1941

Far Eastern Crisis

Jan to March 1941 antagonism between GB and Japan grew worse. GB media full of impending ‘Far Eastern crisis’. French Indo-China and Thailand were engaged in a fierce border dispute. Thailand was being encouraged by Japan to recover lost territory from Indo-China. By the end of November 1940 the conflict had spread throughout the entire border region.

Japan planned to mediate in border dispute and use that as a lever for gaining French Indo-Chinese recognition of their demand for bases in southern Indo-China and establishing a military alliance with Thailand. Anxiety in England grew. Malayan peninsula and Dutch East Indies (DEI) came under threat. In late January, Americans rejected British claim that there was a need for unified command in the Pacific and Asian region.

ABD Agreement - A conference of GB and NL general staffs in Singapore late December 1940 unified GB command conferred with Dutch and Australian military representatives in Feb 1941. Sharing of the defence burden among the three countries known as ABD agreement.

At this point the US continued the line that American participation in the war would be inconceivable, but the Japanese believed that the US were involved already. “Far Eastern Crisis” theory was intended by Britain to serve propaganda purposes and draw American attention encouraging US-GB co-operation. However, in early March the ominous threat of a crisis in the Far East gradually lessened. Japan came to a compromise with southern Indo-China and Thailand.

1941 January 22nd GB take Tobruk in north Africa; February 11th GB attacks Italian Somailand;  12th Erwin Rommel arrived in Tripoli & took command of German Afrika Corps; 17th February Japan denied any intention of entering of entering into conflict with GB; March 7th GB comes to aid of Greece, which capitulated to the Nazis on April 27^th; March 11th FDR signed lend-lease Act

This was FDR’s “device for trying to defeat Hitler without committing US troops…wherby $7 bn was made available to supply weapons to nations fighting the Nazis.

Yet it took 15 months to put into practise this idea to make America the ‘arsenal of Democracy.’ “

April 13th Japan and USSR signed neutrality Pact; April 17th the Nazis took Yugoslavia; May 10th Hitler’s Deputy – Hess – flew to Scotland on “peace mission” [link to conspiracy theories?]; May 10th Heavy blitz on London

May 15th GB counter-attack in Egypt;  May 24th German battleship Bismarck sinks Hood, Pride of Royal Navy. Which in turn was sunk on three days later; June 8th GB invade Lebanon and Syria;

June 22nd German invasion of Soviet Union began– Operation Barbarossa; Disastrous failure of Moscow to anticipate the eventual German attack and the lamentable performance of the Red Army in the early months of the war.

“USSR was undoubtedly engaged in territorial expansion 1939 – 41. Soviet policy in the 1930s consisted of a sincere, principled and determined effort to pursue a collective security line to contain fascism.”

Executive Order 8802 dated June 25, 1941, General Records of the United States Government; Record Group 11; National Archives.

In June of 1941, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802, banning discriminatory employment practices by Federal agencies and all unions and companies engaged in war-related work. The order also established the Fair Employment Practices Commission to enforce the new policy.

In early July 1941, millions of jobs were being created, primarily in urban areas, as the United States prepared for war. When large numbers of African Americans moved to cities in the north and west to work in defense industries, they were often met with violence and discrimination. In response, A. Philip Randolph, president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, and other black leaders, met with Eleanor Roosevelt and members of the President’s cabinet. Randolph presented a list of grievances regarding the civil rights of African Americans, demanding that an Executive order be issued to stop job discrimination in the defense industry. Randolph, with others, threatened that they were prepared to bring "ten, twenty, fifty thousand Negroes on the White House lawn" if their demands were not met. After consultation with his advisers, Roosevelt responded to the black leaders and issued Executive Order 8802, which declared, "There shall be no discrimination in the employment of workers in defense industries and in Government, because of race, creed, color, or national origin." It was the first Presidential directive on race since Reconstruction. The order also established the Fair Employment Practices Committee to investigate incidents of discrimination. http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=72  

June 28th Germans took Minsk; July 3rd Stalin launched ‘scorched earth’ policy; July 26th US froze all Japanese assets; July 28th Japanese troops occupy southern part of French Indo-China; July 31st Planning begins in Germany for the final solution.

