Threshold of War Read online

  On July 29 the Russians made their first direct and positive claim that the German offensive had failed: NAZI DRIVE BROKEN, RED ARMY ON OFFENSIVE, RUSSIANS SAY was the four-column Washington Post headline. German losses were said to be “staggering,” the invasion timetable “completely upset.” Hanson Baldwin that day, under the headline “Winter Looms as Red Ally,” wrote: “The future history of the world is being written in the struggling melee of tanks and planes and men on the 2,000-mile front.” The Washington Post now considered June 22 possibly the most significant date in World War II. Unless the Germans could get another equally big offensive going, it claimed, they might have to fight General Mud and General Frost.52

  Reports from American diplomatic missions, few as they were, confirmed news accounts of a stalemate. The State Department was reduced to pleading with its legation in Bern, Switzerland, a key news center, for any information, no matter how exaggerated or unfounded, about the progress of the campaign and German reaction to it.53 The embassy in Moscow dwelt on the Soviet evacuation of that city, but Rome reflected Italian pessimism: to officers returning from the front Russia looked like a “second China.” Vichy considered the Red Army to be proving stronger than anyone suspected. Admiral Darlan said German soldiers were exhausting themselves “simply shooting down the masses of men thrown against them.”54

  Washington was impressed. Berle, warning against sentimentalism about the Russians, conceded on July 31 that the German invasion was “already a failure.” He estimated German losses at 900,000. In fact that day they reached 213,301.55 Stimson, who received an intelligence briefing from General Marshall on July 28, was somewhat more cautious: the Germans seemed to have “stubbed their toe” but suffered a half-million to a million casualties. He likened Russian guerrilla resistance to the French ambush of General Braddock in the French and Indian War. Colonel Philip Faymonville, the army’s expert on the Soviet Union, expected organized groups of Russians to hold out indefinitely.56

  Marshall also briefed the president, who impressed Morgenthau as being “much more forceful” than he had seen him for some time. According to Marshall’s information, Roosevelt said, German tank engines wore out after 200 hours or forty days’ use because of inferior lubricating oil. Whether the technical information was accurate or not, the president had hit upon a key problem of the German army in Russia at that moment. It is possible that Roosevelt also saw at this time a memorandum by former ambassador to the Soviet Union Joseph E. Davies, who had access to the White House. In this paper he emphasized how much Soviet industry lay far to the east between Kuibyshev and Krasnoyarsk, beyond the immediate reach of the Germans. The week of July 28 a Soviet military mission was in Washington and lost no opportunity of stressing Soviet determination and confidence. The “charm and optimism” of its leader, Lieutenant General F. I. Golikov, did much to offset the pall cast over relations by Oumansky. From all sides President Roosevelt was receiving information and assurance that the Soviet Union had a good chance of surviving the German onslaught until the rains and snows came.57

  Roosevelt returned Monday, July 28, from his long weekend of rest and thought at Hyde Park with his interest in aid to Russia greatly intensified. He learned that most Soviet requests were stalled. In some cases the American cupboard was bare; in others the British or American armed services retained priority. Soviet orders were hasty and improvised, numbing in their extent, vague in particulars and generally confusing. Ambassador Oumansky was consistently boorish in seeking help, and many American officials remained profoundly suspicious of all things Soviet in providing it. Nevertheless, it was hard to deny that the German-Soviet war provided “the longest and the deepest front and the fiercest fighting known in this or any other war,” as Oumansky claimed, and that the Soviet Union was bearing “the brunt of the German might.”58

  Morgenthau expressed the view now held by the president that “this was the time to get Hitler.” The Russians “have just got to get this stuff and get it fast,” wrote the Treasury secretary:

  We will never have a better chance.… {S}omebody has been looking over this country and the good Lord has been with us, but we can’t count on the good Lord and just plain dumb luck forever.

