Today In Naval History: 6th December - "And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"
Today: 6th December 1939 (Wednesday) - The Rawalpindi Honoured
The British Parliament discusses the sacrifice of the HMS Rawalpindi, a merchant cruiser lost in action in a hopeless struggle with the Ugly Sisters.
Today: 6th December 1941 (Saturday) - Final Movements
The Kidō Butai reaches their rendezvous point at 34 degrees north, 158 degrees west undetected, and then began a high speed approach towards Pearl Harbour. Simultaneously, thirty Japanese submarines in the Hawaii area encircle the island in preparation for the declaration of war.
Twenty-seven Japanese assault transports depart Taiwan bound for the Philippines.
The IJN 5th Cruiser Division (Haguro, Myoko and Nachi), 2nd Destroyer Flotilla (CL Jintsu, DD Kuroshio, Oyashio, Hayashio and Natsushio) and 15th DesDiv (Hatsukaze, Amatsukaze, Yukikaze and Tokisukaze) escort the 4th Carrier Division's Ryujo and escort destroyer Shiokaze from their previous station at Palau towards the Philippines.
The Japanese submarine fleet masses off the coast of Malaya. I-55 and I-54 are stationed northeast of Kuantan, I-53 north of Anambas. I-57, I-58, I-62, I-64, and I-66 patrol near Trengganu and I-121 and I-122 are mining the North-East approaches to Singapore.
At the current point of time, seven of the nine battleships of BatDivs 1, 2 and 4 are in Pearl Harbour. (Arizona, Oklahoma, Nevada, Tennessee, California, Maryland and West Virginia). Pennsylvania is on-site but currently in dry-dock awaiting refitting. Colorado is currently in Washington undergoing a refit. Vestal is currently performing maintainence and repairs on Arizona.
Junior Diplomat Takeo Yoshikawa, broadcasts an encrypted report via Japanese consular communique. Yoshikawa, who previously rented a second story apartment in Hawaii overlooking Pearl Harbour, spent the nine months documenting the American fleet dispositions from tourist facilities including American warship locations within the Harbour as well as the locations and dispositions of American anti-aircraft facilities, torpedo nets and barrage balloons. The decrypted message was recieved aboard the Akagi.
Vessels moored in harbor: Nine battleships; three Class-B cruisers; three seaplane tenders; seventeen destroyers. Entering harbor are four Class-B cruisers; three destroyers. All aircraft carriers and heavy cruisers have departed harbor. No indication of any changes in U.S. fleet.
He had during his time on site, performed a massive intelligence coup, painstakingly mapped out almost the entirety of the military disposition on the island including troop deployments and aircraft patrol routes using entirely civil and legal means. American counterintelligence would intercept his message, but as he had been deemed a subject of low priority, his consular communique would only be decoded after the attack had taken place.
Writers Note: Takeo Yoshikawa would die destitute and embittered in a nursing home in 1993, disowned by his own people due to being scapegoated for his role in starting the war.
Intelligence warnings go out to important American military and civilian decisions makers that the Japanese diplomatic corp is now destroying documentation en mass at key embassy locations.
At Pearl Harbor, Admiral Husband Kimmel, in an interview with reporters from the Christian Science Monitor, states that the chance of a war in the Pacific Ocean involving the United States was "very slim".
Today: 6th December 1941 (Saturday) - Our Last, Best Hope For Peace...
US President Roosevelt sends a personal message to Emperor Showa (Hirohito) pleading for a dialing down of military hostility and hoping the Emperor will use his personal influence to reign in the military hardliners pushing for war.
(Dept. of State Bulletin, Vol. V, No. 129, Dec. 13, 1941)
The following message from the President to the Emperor of Japan was dispatched Saturday afternoon, December 6, and public announcement was made at that time that this message to the Emperor had been sent by the President:
Almost a century ago the President of the United States addressed to the Emperor of Japan a message extending an offer of friendship of the people of the United States to the people of Japan. That offer was accepted, and in the long period of unbroken peace and friendship which has followed, our respective nations, through the virtues of their peoples and the wisdom of their rulers have prospered and have substantially helped humanity.
Only in situations of extraordinary importance to our two countries need I address to Your Majesty messages on matters of state. I feel I should now so address you because of the deep and far-reaching emergency which appears to be in formation.
Developments are occurring in the Pacific area which threaten to deprive each of our nations and all humanity of the beneficial influence of the long peace between our two countries. Those developments contain tragic possibilities.
The people of the United States, believing in peace and in the right of nations to live and let live, have eagerly watched the conversations between our two Governments during these past months. We have hoped for a termination of the present conflict between Japan and China. We have hoped that a peace of the Pacific could be consummated in such a way that nationalities of many diverse peoples could exist side by side without fear of invasion; that unbearable burdens of armaments could be lifted for them all; and that all peoples would resume commerce without discrimination against or in favor of any nation.
I am certain that it will be clear to Your Majesty, as it is to me, that in seeking these great objectives both Japan and the United States should agree to eliminate any form of military threat. This seemed essential to the attainment of the high objectives.
More than a year ago Your Majesty's Government concluded an agreement with the Vichy Government by which five or six thousand Japanese troops were permitted to enter into Northern French Indo-China for the protection of Japanese troops which were operating against China further north. And this Spring and Summer the Vichy Government permitted further Japanese military forces to enter into Southern French Indo-China for the common defense of French Indo-China. I think I am correct in saying that no attack has been made upon Indo-China, nor that any has been contemplated.
During the past few weeks it has become clear to the world that Japanese military, naval and air forces have been sent to Southern Indo-China in such large numbers as to create a reasonable doubt on the part of other nations that this continuing concentration in Indo-China is not defensive in its character.
Because these continuing concentrations in Indo-China have reached such large proportions and because they extend now to the southeast and the southwest corners of that Peninsula, it is only reasonable that the people of the Philippines, of the hundreds of Islands of the East Indies, of Malaya and of Thailand itself are asking themselves whether these forces of Japan are preparing or intending to make attack in one or more of these many directions.
I am sure that Your Majesty will understand that the fear of all these peoples is a legitimate fear inasmuch as it involves their peace and their national existence. I am sure that Your Majesty will understand why the people of the United States in such large numbers look askance at the establishment of military, naval and air bases manned and equipped so greatly as to constitute armed forces capable of measures of offense.
It is clear that a continuance of such a situation is unthinkable.
None of the peoples whom I have spoken of above can sit either indefinitely or permanently on a keg of dynamite.
There is absolutely no thought on the part of the United States of invading Indo-China if every Japanese soldier or sailor were to be withdrawn therefrom.
I think that we can obtain the same assurance from the Governments of the East Indies, the Governments of Malaya and the Government of Thailand. I would even undertake to ask for the same assurance on the part of the Government of China. Thus a withdrawal of the Japanese forces from Indo-China would result in the assurance of peace throughout the whole of the South Pacific area.
I address myself to Your Majesty at this moment in the fervent hope that Your Majesty may, as I am doing, give thought in this definite emergency to way of dispelling the dark clouds. I am confident that both of us, for the sake of the peoples not only of our own great countries but for the sake of humanity in neighboring territories, have a sacred duty to restore traditional amity and prevent further death and destruction in the world.
Writers Note: The Japanese Foreign Ministry, under severe pressure from Military and fearing direct intervention from the Emperor, would delay the transmission of the Final Memorandum, until the Pearl Harbour attacks had been commenced.
Ships Launched In Azur Lane :
Bulldog (1930)
Thatcher (1942)
Writers Note: These keep getting longer and longer. It's almost as it they're building up to something big. /s
Posted Dec 6, 2018, 1:15 AM UTC · edited