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

736 Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy
gun, the “[m]inimum requirements to establish identity as U.S.
men-of-war.” Th ey were to be stationed in the paths of known
Japanese ship movements: (1) between Hainan Island (China)
and Hue on the east coast of Indochina, now Vietnam; (2) east of
the Indochina coast between Camranh Bay and Cape St. Jacques;
and (3) off Pointe de Camau on the southern tip of Indochina.
All three vessels were “to observe and report by radio Japanese
movements in west China Sea and Gulf of Siam.”
Ferguson wanted to know why Stark had ordered three small
vessels to watch for Japanese movements on British possessions.
Ingersoll replied simply the dispatch had said,
“president directs.” . . . Th at was our reason for doing it. Admiral
Stark was told by the president to do it. . . . Admiral Hart was
already conducting reconnaissance off that coast by planes
from Manila. . . . I am sure Admiral Stark would not have done
this unless he had been told. . . . We did not initiate this movement,
sir, and we were getting . . . suffi cient information from
Admiral Hart by the searches which his planes were making. 11
11 Ibid., part 9, pp. 4252–53. Of these three small vessels, only one got to sea
before the Japanese attack. Th e Isabel left Manila on December 3, with orders
to proceed to Camranh Bay on the Indochina coast, ostensibly to search for a
lost Navy PBY plane. On the 5th, about 22 miles from the Indochina coast,
she was sighted by a Japanese Navy plane, and ordered to return to Manila,
where she arrived on December 8 (Kent Tolley, Cruise of the Lanikai [Annapolis,
Md.: Naval Institute, 1973], pp. 269–70). Th e second ship, the Lanikai,
skippered by then Lieutenant Kent Tolley, was preparing to leave Manila when
the attack came. She patrolled the coast of the Philippines for a couple of
weeks, fi nally departing Manila on December 26, and after some adventures
reached Australia (ibid., p.120). Th e third small ship selected, the Molly Moore,
was never commissioned; when the attack came, her mission became “superfl
uous” (ibid., p. 272). Author’s note: Apparently Hart looked on the mission of
these three small vessels as “mission impossible.” When ordering the Lanikai
to the coast of Indochina (ibid., p. 19), Hart said he had felt he was sending
its skipper “on what looked like a one way mission.” Tolley thought FDR may
have been off ering these small ships and the men aboard “to bait an incident,
a casus belli” (ibid., p. 279). Hart wanted to know why the president had sent