had the guts to tell it as he saw it, to open his heart to the living men in front of him on whom he had turned his back to address the dead who’d given everything in the fight against fascism, who had laid down their lives in their tens of thousands in the Italian campaign to achieve victory at the end. I think that’s a most humbling speech. If I had to choose speeches made by generals over history, I think I will take, I will take that speech certainly as one of my top 10. But let us now turn further west to Britain, where the Americans have been building up enormous numbers of men, along with men from Australia, Canada, India, Free French, Pols, and of course Britains to launch the greatest seaborne invasion that the world has ever or is ever likely to see. The D-Day landings on the French coast. It happened on the 6th of June, 1944, as Eisenhower agonised over the weather. It had to be favourable weather or else it would have to be put off and postponed. And it was postponed. But finally, on the 6th of June, 1944, Eisenhower, and it must have been what a difficult decision for one man to make. It’s go. 160,000 troops. Canadian, French, British, American, Pols under Eisenhower’s overall command land in northern France from an amazing 5,000 landing craft to begin the march on Berlin. This is a firsthand account of of D-Day, and it’s by a war correspondent Alan Moorehead and he writes, “At three o'clock, we were standing in a line on the path leading up to the gate. The young naval officer came by festooned with his explosives and rather surprisingly he took up a position behind me.
As each new group of troops turned up, they exchanged wisecracks with the others already arrived. ‘Blimey, ere’s the Arsenal.’ ‘'Ome for the 'olidays.’ ‘Wot’s that, Arthur?’ ‘Them’s me water-wings, dearie.’” Morale is high. “Even after waiting another four hours there was still optimism in the ranks. Then we marched out through the gate and got on to the vehicles. An officer was running down the line, making sure everyone was on board. He blew a whistle and we started off. Five miles an hour. Down Acacia Avenue. Round the park into High Street. A mile-long column of ducks-” These are the amphibious landing a craft. “A mile-long column of ducks and three tonne lorries, of jeeps and tanks and bulldozers. On the sidewalk one or two people waved vaguely. An old man stopped and mumbled, ‘Good luck.’ But for the most part the people stared silently and made no sign. They knew where we were going. There had been rehearsals before, but they were not deceived. There was something in the way the soldiers carried themselves that said all too clearly, ‘This is it. This is the invasion.’” And Churchill said of this invasion the following: “Or unless we shall go and land and fight Hitler and beat his voice on land, we shall never win this war. You must advise and design the appliance as the landing craft and the technique to enable us to affect the landing against opposition and and to maintain ourselves there.” And that is exactly what happened on the 6th of June, 1944.
On the same day, FDR addressed America over the radio. And he said, on the morning, the following: “My fellow Americans, last night when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment the troops of the United States and our Allies were crossing the channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far. And so in this poignant hour, I asked you to join with me in prayer. Almighty God, our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavour, a struggle to preserve our republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free are suffering humanity. Lead them straight and true, give strength their arms, stoutness their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.” Both Roosevelt and Churchill could command the English language to go to war for them. And this is an amazing radio speech. It may by just a bit of luck, there might be somebody listening from the States who remembers hearing that speech. It’s now often called Roosevelt’s Prayer because it really was a prayer that he was issuing then. It was the deputy leader of the government in Britain, Clement Attlee, later the Labour Prime Minister, to Churchill in the war who after the war said of 1914 Britain, “There were times at which we had nothing to defend ourselves with except Winston speeches.” And it is the speeches of Roosevelt and of Churchill which raised the morale of American and British troops undoubtedly. Undoubtedly.
The American historian Stephen Ambrose, not Hugh, Stephen Ambrose, said this of D-Day. “The American citizen soldiers knew the difference between right or wrong, and they didn’t want to live in a world in which wrong prevailed, so they fought and won. And all of us living and yet to be born must be profoundly grateful.” And that’s why in all the countries that fought in Canada, in Britain, Australia, America and others, we do remember them, for our freedom was won at the cost of so many lives. The advance from the beaches of Dunkirk- Sorry, from the beaches of northern France, the advance from those beaches in Normandy, and I was there not so long ago in Dieppe, the advance from there was not easy. The troops got brought down in the Ardenne as the Germans launched their last offensive. But on the 19th, August, 1944, two months or so after the landings of D-Day on the Normandy coast, Paris was liberated. And then there were the seeds of General de Gaulle’s imperious walk through the streets of Paris to give thanks in the cathedral of Notre Dame with bombs and shots ringing round him, for the French resistance were still fighting the Germans left in the city. And de Gaulle walked down the nave of the great Church of Notre Dame, a bomb went off not very far away. And everyone in the church were told, “Drop to the floor,” except for de Gaulle, who marched on towards the altar as though nothing had happened. He also lifted the Free French morale, but his big job is yet to come to restore France’s belief in itself. Another story for another day.
