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139 For the United States, the Second World War started with a surprise attack, one that most naval officers expected. The Japanese, however, surprised virtually everyone with their choice of target. Between 0753 and 0755 on December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor time, the first Japanese bombs fell on Oahu, bringing the stunned U.S. Pacific Fleet and U.S. Army units in Hawaii straight into battle. Although U.S. authorities would not know it for some time, the Japanese initiated unrestricted submarine warfare within minutes of the attack on Pearl Harbor. At 0808, Pearl Harbor time, the Japanese submarine I-26 attacked and sank the merchant ship Cynthia Olson approximately 1,200 nautical miles west of Los Angeles and 800 miles east-northeast of Honolulu. Although Cynthia Olson was completely unarmed, she could technically be considered a U.S. Army ship, since the Army had chartered her as a merchant transport. However , civilians made up virtually her entire crew, with only two Army enlisted men filling out the ship’s complement as a radio operator and a medic. Cynthia Olson probably would have disappeared without a trace if another ship, SS Lurline, had not received her distress call at 0838 local time (0808, Pearl Harbor time). The distress message declared that Cynthia Olson was under attack by a submarine, before all contact with the ship was lost. There were no survivors.1 Cynthia Olson’s fate remained unknown to decision-makers for quite some time. As so often happens during such eventful days, events occurred simultaneously at Pearl Harbor and across a broad series of time zones. Pearl Harbor’s frantic 0758 message read: “air raid pearl harbor this is not drill.” Within a matter of minutes, virtually the entire U.S. government was turned upside down as officials and commanders at every level attempted to rapidly inform and deploy the U.S. armed forces. In Manila, Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel William T. Clement woke up CHAPTER 9 Day of Infamy, Day of Decision DECEMBER 7, 1941 140 Chapter 9 Admiral Hart shortly after 0300, Manila time, to inform him of the attack, which had been in progress for almost half an hour at that point. Hart quickly issued his first orders of the war, informing the entire Asiatic Fleet: “Japan started hostilities, govern yourself accordingly.” The dispatch was sent at 0331.2 ADMIRAL HART ORDERS UNRESTRICTED WARFARE Within the next fourteen minutes, Admiral Hart must have run through a number of thoughts before sending his next radio dispatch. He had always planned for his submarines to take a major role in fighting for the Philippines. Shortly before Stark’s messages about the Far East war zone and the war warning , Hart had already written to his superior officer that he believed that the Asiatic Fleet had “become a Submarine Fleet, of great power in that type” and that Hart “expected to employ said power with full effectiveness.”3 Furthermore, although Admiral Hart and Admiral Stark were friends, by November 1941, if not far earlier, Hart had reached the breaking point of frustration with the Navy Department, at one point venting to Stark that “men in other jobs could sleep while the ball continued to pass back and forth between Washington and here,—slowly,—but we can’t out here. We have to stay ready, one way or another .”4 By the point Hart wrote this to Stark, he had already made up his mind that he would just issue orders and then inform the Navy Department as a matter of courtesy. Three days earlier, exasperated with Stark and the Navy Department , Hart had written in his diary: “Can’t get any considered decisions out of the Department, which scarcely answers any direct questions ever, and now are just making the best guesses that I can, then telling Washington ‘unless otherwise ordered will—’ I now see that I should have adopted that method months ago—I learned it during the preceding war—and hope its [sic] not too late.”5 At the same time, Hart also knew that Admiral Stark and Rear Admiral Turner planned to conduct unrestricted warfare almost immediately upon the outbreak of hostilities . Over the past year, Hart had watched Washington officials slowly but surely come around to his view that unrestricted warfare was necessary. Only ten days earlier, Stark had informed Hart that he would have authorization to conduct unrestricted warfare when the war began. With or without permission, Hart now meant to force the issue...

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