July 1941 – MAUD produced two detailed reports on technical issues and costs – nuclear weapons development. Both reports were sent to US and copies found their way to USSR, from Soviet agent in Britain. Churchill took the decision to develop the bomb from autumn 1941. The US too decided to develop their own atomic weapons program and by end of year they had surged ahead of the British. From July 1941 there was a free exchange of information – coming to an end in summer of 1942. The project to produce the A-Bomb had been overseen by ‘The Top Policy Group’ since October 1941.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Project

The French Vichy regime allowed Japan to take over Indochina (July). “The only real opposition to the ‘official invasion’ came from Ho Chi Minh’s native communist guerrillas…From Indochina, Tojo’s Nippon warriors could strike out at British Malaya.” - Strongman & Parker

The US reacted immediately by freezing Japanese assets in her territories – strong economic sanctions imposed by Britain.

The Dept of War (July) developed a plan for target selection that would be in line with the ABC Agreement [DATE?] with GB and with the general battle plan for potential war known as Rainbow 5. The ABC Agreement called for a sustained air war against Germany. The plan developed was Air War Plans Division – Plan 1, or AWPD – 1. The primary military objective of AWPD – 1 was to defeat Germany by air power alone. If the plan failed in its primary objective then the plan called for preparing the way for a European invasion. AWPD-1 identified three vital targets within the German economy: electric power, transportation, oil. It included a 4th intermediate target area, the destruction of the Luftwaffe. AWPD – 1 then included 154 targets to be destroyed in the first six months .

AWPD-1 was never implemented. It was leaked to the press in autumn of 1941 along with the Rainbow 5 battle plan by Burton Wheeler, a pro Nazi Senator. Both Rainbow 5 and AWPD-1 appeared in the Chicago Tribune and Washington Times-Herald. The Nazis realised the importance of both documents and on Hitler issued directive 39 on December 12th which called for massing air defences around key industrial centres. Four days later Hitler rescinded the directive.

1st August US imposed a total embargo on oil exports to Japan. The embargo meant that Japan needed to take the initiative to gain the upper hand by making a surprise attack on the US.

Atlantic Charter

9th to 12th August meeting held between FDR and Churchill at sea off Newfoundland – the famous Atlantic Charter made public on 14th August. Churchill failed to get ‘joint declaration’ but only a ‘parallel’ one. And FDR only stated that should Japan advance further south the US would take all measures deemed necessary.

Two weeks before the Atlantic Charter in August 1941 the US acting Secretary of State, Sumner Welles, assured the French that they could keep their empire intact after the end of the war.

The Department of Defence history of Vietnam (The Pentagon Papers) pointed to “ambivalent” policy toward Indochina, noting that “in the Atlantic charter and other pronouncements, the US proclaimed support for national self-determination and independence” but also “early in the war repeatedly expressed or implied to the French an intention to restore to France its overseas empire after the war.”

August (?) 20th German siege of Leningrad;

September 1st Jews ordered to wear yellow star;

In September 1941 the UK-USSR agreement for exchange of scientific information was finalised. FDR endorsed restrictions on exchange of information on atomic energy between US and UK.

In September and October FDR lied to the public. Thomas A Bailey: “FDR repeatedly deceived the American people during the period before Pearl Harbor…He was like the physician who must tell the patient lies for the patient’s own good…because the masses are notoriously short-sighted and generally cannot see danger until it is at their throats…”

With the US-imposed embargo on scrap iron and a total embargo on oil during the summer of 1941, even a historian sympathetic to FDR admitted he had deceived the public up to Pearl Harbor. Radhabinad Pal, one of the judges on the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal after WW2 argued that the US clearly provoked the war with Japan and expected Japan to act. Records show a White House conference two weeks before Pearl Harbor anticipated a war and discussed how it should be justified.

