THERE IS A far greater reason for the calamity at Pearl Harbor than merely unawareness. A greater basic reason exists for the Japanese successes in the Dutch East Indies than merely the Possession of a superior striking force. That basic reason, and the greatest single error, be it in game, life, or mortal combat, is underestimating the enemy—or, more specifically, an unbalanced psychological perspective. In this case there was gross negligence in underestimating the ability of the enemy to gather unmolested full and complete information, and to utilize this information to its greatest extent.
The memory of "Mr. Moto and his camera" is all too familiar, yet he was shrugged off as a comic character. By appearing so naive at times, the Japs have been left alone a lot. There was too much tendency to dismiss them with a smile. The Japanese Intelligence scored an overwhelming victory in piecing together minute portions of information, and we received an overwhelming defeat in that we failed to recognize the Japanese challenge at its earliest stages.
There is little question but that the Japanese success is directly traceable to its pre-war intelligence. Ambassador to Tokyo, Joseph C. Grew, leaves little doubt that, because of years of study in regions where war was to strike, the Japanese were able to make detailed preparations, which paid great dividends. It is doubtful if any degree of this highly valuable information was obtained by official observers. Humble workers and inoffensive members of Japanese communities everywhere suddenly blossomed into Japanese reserve officers.
One outstanding example, in which possible tragedy fortunately was averted, occurred in Colombia, South America. Dating from Mahan, the foundation of American naval strategy was an undivided fleet. Much concern was felt in 1940-41 when we possessed a one-ocean navy with a two ocean assignment, and therefore the importance of the Panama Canal was doubled, and redoubled.
During this period, the Japs suddenly established a huge soybean plantation in Colombia. The first hint that something was amiss was a hunter’s chance discovery that the “farm” was entirely surrounded by a charged electric wire fence. The second hint came when a surveyor accidentally broke his instrument while working near one of the “farm” gates, and a 15-cent-a-day Jap field laborer came over, and after a short conversation, proceeded to repair the delicate mechanism. The surveyor was so astonished that he tested the Jap laborer by hinting that he was confronted with an extremely difficult theoretical problem, which the Jap promptly solved. This certainly was no average 15-cent-a-day field laborer, and the surveyor reported the episode to authorities. An air survey of the “farm” revealed several score buildings, all arranged in a perfect pattern, and finally, upon raiding the “farm,” 80 per cent of the structures were found, not housing workers, but stacked with ammunition, guns, flares, etc. And this plantation was but a few hours’ easy flight from the Panama Canal.
The Japanese successes in Malaya and the Dutch East Indies are attributable to such infiltration methods, most of which were entirely overlooked, and extremely successful.
Many of these inroads were gained through the use of the humble Jap fisherman, who quietly went about his business. For some time the Japs desired to survey various sea areas off New Guinea, but were always prevented by the Dutch government. Off the coast of New Guinea, in the shallow Arafura Sea, there is a small island called Dobo, inhabited by a handful of native pearl fishers. One day a group of Japanese fishing vessels put into Dobo. The fishermen proceeded to erect a group of houses for themselves, at excessive prices bought up all of the native fishing vessels, and virtually took over the island for themselves. For two years they fished sporadically, but made an enormous amount of soundings and surveys in the adjacent dangerous waters. Then suddenly word came from home and the Jap community departed in one group, leaving virtually a ghost town. They probably weren’t too prosperous as pearl fishers, but their soundings and surveys furnished the Imperial Japanese Navy with extremely valuable information.
There is another example of Jap infiltration, which, fortunately, was nipped just in time. The Japanese desired a number of mangrove concessions, for it is from this beach bush that dye is obtained for Japanese cotton. This has always provided a great wedge for Japanese espionage. On one occasion, the Japs managed to obtain the approval of the Dutch government for an extensive mangrove plantation in Borneo, that important oil-producing area facing Singapore, then the British bastion of the Orient. Soon it became known that the Japanese were importing huge quantities of cement to their mangrove plantations. In that cement is hardly needed for the cutting of mangroves, the Dutch, at the insistence of the British in Singapore, investigated. The Japs ingeniously replied that they were building tennis courts. However they were moved out, and the so-called “tennis courts” dynamited, and found so thick that they easily could have served as heavy gun emplacements, or have been connected for use as a high-grade landing field.
In the pre-war days, travelers were always safe in taking along their cameras to even the remote or interior regions of the Dutch East Indies, or Malaya, for always they would find a Japanese capable of processing their film. Yet the question was never raised why this humble Jap laborer in an isolated region, far from his homeland, should be so inclined.
There is ample evidence today, that with spies scattered to the winds, all collecting bits of information here and photographs there, a continual stream of information was provided the Japanese Intelligence, which pieced its jig saw together and obtained the foundation for its military successes.
We of the United States were no less at fault, although we may have been spared some of the blows. Again we refer to an earlier point of “Mr. Moto and his camera.” As much, if not more, valuable information pertaining to the United States has been allowed to enter freely the Tokyo files as the December 7 blow at Pearl Harbor testifies. The Japanese and his camera became a comic character in the United States, and by creating this illusion, he was left almost entirely alone. We were guilty of not understanding the Japanese, and, even worse, guilty of not trying to understand the Japanese psychology. For such indifference, we are today paying.
As late as July of 1941 the Japanese utilized the field of commerce to cloak their activities on the fertile road of espionage in the Dutch East Indies. They concluded a sugar contract with the Dutch, which, under the guise of commerce, gained more contacts with the Indies in general, and certain regions in particular, including the great Dutch naval base at Surabaya. This accord was welcomed by the president of “Nivas,” the official sugar-selling organization at Surabaya. The president, in a statement, said that the agreement should be regarded as a welcome commercial development, rather than a temporary expedient, admitting that the Japanese had made no pretense of preparing a permanent contract. Jap sugar importers had been out of the Java market for some time, and they suddenly returned to the Dutch source, although their needs did not force urgent purchases. It certainly was no coincidence that their unexpected return in July of 1941 was on a contract for four months, to November of 1941, with war to come less than a month later.
Speaking of coincidences, Japanese subjects throughout the Dutch East Indies, whether camera addicts, fishermen, or sugar importers, suddenly decided virtually en masse to leave for home. On November 25, 1941, a horde of Japanese subjects boarded the steamer Huzi Maru at Tand-jong Priok, the port of Batavia. The steamer then called at Surabaya, where Jap vessels always called on any pretense, then sailed for Japan with more than 2,000 subjects aboard, leaving only a nucleus of a few hundred Japanese citizens in the Dutch Indies. And this, less than a week before Pearl Harbor.
The departure of this group, and of similar groups from various Japanese inhabited regions, was little heralded and all but overlooked. Again the reason may be termed indifference, and false security in the belief that the Japanese would never launch an attack, and above all a false sense of our own superiority in body and in machine, to meet and repel any attack. The Japanese has always been underestimated, his ability scoffed, and his approach ridiculed.
It is only by a study of these and other past examples, and a frank admission of our error, that our psychology of warfare against the Japanese can be so adjusted as to eliminate defeats in the future and lessen the cost of victory.