The Grand Alliance (120 page)

3. In the interval, in order further to deter Japan, we
are sending forthwith our newest battleship, Prince of
Wales, to join Repulse in Indian Ocean. This is done in
spite of protests from the Commander-in-Chief Home
Fleet, and is a serious risk for us to run. Prince of
Waleswill be noticed at Cape Town quite soon. In
addition the four “R” battleships are being moved as
they become ready to Eastern waters. Later on
Repulse will be relieved by Renown, which has greater
radius.

4. In my view, Prince of Wales will be the best
possible deterrent, and every effort will be made to
spare her permanently. I must however make it clear
that movements of Prince of Wales must be reviewed
when she is at Capetown, because of danger of Tirpitz
breaking out and other operational possibilities before
Duke of York is ready in December.

In October Prince Konoye laid down his burden. He had asked for a personal meeting with President Roosevelt at Honolulu, to which he hoped to bring his military and naval chiefs, and thus bind them to what might be settled. But his proposal had been declined by the President, and Army opinion became increasingly critical of this wise statesman.

His place was taken by General Tojo, who became Prime Minister, War Minister, and Home Minister at the same time. General Tojo, who after the war was hanged by the conquerors according to modern practice, said at his trial that he himself took over the Home Ministry because “he faced a fearful trend foreboding internal confusion if peace was decided upon instead of war.” At the Emperor’s behest he renewed diplomatic negotiations with the United States, but under a secret understanding with members of his

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Government that Japan would go to war if the Cabinet representations were rejected. When in November, 1941, Tojo and the Chiefs of the General Staff informed the Emperor that war might be necessary, the sovereign expressed the hope that still further efforts might be made to avert this calamity, but told Tojo that “if the state of affairs is as you have described it there will be no alternative but to proceed with the preparations for operations.”

At the beginning of November I received an agitated warning of further Japanese action in China from General Chiang Kai-shek. He thought that the Japanese were determined upon an attack from Indo-China to take Kunming and cut the Burma Road. He appealed for British aid by air from Malaya. He concluded: You might feel at a first glance that this would involve you in a war with Japan while you are fighting with such courage in Europe and the Middle East. I see things otherwise. I do not believe that Japan feels that she has the strength to attack so long as the resistance of China persists, but once she is rid of this she will attack you as and when it suits her. … China has reached the most critical phase of her war of resistance. Her ability to defend the land approaches to Singapore and Burma now depends primarily on British and American willingness to co-operate in the defence of Yunnan. If the Japanese can break our front here we shall be cut off from you, and the whole structure of your own air and naval coordination with America and the Netherlands East Indies will be gravely threatened in new ways and from a new direction. I should like to express with all the strength at my command the conviction that wisdom and foresight demand that China be given the help that I have indicated. Nothing else can ensure alike the defeat of Japan and success The Grand Alliance

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of countries now resisting aggression. I eagerly await your reply.

I could do little more than pass this to President Roosevelt.

Former Naval Person

5 Nov. 41

to President Roosevelt

I have received Chiang Kai-shek’s appeal addressed
to us both for air assistance. You know how we are
placed for air strength at Singapore. None the less, I
should be prepared to send pilots and even some
planes if they could arrive in time.

2. What we need now is a deterrent of the most
general and formidable character. The Japanese have
as yet taken no final decision, and the Emperor
appears to be exercising restraint. When we talked
about this at Placentia you spoke of gaining time, and
this policy has been brilliantly successful so far. But our
joint embargo is steadily forcing the Japanese to
decisions for peace or war.

3. It now looks as if they would go into Yunnan,
cutting the Burma Road, with disastrous consequences
for Chiang Kai-shek. The collapse of his resistance
would not only be a world tragedy in itself, but it would
leave the Japanese with large forces to attack north or
south.

4. The Chinese have appealed to us, as I believe
they have to you, to warn the Japanese against an
attack in Yunnan. I hope you might think fit to remind
them that such an attack, aimed at China from a region
in which we have never recognised that the Japanese
have any right to maintain forces, would be in open
disregard of the clearly indicated attitude of the United
States Government. We should of course be ready to
make a similar communication.

5. No independent action by ourselves will deter
Japan, because we are so much tied up elsewhere. But
of course we will stand with you and do our utmost to
back you in whatever course you choose. I think myself
that Japan is more likely to drift into war than to plunge
in. Please let me know what you think.

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The President replied on November 9 that, while it would be a serious error to underestimate the gravity of the threat, he doubted whether preparations for a Japanese land campaign against Kunming would warrant an immediate Japanese advance in the immediate future. He would do what he could by Lend-Lease aid to China and the building-up of the American Volunteer Air Force there. He felt that in Japan’s mood any “new formalised verbal warning or remonstrance” might have at least an even chance of producing the opposite effect. “The whole problem will have our continuing and earnest attention, study, and effort.”

I did my best to comfort the Generalissimo by repeating the substance of this guarded answer.

There was no course for us but to continue with our naval plans in the Far East and to leave the United States to attempt by diplomatic means to keep Japan as long as possible quiet in the Pacific.

I wrote to General Smuts, who had raised larger issues.

Prime

Minister

to

9 Nov. 41

General Smuts

I do not think it would be any use for me to make a
personal appeal to Roosevelt at this juncture to enter
the war. At the Atlantic meeting I told his circle that I
would rather have an American declaration of war now
and no supplies for six months than double the supplies
and no declaration. When this was repeated to him, he
thought it a hard saying. We must not underrate his
constitutional difficulties. He may take action as Chief
Executive, but only Congress can declare war. He went
so far as to say to me, “I may never declare war; I may
make war. If I were to ask Congress to declare war,
they might argue about it for three months.” The Draft

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Bill without which the American Army would have gone
to pieces passed by only one vote. He has now carried
through the Senate by a small majority the virtual
repeal of the Neutrality Act. This must mean, if
endorsed by the other House, constant fighting in the
Atlantic between German and American ships. Public
opinion in the United States has advanced lately, but
with Congress it is all a matter of counting heads.

Naturally, if I saw any way of helping to lift this situation
onto a higher plane I would do so. In the meanwhile we
must have patience and trust to the tide which is
flowing our way and to events.

On November 10 at the annual Guildhall banquet, which the Prime Minister by custom attends, I said: I must admit that, having voted for the Japanese alliance nearly forty years ago, in 1902, and having always done my very best to promote good relations with the Island Empire of Japan, and always having been a sentimental well-wisher to the Japanese and an admirer of their many gifts and qualities, I should view with keen sorrow the opening of a conflict between Japan and the English-speaking world.

The United States’ time-honoured interests in the Far East are well known. They are doing their utmost to find ways of preserving peace in the Pacific. We do not know whether their efforts will be successful, but should they fail and the United States become involved in war with Japan, it is my duty to say that the British declaration will follow within the hour.

Viewing the vast, sombre scene as dispassionately as possible, it would seem a very hazardous adventure for the Japanese people to plunge quite needlessly into a world struggle in which they may well find themselves opposed in the Pacific by States whose populations comprise nearly three-quarters of the human race. If steel is the basic foundation of modern war, it would be rather dangerous for a power like Japan, whose steel

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production is only about seven million tons a year, to provoke quite gratuitously a struggle with the United States, whose steel production is now about ninety millions; and this would take no account of the powerful contribution which the British Empire can make. I hope therefore that the peace of the Pacific will be preserved in accordance with the known wishes of Japan’s wisest statesmen. But every preparation to defend British interests in the Far East, and to defend the common cause now at stake, has been and is being made.