Gore Vidal: “Roosevelt manoeuvred the Japanese into striking the first blow at Pearl Harbor, causing us to enter WW2 as the result of a massive external attack”. Henry Stimson, 12 days before the attack had summed it up – “The question was how we should manoeuvre them into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves. It was a difficult proposition . “

The Pentagon & Permanent War Economy

If America was trying to stay out of the war it certainly didn’t look that way. Apart from provoking Japan, aiding Britain, and subtle forms of propaganda being put out to change the public’s view, The War Department suddenly decided it needed a massive new building in Washington. In mid-July the idea of the Pentagon was conceived at the request of brigadier General Brehan B Sommervell, Chief of the Construction Division of the Office of the Quartermaster General. The War Department said it had a critical shortage of space. The “ground breaking ceremony”  was on September 11th 1941 – exactly 60 years before it was attacked by Saudi terrorists in 2001. The dedication was on January 15th 1943. The first occupants moved in on 29th April 1942.

Who built the Pentagon?

See Suite 8F Group for how Corporations benefited during the war.

“The Pentagon liked to be at war. Sec of Defense Charles Wilson declared that the war economy should be a permanent institution and not the result of an emergency situation. Defense industries, he said, should not have their activities restricted by political witch-hunts, nor sacrificed to the handful of isolationists who had dubbed them ‘dealers in death’” – JFK: Farewell America by James Hepburn.

September 15th Siege of Leningrad begins

September ? 19th Germans take Kiev; - the SS mass murders of Jews in Kiev on the 29th September.

October 16th Germans capture Odessa;

17th Hideki Tojo becomes pm of Japan;

24th Germans take Kharkov;

30th Germans occupy Crimea;

Churchill’s display of strength to deter the Japanese – he sent “HMS Prince of Wales” battleship as part of a squadron to Singapore in late October.

On November 7th Japan finally agreed to the US demand offering to accept “the principle of non-discrimination in commercial relations” in the Pacific, including China, but only if it “were adopted throughout the world”. Hull was not happy, the equal access zone was to apply to Japan’s sphere of influence only. Japan had till now been excluded from western domains including India, Indonesia, Philippines, Cuba, etc, by extremely high tariffs from the 1920s, and this state of affairs was to continue.

November 20th Germans take Rostov;

November 25th FDR announced to his War cabinet, “we are likely to be attacked as soon as next Monday December 1st, for the Japanese are notorious for making an attack without warning.”

Japanese hopes, by attacking the USA, were summed up as follows – “although America’s total defeat is judged utterly impossible, it is not inconceivable that a shift in American public due to our victories in south east asia or to England’s surrender might bring the war to an end. At any rate, our occupation of vital areas to the south will ensure a superior strategic position…By co-operating with Germany and Italy, we will shatter Anglo-American unity, link Asia and Europe, and we shall be able to create an invincible military alignment.”

From a briefing for an Imperial Conference on 6th September 1941

Hell In The Pacific – Lewis & Steele…p.18

“Japan needed resources to continue the war of expansion she had been fighting in China for a decade. The Asia-Pacific region had all the oil, rubber and minerals she coveted. The fact that these were in the hands of western colonial powers buttressed Japan’s propaganda argument that Asia should be for Asians. Western trade embargoes felt to Japan ike a noose around her neck. In late 1941, economic need and political rhetoric combined with military opportunity…America seemed so determined to keep out of war that she might perhaps take her punishment in Pearl Harbor and The Philippines, be forced to the negotiating table and sink back to insularity.” Lewis & Steele [L&S]  p.18

“Pearl Harbor was intended to blunt America’s capacity to retaliate in a war in which sea power would be crucial.” Lewis & Steele

Prior to the attack Secretary of State Cordell Hull was engaged in talks with Japanese Admiral Normura. He was stressing US rights to equal access to the territories conquered by Japan in China.

Wansee Conference – prepared in December, happened in January 1942, in Berlin. Hitler didn’t attend.  The purpose of the conference was to inform senior Nazis and senior Governmental administrators of plans for the "Final solution to the Jewish question" - the killing of all the 11 million Jews of Europe, a process now known as the Holocaust. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wannsee_Conference

December 5th The Moscow offensive was abandoned for winter. Next day Red Army launch major counter-offensive.

With Hitler’s forces now on the retreat in the east, on December 7th Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and ensured that the Germans would be put under further pressure, this time from the West, with American entry into the War.

The attack took place while Japanese diplomats sat in Washngton discussing options for peace. Even Japan’s Foreign minister, Shigenori Togo only learned about the attack after it happened.