Finally in February, 1945, finally, in February, 1945, from the landings in Normandy in June, 1944, the Allies crossed the Rhine into Germany. One American GI wrote home in a letter on the 20th of April, 1945 the following. His name is Private Charles Cavas of the 417th Infantry Regiment, and he wrote this: “Since crossing the big river,” he meant the River Rhine, “we have been moving so fast that I haven’t had much chance to do anything of my own. I’d like to tell you that we made the now famous crossing in the still of a moonlight night, stealthily rowing across with everyone holding their breaths expectantly, but I’m afraid it wasn’t so. We did cross at night, however, but it was on vehicles and on a bridge which the engineers, God bless them, had put up in record time. However, don’t think we weren’t nervous for although it was only a matter of a few minutes in making the other side, it seemed like hours and we expected anything to happen, but nothing did. We didn’t even hear a single shot.” That was the 20th April ‘45. On the 30th of April '45, it’s all over. In the bunker, Hitler’s last remaining counsellors and servants huddled outside his own room, Hitler’s room, where he and Eva Braun, whom he had recently just married, were there, waiting for something to happen.
This is on Monday the 30th April '45. And the time, well, just on half past three. “Heinz Linge decides that they have waited long enough at 3:40. He opens the door to Hitler’s study and enters. Bormann is close behind him. They find Hitler and his wife sitting side by side on the sofa. There are two pistols by Hitler’s feet, the one he fired and the one he kept as a reserve. He had shot himself through the right temple. His head leaning towards the wall. There is blood on the carpet, blood on the blue and white sofa. Eva is sitting on Hitler’s right. Her legs are drawn up on the sofa, her shoes are on the floor. On the low table in front of them is the little brass box in which she kept her cyanide vial. The poison has contorted her face.” It’s over. But it isn’t all over, for Japan is still in the war. The war in Europe may be over. The war in Japan is still to be won. There is a decision to be made. And the new president, Harry Truman, for Roosevelt had died in office on the 12th of April, 1945, 18 days before Hitler of a cerebral haemorrhage. Truman now has a choice. To drop the atomic bombs on Japan for a quick finish to the war, or the risk to a huge, tremendous loss of life was he launch a seaborne invasion of the Japanese islands. What was colouring their thoughts was the American losses had been staggeringly high. On the 1st of April, 1945, For example, the Americans at Okinawa lost 80,000 men. 80,000 in that one engagement at Okinawa.
The American losses were terrible. On the 26th of July '45, a successful test of the atomic bomb had taken place in New Mexico. On the 6th of August '45, Truman makes his decision. An atomic bomb is then dropped on the city of Hiroshima, killing between 50 and 100,000 people. And three days later, a second bomb is dropped on the city of Nagasaki, which claims another 36,000 lives. As a result, Japan surrendered on the 14th of August and a formal surrender is accepted by MacArthur onboard USS Missouri on the 2nd of September, 1945. It is now over, and the arguments begin. Should such a dreadful weapon as the atomic bomb have ever been dropped on civilians? Was it not immoral? Well, the British certainly couldn’t challenge it, and didn’t, because the British had destroyed Dresden in a firestorm. And the argument still rages here. Was such an attack on Dresden moral or immoral? General Eisenhower of all people later, it’s always interesting when you say the word “later” in terms of history, because it sort of rather implies trying to put things and yourself in a different light. So this is Eisenhower later saying this: “He claimed that he told the Secretary of State for War, Henry Simpson, that the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with such an awful thing.” This is in the “Rough Guide to the History of USA.” And he goes on to comment, “Some historians suggest that Truman’s primary interest lay in demonstrating the bomb to the Russians and in denying them the chance to enter the war in Asia and seize Japanese held territories. Perhaps a simplistic explanation is that Truman didn’t make a decision so much as inherit a military programme with unstoppable momentum.