  The president let fly at the Cabinet meeting on August 1. For forty-five minutes he lectured his principal advisers and especially a “thoroughly miserable” and smoldering Stimson on speeding up aid to Russia. He accused them of giving the Russians the runaround. He was “sick and tired of hearing that they are going to get this and they are going to get that,” he said in a rare outburst of anger. “Whatever we are going to give them has to be over there by the first of October, and the only answer I want to hear is that it is under way.”59

  On July 26 the president had approved Hopkins’ request to fly on from London to Moscow to learn what the situation on the Russian front was and what they needed most. He was received with extraordinary attention by the Soviets, indicating “the extreme importance … attached to his visit.” Hopkins cabled on August 1 that he was “ever so confident about this front,” mentioning the “exceptionally good” morale of the Russians and their “unbounded determination to win.” The next day, in the absence of Hopkins, the president put Wayne Coy, one of his best administrators, in full charge of expediting aid. “Use a heavy hand,” he ordered Coy, “—act as a burr under the saddle and get things moving.” He had told the Russians, he added, that he was dividing aid into two categories: high-priority matériel that could get there for use in battle before October, and the rest later. After October 1 the weather would curtail operations, and “if Germany can be held until then, Russia is safe until spring.” Closing his orders to Coy he said, “Step on it!”60

  Coy got some results, but weapons could not be made out of thin air. The Russians asked for 3,000 P-40 fighter planes and were promised 200, of which 141 came from British stocks; the rest were shipped August 25, lacking spare parts. Scrambling, Coy found some toluol (for explosives), aluminum, and machine tools—but in nominal quantities. Most valuable were authorized shipments of 315,000 tons of aviation gas together with lubricating oil and tetraethyl lead, as well as encouragement in Soviet chartering of American tankers to assist in delivery. What the left hand was denying the Japanese the right hand was providing the Russians. The Russians asked for 3,000 bombers and got five. They asked for 20,000 anti-aircraft cannon and machine guns and got none, 5,000 anti-tank guns and got none, 25,000 Ml Garand rifles and got 1,000.61 For waging a battle he regarded as decisive, the president had painfully little to offer besides tokens and promises.

  In the light of this intense new interest in the survival of the Soviet Union which arose in the last days of July, Roosevelt and Welles were loath to permit any shipments of oil which might encourage or permit a Japanese attack on the Soviet Union. Ten Japanese divisions — 300,000 soldiers—were now reported to be in Manchuria, and there was talk of a Japanese blockade of Vladivostok. Even restricting Japan to the average petroleum purchases of 1935–36 would permit shipment of over five million barrels of crude and 445,000 barrels of gasoline in the balance of 1941.62 A shipment now would be the first authorized since April and would be regarded as an affirmative statement about Japanese-American relations. In any case, officials engaged in export control considered a delay of two weeks advisable before any exchange permits were approved, in order to devise quotas and quality standards and coordinate policies with other governments.63

  On July 29, Acheson informed the Foreign Funds Control Committee that he had discussed the matter with Welles, “who thought that for the next week or so the happiest solution with respect to Japanese trade would be for the Foreign Funds Control {sic}to take no action on Japanese applications.” A week later the president and Welles would be on the way to Argentia and so the likely intent was to extend the withholding of action at least until the Roosevelt-Churchill conference. On August 1 all valid licenses for export of petroleum products were revoked. As Lord Halifax saw American oil policy
on the eve of the president’s departure, the intention was not to be lenient, but to “keep the Japanese in a state of uncertainty.” He detected an “overriding wish” in spite of quotas to deny certain qualities of oil to Japan, especially California crude and blending agents.64 American officials were already considering the Soviet Union as a silent and limited partner in the containment of Japan. On July 4, Grew was instructed at the special request of the president to inform Prime Minister Konoe personally of American concern at reports that Japan had decided to embark on hostilities against the Soviet Union. He was to to warn the Japanese that any such move would “render illusory” American and Japanese efforts to strengthen “the peace of the Pacific.” A week later, to Halifax, Welles confided that a Japanese attack northward no less than a move into southern Indochina would bring on an American embargo.65

