Discuss Time Rider
Notes: As this story
focuses on the attack on Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941, here are
some facts of that historic attack.
According to wikipedia.org,
Japan's Breaking Off Negotiations
Carrier Striking Task Force two-way route.Part of the Japanese plan
for the attack included breaking off negotiations with the United
States 30 minutes before the attack began. Diplomats from the
Japanese Embassy in Washington, including the Japanese Ambassador,
Admiral Kichisaburo Nomura, and special representative Saburo Kurusu,
had been conducting extended talks with the State Department
regarding the U.S. reactions to the Japanese move into Indochina in
the summer (see above).
In the days before the attack, a long 14-part message was sent to
the Embassy from the Foreign Office in Tokyo (encoded with the
PURPLE cryptographic machine), with instructions to deliver it to
Secretary of State Cordell Hull at 1 p.m. Washington time. (In fact,
Japan halted all communication with the U.S. 30 minutes before the
attack was scheduled to begin.) The last part arrived not long
before the attack but, because of decryption and typing delays, and
because Tokyo had neglected to inform them of the crucial necessity
to deliver it on time, Embassy personnel failed to deliver the
message at the specified time. The last part, breaking off
negotiations, was delivered to Secretary Hull several hours after
the Pearl Harbor attack:
Obviously it is the intention of the American Government to conspire
with Great Britain and other countries to obstruct Japan's efforts
toward the establishment of peace through the creation of a new
order in East Asia ... Thus, the earnest hope of the Japanese
government to adjust Japanese-American relations and to preserve and
promote the peace of the Pacific through cooperation with the
American Government has finally been lost.
The United States had decrypted and translated the last part of the
final message well before the Japanese Embassy managed to, and long
before a fair typed copy of the decrypt was finished. It was that
last part, with its instruction for the time of delivery, which
prompted General George Marshall to send the famous warning message
to Hawaii that morning, though there was a delay in sending it
because he could not be immediately located. It was actually
delivered, by a young Japanese-American cycle messenger, to Gen.
Walter Short at Pearl Harbor several hours after the attack had
ended. The delay was due to an inability to locate General Marshall
after decryption and translation of the 14th part (he was out for a
morning horseride), trouble with the Army's long distance
communication system, a decision not to use Navy facilities despite
an offer to permit it, and various troubles during its travels over
commercial cable facilities. Somehow its "urgent" marking was
misplaced during its travels and it was delayed by several
additional hours.
Japanese records, admitted into evidence during Congressional
hearings on the attack after the War, established that the Japanese
government had not even written a declaration of war until after
they heard of the successful attack on Pearl Harbor. That two-line
declaration of war was finally delivered to U.S. Ambassador Grew in
Tokyo about 10 hours after the attack was over. He was allowed to
transmit it to the United States where it was received late Monday
afternoon.
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