Churchill realised, or recalled, that whether or not to drop the bomb was never an issue. He never heard the slightest suggestion that it shouldn’t be dropped.” You, all of you, must make your own moral judgement . Mine isn’t objective. My father serving in the British Royal Artillery was deployed to India. He was seconded to the Royal Hong Kong and Singapore Artillery to prepare for the invasion of Japan. I hadn’t been born. I was born at the end of November '45. As it happens, on Churchill’s own birthday. But… If there had been an invasion of Japan, I probably would never have seen my father. Almost certainly would never have seen him. I can’t really process that. One estimate is that it would’ve cost a million Allied lives, a seaborne invasion. A million Allied lives. My dad never doubted from the moment the bombs dropped until he died in this century, he never for one moment doubted that Truman had made the right decision, nor did all those that served with Dad doubt that Truman’s decision was right. But God help any of us who ever had the responsibility of making such a decision. I’ve argued with many people about that, as I’ve argued with many people about the decision to bomb Dresden. You must come to your own conclusions, and it isn’t an easy one to do. Morality isn’t, as sometimes presented, black and white. It can be very grey. And there are consequences either way of the decision that Truman would’ve made. There’s no evidence to suggest that Truman ever doubted himself. Now, I want to finish. I’ve got to finish, I’m sorry, I’ve gone over slightly, but I hope you don’t mind.
I want to finish with a final quotation from Hugh Ambrose’s book on the Pacific War because, well, I’m going to make a point at the end. It’s not much to read, just a short piece. He ends by saying this: “On the same day, Admiral Nimitz ordered offensive actions against the Japanese deceased, 14th of August, 1945, Lieutenant Colonel Schaffner and other senior officers learned that the first Marine division, Americans, of course, would sail for China at the end of September. The Marines had to accept the surrender of the Japanese forces in China, secure the cities controlled by the Japanese and the stockpiles of Japanese weapons and equipment, and turn it all over to the nationalist forces.” Chiang Kai-shek forces. “The communists in China would be denied these key locations and essential equipment.” My point is a simple one. World War II has ended, and the Cold War, which we’re back into now, the Cold War has begun. Chiang Kai-shek forces in the end were defeated and we drew to Taiwan. And everyone, you’d only me to tell you that Taiwan is at the top of British and American and many other intelligence services concerns, not if, but conceivably when will China attack Taiwan? And here we’ve moved from one war to the next war. And I don’t need to tell Americans that the Cold War was hot when you think of Korea and you think of Vietnam, which we are yet to reach. And so with that, I will stop and end for today. I’m sure there’s lots of people who want to ask lots of questions and also say things.
Q&A and Comments:
Q: “Why did Japan in the East get involved in a war in the West?”
A: No, Japan was already involved in a war in the East with its invasion in Manchuria and China. What it was doing in World War II was simply progressing its own war across the Pacific, and it needed to take the American Pacific fleet out at Pearl Harbour. It’s not a stupid question, Monty. It’s simply that Japan was engaged on its own war which is parallel to the Germans, and Germany and Japan are allied. So it wasn’t getting involved in a war in the West, it was that it opened up the opportunity for Japan to strike at America and open a war wider in Asia than it had previously done. It had hoped to, of course. It took Hong Kong, it took Singapore, took Malaya, it took Burma, and it nearly took India.
Dennis says, “I can wholeheartedly recommend a new book by Gary Bass titled 'Judgement at Tokyo.’” That’s the one I later mentioned, Dennis! Oh, I’m glad you can recommend it! I don’t know… “It’s rated among the top 10 books recently published.” Dennis, am I right, you’re writing from America, I guess? I’ve only seen a couple of references here in Britain, but I’m glad for that. Make me go and buy it.
Q: “Were the Japanese who were in DC negotiating aware of the plan in place?”
A: I guess they were. The Germans, I don’t think there was much collaboration like that between Germany and Japan.
Q: “Do you think Hector’s declaration war is bravado or loyalty to Allied Japan, or stupidity?”
A: That, Sheila, is a really difficult question. In retrospect, it was a stupid decision, although it was an inevitable that after Pearl Harbour America would come into the war. So it probably was just… It probably was an unavoidable decision by Hitler.
Arlene, “Part of the surprise of Pearl was that there was a Japanese in Washington.” Yes, absolutely right.
Q: Jeff, “Was Hitler aware of Japan’s plan to attack Pearl?”
A: No, he wasn’t.
Q: Ronald, “Is it only me whose line is very poor?”
A: Probably. It usually is, Ronald, when these things happen. I had problems last week with a wretched computer.
Q: Sally, “Could America have still avoided declaring war in Germany after Pearl Harbour?”
A: No, America never declared war on Germany, Sally. Germany declared war on America. Roosevelt felt that he wouldn’t get an overwhelming support for a declaration against Germany, and that’s why he didn’t risk it in Congress.