  Roosevelt undoubtedly believed that he would be in a better position to decide just how much oil to allow Japan after reviewing this and all the other connecting problems with Churchill and their advisers. Delay, of course, made any affirmative action on oil more difficult and a de facto embargo would increase the risk of war with Japan. On the other hand, there were reasons for believing that an embargo might not precipitate a Japanese attack southward. Hamilton pointed out on July 31 that Japan was weaker economically and now open to attack from all sides. Grew reported that the new Japanese foreign minister, Admiral Toyoda, was greatly distressed and dejected by the freezing of assets. He had hardly slept in the past few nights. Roosevelt wired Churchill in satisfaction that their concurrent action seemed to be “bearing fruit”: “I hear their Government much upset and no conclusive future policy has been determined on.”66 A policy of maximizing Japanese uncertainty and insecurity seemed to be having a useful effect. It would certainly have public support. The State Department noted that editorials were making an “almost unanimous and very insistent demand for a firmer stand in the Far East.”67 Even some risk would be worthwhile if a Japanese attack on the Soviet Union could be prevented. Any security Japan might find in resumption of oil shipments or in fact any improvement in its relations with the United States might encourage it to move with Germany against Russia, the survival of which now, at the end of July, was a matter of vital importance to the United States.68

  This new strategic conception enhanced the importance of the Philippines. The president saw Marshall and Stark on July 30. The following day at his staff conference the general said that it was “the policy of the United States to defend the Philippines,” an unexceptional statement in itself, but in the shifting strategic context one of significance. Clearly the White House meeting had produced a change of attitude, not to the extent that Far Eastern defenses would be allowed to “jeopardize the success of the major efforts made in the theater of the Atlantic” by so much as the dispatch of an infantry division, for example, but at least to a new sense of the value and possibilities of holding the Philippines.69 Central to this new confidence was the idea of using the islands as base for strategic air power against Japan.

  The early summer of 1941 was an important moment in the history of the United States Army Air Forces. The air branch was gaining greater autonomy thanks to reorganizations instituted by Stimson, Marshall, and Assistant Secretary for Air Robert Lovett.70 Production of modern airplanes was just beginning to rise: B-17s from six a month at the end of 1940 to twenty-five in June; P-40s from nineteen in February to 126 in May and sixty-eight in June. In May the president ordered production of heavy bombers increased to five hundred a month. He considered no single item more important.71 Yet the British, Chinese, and now the Russians were siphoning off new production. Enthusiastic exponents of air power, committed to precision daylight attacks by large formations of heavy bombers, Air Corps leaders, such as Major General Henry H. Arnold, were unable to gather and retain enough planes to form a central strategic command. At one point that year GHQ Air Force had three pilots for every plane.72 In war the air force would have a central role to play in the destruction of German industry. Short of war it lacked a strategic mission and was vulnerable to pressure from the navy for a larger proportion of aircraft production facilities.

  Air Corps hopes and plans centered on the B-17 heavy bomber, the Flying Fortress, twenty of which had been sent to the Royal Air Force. Officially and publicly they were a success, but General Arnold knew better: reports of misuse, malfunction, and aborted missions began arriving in May. This early version had too few machine guns and flew at great heights to escape the Messerschmidt 109s, so high that bombing was less precise, windows frosted over, guns jammed, and oxygen equipment failed. British crews lacked adequate training, Air Corps officers believed; they failed to fly in tight formation; they were using an inferior bombsight: American frustration mounted with the criticisms. As of the end of July no mission had been a success, and eight of the twenty planes had been lost or disabled. The British were using the other heavy bomber sent, the B-24, to ferry air crews and matériel across the Atlantic or to hunt submarines.73

  In March, Arnold, in a complaint not unlike that of Admiral King about destroyers, had warned Marshall that “piecemeal reinforcement” of the British violated General Pershing’s principle that Americans must fight in American units under American command. It prevented formation of our own “striking force,” he complained to Lovett in May.74

