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

266 Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy
air assistance necessary. However, the Australian Air Corps chief
decided to go ahead just the same and furnish the Dutch with
aircraft as planned. 44
With respect to Th ailand, or Siam, the situation was “complicated.”
Th e Th ai prime minister, “who expected an attack within
the next few days—asked on December 5 for an immediate declaration”
from the British that they “should go to war with Japan
if the latter attacked Th ailand. . . . Churchill proposed to send the
Th ai Prime Minister a message telling the Th ais to defend themselves,
if attacked, and promising to come to their aid.” 45
Sometime during the day, December 6, Britain’s ambassador
in Washington, Lord Halifax, got in touch with Roosevelt to tell
him of Churchill’s intentions to contact the Th ais. “Th e president
agreed with the [Churchill] proposal (subject to a change
in wording) and said that he [FDR] intended to send a similar
message. Mr. Churchill accepted the president’s formula and sent
his [Churchill’s] message on the night of December 6–7.” 46
Admiral Hart (Manila) Learns of
U.S. Commitment of “Armed Support” to
British and Dutch in S.E. Asia
In Singapore, Captain Creighton learned that the United
States was committed to lend “armed support” to the British or
Dutch in the event that the Japanese attacked in that part of the
world. He so wired Hart at 10:26 a.m. on December 6. Creighton
reported to Hart that Brooke-Popham, commander of the Royal
Air Force in Malaya and of the British Army Forces, had been
advised on Saturday by the War Department in London that they
44 Ibid., p. 2301.
45 Llewellyn Woodward, British Foreign Policy in the Second World War (London:
Her Majesty’s Stationery Offi ce, 1962), p. 188n.
46 Ibid.