Jonna and Alfred, “Regarding Pearl Harbour, there’s a basic rule of thumb. Never attribute to conspiracy that which can logically be attributed to stupidity and incompetence.” That is, for me that’s the nail hit on the head.
Rita. Rita says, “That quote,” which I’ve just given you, “is attributed to Robert J Hannon, and according to his friend Joseph Bigler, Hannon first used it as a part of something he wrote for a compilation of various jokes related to Murphy’s law.” I love… There’s never ending to teaching adults where you take off to and what people’s knowledge is! That’s so impressive!
Q: David, “How long did it take America to send troops to Europe and North Africa after Germany declared war on America?”
A: Well, it’s a few months actually, because a lot of preparation has to be made.
“Book you recommended, ‘Judgement at Tokyo’,” Annette says, and she’s given the Amazon reference to it. Bless you.
Annette says, “Sorry, you did not recommend it.” No, no, no. I don’t think there’s any reason. And now from what somebody’s kindly put this in the top 10, it obviously is very good. And it’ll be an interesting book to read.
Judith, “I had a colleague, when I first started teaching in Manchester in the late ‘70s. He was a Japanese POW. He was a gifted and witty man. Sadly, I heard he committed suicide.” Oh. That’s terrible. Some of them couldn’t live with the horror and some of them couldn’t live with the fact that they had survived when their friends had died.
Oh, Jacqueline says, “'Judgement at Tokyo’ the book was talked about on Radio 4,” BBC Radio 4, “at nine o'clock this morning. Japanese soldiers followed the samurai called a Bushido. It is a dishonour to surrender.” Absolutely. Oh, well that’s great. Obviously we’re all going to have to read this book.
Carol, “I would think that the war today between Israel and Hamas of Gaza is similar of long, costly. The hostages in Hamas’ hands suffer intolerable conditions. And they’re not soldiers, but civilians of all ages.” There’s no further comment I can make, Carol. You’ve got it. “
‘Judgement of Tokyo’ is available. I’m about halfway through it,” says Larry. It must have been printed in the States before here then, ‘cause it’s meant to be coming out here on the 25th of January. That’s interesting!
Stewart, “Of the eight United States Navy battle ships present at Pearl Harbour, all were damaged, all were sunk. All but USS Arizona were later raised, and six were returned to service and went on to fight in the war. All the aircraft carriers were at sea and none were damaged in the December attack.” Note, that the aircraft carriers were at sea.
“New book, Roberta Wohlstetter, 'Pearl Harbour Warning and Decision.’” Not a book I’ve heard of. So that’s a book I shall put on my list afterwards.
Q: Shelly, “What’s your opinion about comparing ignoring Japanese aggression in China in the ‘30s with ignoring Hitler and other fascist aggression in the '30s by the US and Western democracies?”
A: Well, yes, we did ignore it. It is the complete failure of the League of Nations to deal with the Japanese aggression, and America should have been much more aware of it and of what they might do, as I’ve said. But it’s easy to have hindsight in these things.
“I was living in Penang Malaya.” Sally, were you indeed? “I was living in Penang, Malaya when the war started. Photography studios there were staffed by Japanese senior military personnel so they were on the ground for the invasion.” The fall of Malaya was appalling. And the British and Singapore expected the Japanese to come from the sea. I had a friend who was a young woman in Singapore, and at this period, I don’t what her father was doing, but she spoke to the British commanding officer at Singapore and said, “Why are our guns facing the wrong way?” “Oh my dear, you don’t know anything.” But she did because the guns were facing to sea and the Japanese came through the Malayan Peninsula to attack Singapore. Churchill reckoned the fall of Singapore was the worst moment in the war for him.
David, “My memory may poorly serve me but in the final of scenes of 'Tora! Tora! Tora!,’ the Japanese admiral looked grim. Despite the successes of Pearl Harbour, he says, paraphrasing, ‘We’ve unleashed the American monster.’
Q: Was there any regret or opposition among the Japanese military to attack?”
A: None.
Irene, “My late husband got me to sit through ‘Tora! Tora! Tora!’ twice. Yes. I loved him enough to do it.” I like that, Irene! “I don’t remember anything about the film, as I slept through it both times, waking every half hour or so and hear men saying something loudly aggressive.” Well, yeah, that’s what war is like, unfortunately, Irene.
David, “My father told me that he was in the front lines when 20,000 Germans surrendered to combined Allied Forces in Tunisia.” Yes, they did. It was a tremendous victory. The British would not have achieved such a victory, or if they had it would’ve taken much longer. It was only the arrival of Eisenhower’s army that secured that victory.
