Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy - Ludwig von Mises ...

December 6, Part 1 263
included all our reserve publications for the next six months.” Th e
message as it was actually released, addressed to Kimmel under
date of December 6, for transmission to Wake, read as follows:
In view of the international situation and the exposed position
of the outlying Pacifi c islands you may authorize the destruction
by them of secret and confi dential documents now or
under later conditions of greater emergency.
Th is “ambiguous” message was released by Assistant Chief of
Naval Operations Ingersoll and sent to Kimmel at Pearl Harbor,
who still had to relay it to Wake. Moreover, it “was sent deferred
precedence, which meant delivery by 9:00 on Monday morning,
December 8, 1941.” 36
British and Dutch on the
QUI VIVE in Southeast Pacific
By November 29, Singapore had begun to go on the alert.
“[A]ll troops away from barracks . . . had been ordered back.”
British Air Chief Marshall Sir Robert Brooke-Popham had
“ordered the second degree of readiness, and the Volunteers were
being mobilized. Soon troops were recalled from leave and other
precautions were taken, including the rounding up of Japanese
civilians.” 37
All Singapore was on the qui vive. More ships than usual
were on the move. Troops were being recalled to duty. Our naval
observer in Singapore, Captain John M. Creighton, was busy
shuttling back and forth between his two offi ces, 18 miles apart.
He wanted to be physically acquainted with the dockyard so that
“if contingents of our fl eet came there [he] could guide them to
36Ibid. For text of message #061743, see Joint Committee, part 14, p. 1408.
37Lionel Wigmore, Th e Japanese Th rust (Canberra: Australian War Memorial,
1957), pp. 121–22.