  Once the army began to take an interest in the defense of the Philippines, the islands’ advantages for projection of air power became evident. The navy had been urging a buildup since early 1940.75 Crete provided army war planners only the latest proof that no seaborne expedition could succeed without command of the air. The Norwegian campaign and Battle of Britain in 1940 were other examples. “The best protection against hostile landings consists of well-sited air bases and a powerful, balanced, intrepid air force,” advised the military attaché in Cairo after a study of the Crete campaign.76 Such a force in the Philippines seemed perfectly situated not only to defend the archipelago but also to interdict hostile movements across the South China Sea aimed at the Dutch East Indies and Borneo. Shuttling between Manila and Singapore, Batavia, Darwin, and Port Moresby on New Guinea, B-17s could provide a web of air power that might give meaning to the concept of a “Malay Barrier” and supply the deterrent force which the British and American navies were unable to provide. Furthermore, southern China, Formosa, and, with use of Soviet bases, even the home islands of Japan would lie within range of B-17s based in northern Luzon. In the Philippines project the Air Corps saw the opportunity to protect its position, prove its principal weapon and advance its central doctrine. Stimson, Marshall, and the planners were ready to be convinced.

  On July 16 the intelligence section of the Air War Plans Division advised the development of mid-Pacific island airfields for heavy bomber passage. It considered inadequate a policy which “in the light of the present international situation,” failed to develop and make use of “airdromes for land-based aviation in the Far East and Australia.” On July 18, General Arnold recommended allocating four heavy bombardment groups (272 B-17s with 68 in reserve) and two more pursuit groups (130 P-40s) to the Philippines, as they became available in the next eight months.77

  Before making such a large commitment, Marshall and undoubtedly the president wanted to await strategic discussions with the British at Argentia. The Air Corps would have to prove it could fly them there too, but it was confident: the B-17s of the 19th Bombardment Group had flown as long a leg as was needed when they successfully completed a flight from California to Hawaii in May. Various routes to the Philippines were considered: Nome-Vladivostok-Changsha, and Brazil-Freetown-Khartoum-Karachi-Singapore. The most promising appeared to be Hawaii-Midway-Wake-Port Moresby-Darwin, and officers were immediately dispatched to investigate landing conditions and fuel supply at these points.78 A squadron of B-17s from Hawaii was designated to pioneer this air route. “The presence of a squadron of those big ones would give the Japanese some bad moments,” observed General Mar
shall.79

  July was a wonderfully clarifying month to Roosevelt and his advisers. The German attack on the Soviet Union together with mounting evidence of the Russians’ ability to sustain resistance made it conceivable to marshal forces sufficient to defeat Nazi Germany. Where in the spring the forces of aggression had seemed awesome and victory imponderable, it now seemed a realistic, calculable objective. On July 9 the president ordered the services to estimate how much total production would be required to defeat the nation’s potential enemies.

  The incalculable component of this global scheme of ordered force was Japan. The German-Soviet war had intensified Japan’s expansionism, its opportunism, and also its unpredictability. Whether Japan went north or south it threatened to upset the improving balance of forces. This careening expansionism must be stopped. Japan must be boxed in, contained, immobilized. The strongest weapon was economic: embargo was a deterrent, or, if stringently applied, powerfully coercive. Coalition diplomacy, military aid, demonstrations of firmness, and deployment now and in coming months of naval and air reinforcements would, it was hoped, keep Japan within bounds. The risks of war would increase, but the risks of inaction, in the global calculus, seemed greater.

  Roosevelt could see the whole picture now. In July he was forceful, impatient with delay, pressing upon events, so different from the reserved, withdrawn president of the spring. His decisions were still tentative, depending on the outcome of his conference with Churchill, but he knew what direction he wanted to take. Would they find a satisfactory peace program justifying the risk of war by intervention in the Battle of the Atlantic? How much of the still slender product of the “Arsenal of Democracy” should go to the desperate Russians, and how much to the British and the increasingly insistent American armed forces? How rigorous should the embargo against Japan be? These were questions to turn over as Roosevelt entrained for New London the evening of August 2 to begin his journey to Newfoundland and the Atlantic Conference.