Q: Shelly, “What’s the main reason for the North African campaign on both sides, oil or the Suez Canal?”
A: Well, both things, really. The British wanted to stop the Germans getting to the oil fields and getting into the Middle East and seizing the Suez Canal, which was our route to India. No, absolutely correct is that.
Shocket, “May ask suggest too good and relevant reads? Rick Atkinson’s ‘Liberation’ trilogy, and George McDonald’s Fraser of ‘Flashman,’ ‘Quartered Safely Out Here,’ his autobiography servicing Burma.” I know about Rick Atkinson. I did not know about George McDonald Fraser because I’m not a fan of the “Flashman” books. But you say he wrote “Quartered Safely Out Here,” autobiography of his service in Burma, ‘44 to '45. “Funny and sad. There’s an audio book to Save a Geordie and Scottish accents.”
Joe, sorry, I must leave the middle- Right, Monty, “How did America neutralise kamikaze attacks?” Well, it doesn’t really. There’s nothing you can do to neutralise.
Dawn. Oh, people like my gorilla story. Well, it’s actually a very- I promise you, it’s 100% true. You can look it up on the internet if you like.
Oh, well, Barbara, yes, do go to the museum! The museum is a very good museum and has a very nice art collection, by the way, in the museum.
Ronnie says, “The day of Pearl Harbour, the whole of Dutch East Indies was occupied by Japan. This was a US main source of rubber.” Absolutely.
Q: “Was the Doolittle Raid significant?”
A: Yes, I believe it was. “Alfred the gorilla, story on YouTube.” Oh, is it?
“A film made in 2007 and produced director by Toby Lucas, the film explains the story of Alfred, how he was brought to Bristol Zoo in 1930 by my great-great-grandfather, Alfred Mosley.” Rita, what a fantastic story! Was the gorilla- I’m sorry. Was the gorilla named after your great, great-grandfather? That’s fantastic! That is wonderful. You’ve made my day!
“Richard Rogers commemorated Guadalcanal in a-” Whoops. “Guadalcanal in a march featured in the incidental music for the film series 'Victory at Sea.’”
Carol says, “The South African army fought in North Africa with the British. My uncle fortunately missed Tuebrook, as he had to appear in court as someone had stolen his wallet. Ordinary things happen in war.” Absolutely, Carol! As well as the things we read in history books. Kiribati is the name of the country, Francine, which was the Gilbert Islands.
And Mendel adds, “Very low line. They have to be evacuated due to global warming.” Yes, that’s one of the huge problems in the Pacific.
Q: Joseph. “What role did Operation Mincemeat actually play in the invasion of Sicily? Hadn’t the invasion been announced?”
A: Well, the Germans were well prepared for it. Absolutely. They were also well prepared in Italy with lines of defences as you go up the peninsula.
And Mendel says, “Yes, Mincemeat did fool the Germans, but the invasion will be in Greece.” Yes, but there was already strong defences in Italy and the Italian army were there. What the Germans miscalculated was that the Italians were… The Italians simply couldn’t be trusted to do it on their own, hence why eventually the Germans had to come. Oops. Whoops, whoops. Gosh, there’s more people asking questions than I started with! Let me try and go on. Let me see if I can get back to where I was.
William. Hello?
Yes? Hi!
I was just going to say, just because of time, maybe only one more question because we’re already-
Right! Right! I think I’m back to where I was pretty well. Let me see if I can find one to answer.
“I went to school in Bristol, next door to the zoo from 1950 to 1955,” says Jonathan. So you went to Clifton College. “During the latter part of the ‘40s, the American command under General Omar Bradley was stationed at Clifton and the school was evacuated to Bude. I think quite a lot of the masters must have taken after the gorilla, as they were always beating their chest, but we never heard any bombs during the early '50s.” That’s a wonderful story, Jonathan, on which to end. And for those who aren’t British, Clifton College is a public school. In other words, in American terms of private school, but it used to have a Jewish house and was very famous for that, and is most famous for poems about it. And in particular, its cricket pitch. And absolutely right, the zoo abuts straight on to Clifton.
So there we are. Thank you all for listening. Thank you for fantastic questions, and I hope that, I hope that you have a sense of what this horrendous war was like, fought over such a big period. And thank you for the opportunity of being able to speak from an American and not a British point of view of the war. And don’t ask me what I’m doing next week. I’ve only just got through this week. I’ll have to think about next week a little later this week. So I’ll see you all next week, same time, same place.