Days of Infamy: MacArthur, Roosevelt, Churchill--The Shocking Truth Revealed

This is a best-selling book, by a best-selling British author, concerning the destruction of the greatest concentration of Air power in the Pacific, under the command of General Douglas MacArthur, on the ground, in the Philipines, a full ten hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, as well as some information on the politics surrounding the attack on Pearl Harbor. A total failure on the part of MacArthur. Having just read Day of Deceit, by Robert Stinnett, with elaborate, detailed information demonstrating that Franklin Roosevelt indeed indubitably knew, in advance, of the Japanese plans to attack Pearl Harbor in an air strike on December 7th, 1941, and withheld that information from the commanders on the spot, Admiral Kimmel and Lt. General Short, both of whom FDR then demoted in disgrace, as "patsies," for "dereliction of duty," I am underwhelmed by Costello's book, Days of Infamy. It does, however, bring out some facts about General MacArthur's failures to adequately prepare his command for the impending certain attack by the Japanese forces, to wit: instantly sending a bombing raid against the Japanese air bases on Formosa (Taiwan), which his orders required of him, or at the very least moving the B-17s in question out of harm's way--out of range of Japanese Formosa based bombers, by sending them further South, as he could have done. Instead, he sat on his hands. With the exception of General MacArthur, the motivation for President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill's blunders are quite understandable: Both men were faced with almost insurmountable dilemmas. It was necessary for Churchill to drag America into the war with Germany, kicking and screaming if necessary. It was a matter of survival for Great Britain, who was the lonely combatant for freedom left on the European continent. For FDR, faced with isolationist fervor among his constituency, but foresighted enough to know the stakes involved, it was necessary to get a cause celebre to inflame the American people into a warlike mood. The ploy succeeded, even though it involved chicanery, double dealing, lying to his people, and many American deaths at Pearl Harbor. Although the facts are seemingly ugly, and American and British icons reputations suffer as a result, Churchill and FDR peformed to the best of their abilities to save their nations. MacArthur's motives and judgments are less justifiable and bear scrutiny less well. For those who knew him best, MacArthur was a walking, talking egomaniac who made monumental blunders with little to recommend his decisions. I served under him in Japan during the Korean war, and observed him in his role as the defacto Emperor of Japan. Harry Truman had him pegged, accurately in my opinion. He would have dome better on the stage than in a military career. Joseph (Joe) Pierre, USN (Ret)

Days of Infamy by John Costello This book makes one very angry at the incompetence of our military commanders at the beginning of WWII. The 2 goats of Pearl Harbor, Adm Kimmel and Gen Short, seem very competent compared to Marshall, MacArthur, Stark, King,Turner, and others. The American plan assumed that the Japs would attack the Philippines first. To defend it, Roosevelt pulled MacArthur out of retirement in July 1941 and sent him there. In addition, he sent thousands of troops to help train the Filipinos, plus most of our latest bombers, the B-17, and many of our latest fighter aircraft, plus a potent Navy force. Marshall at the time said that reinforcing the Philippines was a mistake of the first magnitude. They allocated 200 planes to destroy 164 targets. In Europe, the allocated 8,000 planes to destroy an equal number of German targets. Japs and Jap targets were inferior, so needed fewer planes. MacArthur did not believe the Japs could fly planes due to their slanty eyes. Neither did the Brits, who would lose 2 of their battleships to Jap planes a couple of days later. Ath the time of the Pearl Harbor attack MacArthur was called and had an 8 hour warning before the Japs attacked. They did the same thing in the Philippines that happened at Pearl. Complete surprise, in spite of the warning. This was a mystery until the early 1990's when records came unsealed that revealed that MacArthur had received $640,000 from the Philippine president to not attack the Japs. (The plan was to have the B-17's MacArthur had to attack the Japs at Formosa and knock out their air force.) Had MacArthur followed orders, he would have done just that, as the Japs were grounded by fog. The Army Air chief, Breteron pleaded with Mac to let him attack, but Mac refused. In January, when Mac and his men got paid FDR himself had to approve the payment, as it was illegal for a military person to be paid by another government. Mac got500.000 of the $640,000. Sutherland and others got the rest. Mac also had the machine that decoded the Jap purple code, unlike the folks at Pearl Harbor, so he had the same intelligence as Washington. The Brits were supposed to get some B-17's but in an exchange of an secret agreement that we would use them to bomb the Japs at Malaya when war came, they let us keep them. Mac got them, and the Japs destroyed them. Stimson and the air generals told FDR that air power alone could beat the Japs. To keep Kimmel up to date at Pearl, Adm Stark in Washington mailed him letters. Kimmel was never told about the Majic machine or the intercepts. If operations started in the Philippines, and fuel was needed, this would create a fuel crisis in the U.S. as there was a lack of tankers to transport oil. Adm Layton, an intelligence officer at the time thinks Kimmel would have deduced the Pearl Harbor target if he had the Majic machine. Adm Pye thought that the Japs would not attack Pearl either. Adm Kelly Turner in Washington was convin