Anti-aircraft defences had been  stood down for the weeknd, which was routine, and any of the ships’ crews had taken shore leave.

Admiral Husband E. Kimmel – C in Chief of  the US Pacific fleet – about to play golf. The Japanese planes were not recognised as such. USS Oklahoma soon rolled over in flames. US Tennessee received a direct hit. Arizona burst in a ball of fire and sank in less than 3 minutes – more than a thousands men were killed that was the first attack – with the heaviest casualties.

The second wave flew in an hour later – and there were some defences by then – a few army fighters and all available anti-aircraft guns.

The Japanese were disappointed that the aircraft carriers had been taken out of the harbour. It undermined the whole aim of the operation. In a month the US were attacking the Marshall Islands using one of the aircraft carriers which had survived the Japanese strike.

A Moment in the sun

http://www.itsuckstobejoe.com/Jdn/writing/pearl.html

FDR’s tough struggle to bring the US to war had ended.

“A fleet in flames and some 2400 dead Americans changed everything…there was not a single dissenting vote and only one abstention”. Fixing on Japanese treachery kick-started the hatred necessary to fight a vicious war to its bitter end.” JL & BS, p.89

FDR committed the US to the largest armaments production effort the workd had ever seen.

 “After Pearl Harbor, Congress moved to find out why Hawaii’s two military commanders, General Short and Admiral Kimmel, had not anticipated the attack. FDR pre-empted the investigation with one of his own. Short and Kimmer were broken for incompetence. The ‘truth’ is still obscured to this day” Gore Vidal, Observer.

Churchill: “It was…a blessing that Japan attacked the US and thus brought America wholeheartedly into the war. A greater good fortune has rarely happened to the British Empire than this event” (19th September 1943).

Conspiracy? All the factors involved – anti-Japanese racism, ie, not believing that Japanese could be capable of a devastating attack; poor intelligence in USA; arrogance; a conspiracy – there is room for this too, if a limited number of persons were able to block or withhold intelligence of an attack knowing full well that the other factors were in place. A Japanese attack was known to be imminent, had been incited and was desired.

On the same day there were “synchronized strikes across the vast waters of the Pacific” L&S

Japanese troops stormed the north east coast of Malaya  – even though the British had been warned, it did them little good, and led to the fall of Singapore.

Japan overran the Philippines, Malaya, Hong Kong, and other US and GB bases.

Japan – already within striking distance of British Malaya – struck.

Malaya and Thailand would then allow an attack on Singapore – British – and key to the region’s shipping lanes. Hong Kong was attacked. American outposts of Wake, Guam, Midway were bombarded. Allied gunboats off Shanghai were commandeered. In just 24 hours the Japanese “had ignited the north Pacific region in war and laid the groundwork for military dominance across a vast swathe of Asia and the Pacific.

USA and GB declared war on Japan on the 8th of December

Congress declared war on Japan. Then Hitler declared war on the US to try to get Japan to declare war on Russia.  They didn’t do this. FDR made his “Day of Infamy” speech. – where he used the adjectives “unprovoked and dastardly”

China declared war on Japan and Germany on the 9th of December.

December 11th, Germany declared war on USA.

? 16th Rommel’s Afrika Korps retreat in North Africa

? 19th Hitler assumed post of commander-in-Chief of German Army.

US Army

And now USA was at war – for the first time the USA would maintain a large standing army. USA ration cards, collection drives for scrap metal and other materials in short supply and images of ‘Rosie the Riveter’. GOOGLE

Rosie the Riveter helped to propel 6m women into the factories and construction yards.

When the US went to war troops were transported on the Queen Mary to Europe. The blacks were stowed in the depths of the ship near the engine room as far as possible from the fresh air of the deck. A reverse echo of the slave trade. Who could now believe that the US went to war against Nazism for principled beliefs?

Howard Zinn points out that the behaviour of the USA during peace time: in military action abroad, in treatment of minorities at home – was hardly in keeping with the idea of WW2 being a “people’s war”, furthermore, FDR’s administration had never shown any sign of opposition to Nazism or fascism.

“When a resolution was introduced in the Senate, January 1934, asking the senate and president to express “surprise and pain” at what the Germans were doing to the Jews, and to ask restoration of Jewish rights, the State Department “caused this resolution to be buried in committee”, according to Arnold Offner (American Appeasement).

