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

Air Raid, Pearl Harbor! This is No Drill! 329
crisis had come in a way which would unite all our people.” Yet
the news that came in from Hawaii during the afternoon was
“very bad.” Th e Japanese seemed
to have sprung a complete surprise upon our fl eet and [to] have
caught the battleships inside the harbor and bombed them
severely with losses . . . hit our airfi elds there and . . . destroyed
a great many of our planes, evidently before they got off the
ground.
It was “staggering,” Stimson wrote, “to see our people there,
who [had] been warned long ago and were standing on the alert
. . . so caught by surprise.” Nevertheless, his “dominant feeling”
continued to be one of relief “in spite of the news of catastrophes
which quickly developed.” He felt that “this country united has
practically nothing to fear; while the apathy and divisions stirred
up by unpatriotic men have been hitherto very discouraging.” 61
Sunday Afternoon at the White House
Soon after receiving the news of the attack, the White House
became a beehive of activity. At 2:28 p.m. FDR had a phone call
from Stark telling of the heavy losses suff ered by the fl eet during
the fi rst phase of the attack and reporting “some loss of life.” Stark
discussed the next step with FDR, and the president “wanted him
to execute the agreed orders to the Army and Navy in event of an
outbreak of hostilities in the Pacifi c.” 62 At 2:30 Knox ordered all
ships and stations to “Execute WPL-46 against Japan.” 63
Knox reached the White House almost immediately after
Stark fi nished talking with the president. As Knox later confi ded,
61Ibid. 62Sherwood, Th e White House Papers of Harry L. Hopkins, pp. 435–36, and
Roosevelt and Hopkins, p. 431.
63Joint Committee, Pearl Harbor Attack, part 11, p. 5351, John Ford Baecher
April 8, 1946, memorandum to Joint Committee Counsel Seth Richardson.