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

696 Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy
Kimmel: No, sir, I never had anything like that. . . . I do not
know what November 25 meant, but I was concerned . . . with
the orders I received to put the Bloemfontein in the convoy with
American-fl ag vessels. . . .
Ferguson: Do you think the fact that we put that ship into our
convoy would indicate that we were taking parallel action? Did
you take it as such?
Kimmel: My memory is not entirely clear, but I think we had
some matériel, or personnel, or something on this ship that we
wanted to get through, on the Bloemfontein. . . . I do not recall . . .
just what it was. On one of these Dutch ships that we used, we
had some fl iers that were going out to China. 66
Ferguson: Well, now, what kind of an order do you interpret
that [to put a Dutch ship in an American convoy] to be?
Kimmel: Th e way I interpret that order is that you would go in
betwixt an attacking force and a Netherlands ship and if they
shot at you. . . . Why, I would probably shoot back.
Ferguson: Well, then, that would create at least an incident,
would it not, an international incident?
Kimmel: Yes, sir, it probably would.
Ferguson: And there would be little use then of talking about
the fi rst overt act, wouldn’t there?
Kimmel: Well, the Japs would have shot fi rst.
Ferguson: I see. Even though you would have run between the
mark that [they were] shooting at and that wasn’t our mark,
that did not belong to this country, you would consider under
those circumstances that the Jap shot fi rst?
66 Ibid., part 6, p. 2878.