The “Admirable Gentleman” quote – about Mussolini.

Hitler’s attacks on Jews”, “Italy attack on Ethiopia”, “Hitler’s invasion of Austria, his takeover of Czechoslovakia, his attack on Poland” – none of this caused the US to enter the war, Though FDR did give aid to GB.

 “Japan’s attack on China in 1937, her bombing of civilians at Nanking”, did not provoke the US to war – it was the Japanese attack on a link in the American Pacific Empire that did it.

Similarly, the US had only joined WW1 in 1917 after German U-boats threatended her shipping in the Atlantic. JL & BS

Anti-Jap feeling – official propaganda was racist. Examples? Extensive anti-Japanese propaganda reinforced and manipulated deep rooted prejudices among the American people.

Studs Terkel – America’s leading oral historian – “saw the Japanese portrayed as ‘subhuman, different and slanty eyed’.

“The Germans were ridiculed, Hitler especially, and Mussolini with his jutting jaw, but in the Japanese case it was tribal, it was collective…you know: the grin, the slanty eyes, the glasses, the Jap, or the Nip…short sighted, ill-equipped buffoons.” Were re-defined as “treacherous supermen – unbeatable in their natural simian environment: the jungle.”

“Racial hatred became an American weapon of war”. JL & BS

Japanese were subhuman – cartoons of Japanese en masse as monkeys, rats or vultures. On their own they became apes, vipers or an octopus. Popular songs – “We’re Gonna Have To Slap The Dirty Little Jap (and Uncle Sam’s the Guy Who Can do It)”, “You’re  a Sap, Mr Jap”, and Frank Luther’s “Rem,ember Pearl Harbor”. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEK45-_5y0s

Combat training for blacks worried conservatives. They would surely want equality, be better able to organise, and would have guns too.

To many blacks the war was irrelevant – a war to defend the status quo that they had no stake in…and that they didn’t support. Some even celebrated Japan’s early victories – relishing America’s humiliations. Many others however recognised that if Nazi Gemrnay won, things could get quite a bit worse for them.

Hence the “double victory” – a victory at home and abroad.

Two handed salute: the left hand raised in a “v” meant triumph over ‘the segregationists and the fascists in the united states.’ – the army mad ethe gesture a court martial offense.

Nwelson Perry c/o JL & BS: “The army had become a southern army, and there was a lot of pressure in the north to recapture tha army…and that would involve the development of equality within the army for the black soldiers.”

While not wantring to arm, train or in any way empower blacks in the army – the reality of nice white boys coming home in bodybags and their black counterparts unscathed in every case meant that the army caved in and trained blacks thereby helping to fuel the drive for civil rights that rocketed in post-war America. Japanese descendants also went into combat in the end.

 “By certain evidence, it was the most popular war the US had ever fought. Never had a greater proportion of the country participated in a war: 18 million served in the armed forces, 10 million overseas; 25 million workers gave of their pay envelope regularly for war bonds.” In addition war trade sent unemployment down to 8 million, and after the lend-lease act of 1941 dropped further to 2 ½ million.

The Big Intelligence Overhaul

“The invisible Government was born on December 7th, 1941, in the smoke and rubble of Pearl Harbor .” So began a ‘multitude of inquiries’ showing up the poor state of US intelligence – ultimately leading to the creation of the CIA and a global American intelligence network.

SEE WISE ANDROSS, Invisible Government, page 92 onwards. See L&S pp29 – 30 for more on intelligence failures

Before WW2, the US government left its intelligence to the Department of State and the armed Services. Attaches and diplomats collected the bulk of America’s foreign intelligence. In Washington desk based officers scrutinised their reports in the regional bureaus and the military intelligence services (Office of Naval Intelligence ONI and the War Dept’s Military Intelligence Division - G-2).

Only the Whitehouse tried to collate and assess all the vital information acquired by the US government. State and the military developed their own security and counterintelligence procedures, and the Army and Navy created separate offices to decipher and read foreign communications. Senior diplomat, Robert Murphy, “ it must be confessed that our intelligence organisation in 1940 was primitive and inadequate. It was timid, parochial and operating strictly in the tradition of the Spanish-American War.”

