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(MS), November 27, 1941; 11 Pearl Harbor Attack 5422 ff. When Hull met with his advisers on November 27, his hard-line stance was roundly applauded. Stanley Hornbeck, Hull’s senior Far East specialist, urged that the president tell the Army and Navy what to do rather than asking them. In a widely quoted memorandum of that date Hornbeck maintained that Japan would advance into Thailand or Yunnan but would avoid conflict with the United States. He bet 5 to 1 there would not be war by December 15; 3 to 1 there would be no war by January 15; and even money there would be no war by March 1. Such was the advice Hull received from his senior specialist. The Hornbeck memorandum is at 20 Pearl Harbor Attack 4487.

96. Most scholars are incredulous that Hull acted, apparently with FDR’s approval, without informing the War Department and the Navy beforehand. “It was both bad strategy and careless administrative procedure for the civilian leaders of the Government to make the momentous decisions of November 26, 1941, without formal consultation with the responsible military leaders. The argument that by this date no practical difference could have been anticipated does not alter the seriousness of this breach of fundamental rules for achieving sound decisions of national security policy.” Langer and Gleason, Undeclared War 900.

97. CNO to CinC Pac and CinC AF, November 27, 1941, 14 Pearl Harbor Attack 1406.

98. Marshall to CG American forces in the Far East, ibid.

99. Julius W. Pratt, 2 Cordell Hull 515 (New York: Cooper Square Publishers, 1964).

100. Kennedy, Freedom from Fear 515.

101. Shigenori Togo, testimony, Tokyo War Crimes Documents, Document 2927.

102. Nobutake Ike, Japan’s Decision for War: Records of the 1941 Policy Conferences 265, 283 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1967).

103. SRN 115376, CinC Combined Fleet to Combined Fleet, December 2, 1941, 1500 hrs., Record Group 457, NSA, National Archives.

104. Hiroyuki Agawa, The Reluctant Admiral: Yamamoto and the Imperial Navy 158 (Tokyo: Shincho Sha, 1966).

105. Gordon W. Prange, interview with Capt. Watanabe, February 12, 1949, cited in Prange, At Dawn We Slept 13.

106. Yamamoto to Admiral Koshiro Oikawa, January 7, 1941, quoted in ibid. 16–17.

107. For the attack at Taranto, see Don Newton and A. Cecil Hampshire, Taranto (London: W. Kimber, 1959).

108. The average depth at Pearl Harbor was forty feet. “We did not give aerial torpedoes a great deal of consideration for that reason,” said Admiral Kimmel. 33 Pearl Harbor Attack 1318. Ironically, the Japanese in their training sessions had been unable to penetrate protective torpedo nets, and their pilots were instructed to confine the Pearl Harbor attack to bombing only if they found the American fleet protected by netting. Prange, At Dawn We Slept 321.

109. Ibid. 332–333.

110. Ibid. 387, 373.

111. Yamamoto to Hori, November 11, 1941, ibid. 340. Hori, commanding the submarine fleet, put to sea the next day.

112. Ibid. 472.

113. Ibid. 488.

114. Watson, Chief of Staff: Prewar Plans and Preparations 511.

115. Gordon W. Prange with Donald M. Goldstein and Katherine V. Dillon, Pearl Harbor: The Verdict of History 460 (New York: Penguin, 1991). Kimmel’s remarks were made to Edward M. Morgan, chief counsel for the congressional Pearl Harbor investigation.

116. Pearl Harbor Report 150–151. General Lucius D. Clay, then in Washington directing the nation’s emergency airport construction program (La Guardia, O’Hare, Los Angeles, National) said much the same. Attending a football game at Griffith Stadium on Sunday, December 7, with Commerce Secretary Jesse Jones, Clay was asked by Secretary Jones about the attack. “I immediately proved my great military expertise because I said, ‘The Japs would attack Guam or the Philippines, but Pearl Harbor is impregnable. I just can’t believe they would attack Pearl Harbor.’ ” Jean Edward Smith, Lucius D. Clay: An American Life 96 (New York: Henry Holt, 1990).

117. According to the diary kept by Konoye, Yamamoto added, “I hope you will endeavor to avoid a Japanese-American