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7 + + + + + PART ONE “Plans for Reaching You Quickly with Pursuit Are Jeopardized” with the army and navy high commands now wielding the effective power in his government, and having apparently lost the support of Emperor Hirohito, who believed that war was now unavoidable, Premier Fumimaro Konoe submitted his resignation on October 16, 1941. He was replaced the following day by his cabinet’s most ardent advocate for war, Army Minister Hideki Tojo.1 By the end of October the army’s General Staff and the staff officers of the assigned field armies reached agreement on a plan for the proposed invasions under Southern Operations. The navy’s operations plan, which now included the attack on Pearl Harbor, had been approved on October 20. The Combined Fleet set December 8 as the target date for starting the war—December 7 on the other side of the international date line.2 At the imperial conference held on November 5, Emperor Hirohito sanctioned the December 1 deadline set four days earlier for terminating negotiations with the United States and the same day approved the Pearl Harbor operations of the navy’s plan. He was now committed to war and was playing for time until his military commanders were ready to start operations. The following day, the army chief of staff activated the Southern Army and ordered it to make immediate preparations for the invasion of the southern area. The attack orders were given a week later. The Combined Fleet was also ordered to make final preparations for war and to advance its forces to the designated assembly points.3 The army-navy strategy for the Pacific War involved three phases, detailed agreements on which had been worked out between the involved army and navy commanders. In a first phase, Japanese forces would eliminate Allied 8 Part One forces in Hong Kong, Guam, Wake Island, and the Gilbert Islands in the central Pacific and immobilize the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, after which they would occupy Thailand, northern Malaya, and British Borneo and invade the Philippines as the beginning stage of Southern Operations. In the second phase they would seize the rest of Malaya and Singapore as well as southern Burma and the northern islands of the Dutch East Indies—Dutch Borneo and the Celebes—and the Bismarcks to the east. Finally, in the third phase they would take Sumatra, Burma, and the main objective of Southern Operations: Java. Only five months were allocated for the occupation of this vast area— an objective on a scale unprecedented in history. The core Southern Operations component alone extended over two thousand miles east to west and two thousand miles north to south.4 For the Philippines operation, the strategy called for destruction of U.S. air forces on Luzon first, then the occupation of their airfields. The main invasion force would land at Lingayen in western Luzon fifteen days after the opening attack, and a smaller force at Lamon Bay in southeastern Luzon. Manila was to be seized in fifty days. In Washington at this time both Army Chief of Staff Gen. George C. Marshall and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Harold R. Stark were arguing for a strategy to avoid war with Japan until completion of the Philippine airpower buildup, which was expected by February or March 1942. By then, if Japan had not yet commenced hostilities, the Philippines force might deter Japan from initiating operations south and west of the Philippines. In the meantime , the United States should remain on the defensive in the Pacific, only going to war if Japan attacked or threatened U.S., British, or Dutch possessions and some parts of Thailand. President Roosevelt agreed with this scenario .5 In the Philippines, General MacArthur had succeeded in gaining Washington ’s approval of his proposal to extend his defense responsibilities to cover all the Philippines, not just Manila Bay. He was also developing close military cooperation with the Australians, British, and Dutch, including use of his B-17 force to provide defense of their territories. By early November he had already received twenty-six additional B-17s flown across the Pacific from California and fifty modern P-40E pursuit ships. An eight-ship convoy had left San Francisco for Manila on November 20 with eighteen additional P-40s and fifty-two A-24 dive bombers, plus five thousand troops. But in late November President Roosevelt was worried that the Japanese timetable in the current crisis was...

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