It was FDR who asked for greater co-ordination by the departmental intelligence arms and little came of it. He tried again in spring 1941, expressing his desire for a strategic approach.  In frustration, and after “subtle prompting” from a pair of British officials (Admiral John H Godfrey and William Stephenson (later a Sir) FDR created a new organisation.

He appointed General William “Wild Bill” (or “Big Bill” according to Strongman & Parker) J Donovan as COI – Co-ordinator of Information, an office attached to the white House.

Donovan, a lawyer, had served as a commander in WW1, asst. attorney general in Coolidge administration – briefly supervising a young J Edgar Hoover and his FBI – practiced anti-trust law in NYC – lost 1932 Governor election for NY in 1932.

Donovan was sent by Roosevelt on an informal intelligence-gathering mission to England, the Mediteranean, and the Balkans. On his return he recommended that a central intelligence organisation be established .

He made contacts with financial and legal figures in NYC such as Frank Knox, David Bruce, Dulles Brothers.

It was Frank Knox who brought Donovan to FDR’s attention in 1940, after becoming Sec of Navy. FDR sent Donovan to GB to report on London’s chances of beating Hitler. Churchill gave Donovan access to defense and intelligence secrets.

FDR pushed ahead with reform in summer 1941 and it was Donovan he gave the job to.

Thomas F Troy, historian, said the COI was “a novel attempt in American history to organise research, intelligence, propaganda, subversion and commando operations as a unified and essential feature of modern warfare”. “The office grew quickly in the autumn before Pearl Harbor.”

September 1941 Donovan acquired the small “undercover” intelligence branches of ONI and the G-2. The COI won authority to use “unvouchered” funds from the President’s emergency fund. Unvouchered funds were the lifeblood of clandestine operations. They were granted by Congress to be spent at the personal responsibility of the president or one of his officers, and were not audited in detail. These funds with authority granted to COI by the military, planted the seed of the modern CIA’s Directorate of Operations.

“From the start, as its own OSS War Report stated, it was envisaged that journalists would be used in order to engage in ’psychological warfare’, while it was made clear to OSS staff operatives that ‘psychological warfare’ was a brief wide enough to include misinformation, sabotage and even ‘assassination’. Strongman & Parker

COI established a Research and Analysis branch. Won co-operation from Librarian of Congress – the poet Archibald MacLeish.

An anti-communist policy was adopted. The US realised that there was much to be gained from the war in Europe and Far East. It could step in and take over substantial numbers of colonies from the European powers, this in addition to the revenue from arms and ammunition sales. To do this networks had to be built, dictators recruited or supported, nationalists pulled down or destroyed. Strategies were draw up.

A car accident in 1942 finished Donovan’s chances of going into battle again, but he did become a General (March 43), and Director of the OSS and representative of the JCS. Finally became Major General in Nov 1943.

The Coordinator of Information (COI) was restructed into something more suitable for covert action. Now called the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Donovan recruited so many of the nation's rich and powerful that eventually people joke that "OSS" stands for "Oh, So Social" or "Oh Such Snobs".

How true is it that these wealthy industrialists were recruited partly because they owned their own spying organisations? Was the formation of US secret service an attempt to bring private spying network into public control? Or into public subsidy?

The OSS was attached to the Executive office of the President but technically drew its orders and pay from the JCS.

The new organisations immediately showed the same sort of twisted creativity and short sightedness that has since been the hallmark of the CIA.

The OSS and the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) cultivated relations with the leaders of the Italian Mafia. Gangsters in New York and Chicago were recruited to help agencies keep in touch with the Sicilian Mafia leaders exiled by Mussolini. The main reason seems to be to gain intelligence on Sicily prior to the Allied invasion and to suppress the Italian Communist Party.

Charles Luciano was pardoned from his sentence in New York and deported to Italy. There, he proceeded to build a heroin empire, developing connections in Lebanon and Turkey.

OSS also worked closely with Chinese gangsters who controlled vast supplies of post WW2 trade in the Golden Triangle, the border region of Thailand, Burma, Laos and China's Yunnan Province.