Days of Infamy is a masterpiece. As a serious research book, it is incomparable. Just about every assertion is thoroughly documented with American, British, Japanese, German and even some Dutch and Soviet sources. John Costello also thoroughly comments on the major previous efforts to explain the surprises at the start of Pacific War. He clearly and thoroughly points out what the previous investigations have gotten right or wrong. Mostly, they have narrowly focused on just the Pearl Harbor attack, and the communications between the White House, Departments of Army and Navy in Washington, and Hawaiian Army and Navy commanders. This book takes the reader to all the participants, and especially the British, who had an enormous but unpublicized influence on American plans before the war.As a popular historical book, Days of Infamy is well-written and engages the reader very well. Since John Costello is a journalist and a TV producer, rather than a university professor, he lays this book out as a story, not as a dry research paper. He vividly describes the events of the spring, summer, fall and winter of 1941, the personalities involved, their conflicts, egos, fears, and desires. He also vividly describes the strategic and tactical plans of all sides, and where they went wrong.Overall, I believe this book is excellent. Unlike many previous efforts, it goes beyond just Pearl Harbor to explore the full scope of American and British efforts in the Pacific in 1941. This shows that today we, as a society, are getting very close to understanding what actually happened during those days in 1941. And the more we understand the more ugly it looks. It's 60 years late, but at least we can try to learn from this experience.

There are few events that prompt as much spontaneous discussions regarding the possibility of conspiracy and guilty prior knowledge as those involving the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Indeed, there are a whole catalogue of titles dealing with the possibilities, the associated issues, and with the substance of arguments surrounding all of the varied possibilities, which seem to have endless permutations and countless variations. So too here in British author John Costello's excellent exposition, the fascinating world of this "what did the President know, and when did he know it" whodunit is deftly explored by a virtual master of the genre. Also the author of such notable titles as "The Pacific War" and "And I was There", Costello addresses himself to a welter of issues and conditions that paint an indelible picture of what he conceives to be the actual circumstances surrounding the Japanese attack. Indeed, the author not only asks a number of interesting rhetorical questions regarding the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor itself, but also delves into the shocking related attack on the American forces in the Philippines later the same day. Why, he asks, given his being warned so far in advance, did General Douglas MacArthur allow the Japanese forces to destroy the greatest single concentration of American air power in the Pacific region some nine hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor? And, in answering the question by way of detailing the complex series of miscommunications and fumbles surrounding MacArthur's mishandling of the circumstances, the author also raises the issue of MacArthur's unlikely escape from the blame game following in the aftermath of the attacks. Seems that those in power in Washington were so intimidated by MacArthur's positive image and reputation among the press that they dare not attack him openly by court marshalling or reprimanding him. In essence, his political connections saved him. Instead, after ordering MacArthur off the island, ostensibly to take command of all the Pacific forces regrouping in Australia, Roosevelt rewarded the general with the Congressional Medal Of Honor. Also discussed here is the half million dollar payoff that the Philippine Government gave to MacArthur as he departed the islands, as is the desire of the Philippine government to try to maintain their neutrality, an exercise in futility that may have played fatefully into the hands of the Japanese, and which the author suggests may have influenced MacArthur in his decision not to attack or save the pacific-based American planes under his command. Yet the book spends much more energy and time covering the ways in which the diplomatic and military miscalculations on the part of both Roosevelt and Churchill played almost perfectly into the hands of the Japanese. Yet it was, according to Costello, more the loss of the Pacific air power rather than the losses at Pearl Harbor that so severely limited and hampered American