Industrial strife in Hollywood – Disney workers on strike. Disney associated with mobsters mainly to keep his staff in line when necessary. He brought Willie Bioff in to end the 1941 strike. After Bioff was arrested LESSING took over the negotiations.

FDR got involved and sent a federal labour conciliator, Stanley White, out to Hollywood. Ray managed to get rid off Walt on some trip to South America ( see below) allowing him to follow request from FDR representative that he compromise and settle the strike. Walt found out and went mad. Walt never again reached the productive heights of the pre-strike days – he was that upset about giving in to union demands.

Disney – in October – contacted Jack Tenny chair of the newly formed Joint Fact-finding committee on Un-American Activities of the Californian Legislature, and urged him to go after the strikers and investigate “Reds in movies”.

Tenny did just that and went after union organiser Herb Sorrell. See 1942.

10th December Guam captured – after a brief skirmish.

“Wake Island’s marine corp gun batteries and planes put up a remarkable fight.”

But it was not reinforced and not held.

11th December Burma attacked and Germany & Italy declared war on US.

14th December Germans forced to retreat on outskirts of Moscow.

“perhaps the most extraordinary defence failure on the 1st day of the Pacific War was in the Philippines, a US colony since 1898. Much closer to Japan than Hawaii, it was here that America had long predicted a possible strike.” L&S

General Douglas MacArthur, Richard Sutherland and Lewis Brereton – despite warnings and preparations, despite immediate notice of attack on Pearl Harbor and despite orders from Washington – the US commanders failed to prevent the Japanese attack. A delay due to fog bought them precious hours to ready their defence forces. “Bewtween them, the hours were squandered in still unexplained paralysis and indecision.” L&S

The airforce was almost entirely destroyed on the first day.

Then two days of air raids on docks and aerodromes ensured Japan’s mastery of the skies. “MacArthur committed a litany of errors during the defence of the Philippines – only America’s fervent hugner for heroes saved him from the consequences.”

Dec 23rd Wake Island captured and Japan launched main assault force in the Philippines at Lingayen Gulf. MacArthur’s forces trained and ill equipped – no match for the Japanese – veterans in the war with China. After 4 days MacArthur began retreating to the Bataan Peninsula but failed to provide adequate food and medicine in the US MacArthur got the congressional medal of honor – on Bataan he was derided as “Dugout Doug”.

L&S p.80 more to be cut and pasted over

$500,000 that Philippine Pres gave him as recompense for his “magnificent defence”.

December 25th Hong Kong capitulated;

Dec 26th Manila in the Philippines – abandoned as troops withdrew was declared an open city.

Arnulfo Arias, President of Panama, elected in 1940, was deposed by his own military in October, supported by Washington. This was in the midst of a diplomatic battle over US requests for military sites inside the republic to assist US’s WW2 efforts.

Soon after taking office, Arias enacted a new constitution that granted women the right to vote for the first time. However, he also jailed dissidents, disenfranchised the non-Spanish-speaking population, and expressed sympathy with the Axis powers of World War II. At one point, he was so sympathetic to fascism that he used the swastika and fasces as symbols. Wikipedia

Ricardo de la Guardia took over and granted the requests. The US wanted 999 year leases – instead they were allowed to use the bases until they were kicked out after the war. US attempts to extend the occupation caused thousands to riot. Panama’s legislature were forced to reject USA’s offer.

1941 NOTES

RESEARCH

“Bismark” by David J Bercuson (?) and Holger H Herwig, Hutchinson, 2002. The authors “make a great deal of undeclared American participation, notably in the supposed assistance of a US coastguard ship in guiding the torpedo-bombers of HM Ark Royal to their last and decisive strike.” Did FDR use this to argue that war was worth fighting?

Economy

War trade sent unemployment down to 8m.

Lend-lease act of 1941.

Unemployment then dropped to 2½m.

Indoctrination for the Masses

An eight year study (33 to 41) funded by the Carnegie Corporation and the GEB (General Education Board). Another attempt – the next major attempt – to move towards social control. Ralph Tyler, later, 1969, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), Louis Raths ‘values clarification’ originator. Hilda Taba. Raymond Fosdick described the GEB as part of Rockefeller’s efforts towards ‘this goal of social control’.