ladies and gentlemen, welcome to panel discussion about diplomat and admirals. a new book released by dale jenkins that startling new facts regarding the pearl harbor attack. the carrier battles in the pacific and culminates with the battle of midway. dale jenkins is a former u.s. navy officer who served on a destroyer in the pacific and for a time was homeported in yokosuka, japan. he spent time in the philippines, taiwan, south korea, hong kong, singapore and was awarded the navy marine corps expeditionary medal. he has a degree in history and business from harvard and columbia and his business career was primarily in international oil banking. he was also staff director at the council on foreign relations in new york. dill, currently serves on the samuel elliott morrison committee of the naval order of the united states in new york and as regional director of the naval war college foundation.

as a result of his active duty experience, a lifelong interest in the navy and international affairs, they'll provides insight into the diplomacy and strategies of the pacific region. today we're joined by myself. my name is david camfield and i am the vice president. chief information officer, pacific battleship center. and i also am a navy veteran, served on board the ship and have a passion for history like this. so i'm very excited to be here today and i will let the rest of our panel introduce themselves. dale jenkins. i'm jim kirsch. i work 35 years in aerospace and defense. i work with the navy on a number of different efforts over the years. i've been privileged to be a part of pacific battleship center for over ten years. i've worked in tours and the curatorial department and helping to tell the story of battleship iowa. my name is daniel canfield. i forgot what i was going to

say. i'm a, uh, amateur historian and volunteer. a volunteer here aboard battleship iowa. also has the unfortunate distinction of being my youngest son. so, dale, it's a privilege to have you on board here today. really enjoyed getting into this book and, then sharing it with some other people. i'd like to jump right into the questions here because you address some really interesting topics. the first one here is, do you think that the war between the united states and japan was inevitable? the war was not inevitable. japan had expanded down through indochina. china first in 1942, northern indochina, and then in 1941, in july, they went to the southern part of indochina. this threat in singapore. and roosevelt decided, this is enough. we've had to do something. he put in a qualified oh, as

said, freeze, which meant that he had to approve transactions to purchase oil. he went to newfoundland to meet with churchill about the same time, july 1941 and august is assistant secretary of state dean acheson put on a total freeze. this meant that there was no oil being shipped to japan, and japan imported almost all of their oil and about 90% of that from the united states. so this created a crisis and then the negotiations began as to how to alleviate this. and there had been a study by the total war institute in japan in the end of august that said, no, we cannot possibly win a war against the united states. the only solution is diplomacy.

so this put japan into a quandary. they were getting strangled by the lack of oil. they lose a war to the united states. what do they do? prime minister kono of japan desperately tried to have a one on one meeting with roosevelt. uh, roosevelt at one point, and agreed between september 21 and 24 they'd get together in juneau, alaska, roosevelt advisors cordell hull skims, and the others thought. this was a terrible idea. of course, the whole was advised by someone named stanley hornbeck, who in turn was advised by alger hiss. we're still wondering what effect alger hiss had when all of this. but in any event, the summit never occurred. and the two the japan was

preparing for war because there were not going to be strangled. finally, in november, there was an agreement reached in draft form where the japanese would withdraw from southern part of indochina in exchange for a resumption of oil. this was a draft agreement they submitted on the 20th of november. we had a draft agreement that essentially said much the same thing. and cordell hull circulated those around to the allies, the british, the dutch and, the chinese. chiang kai shek came back with an adamant rejection of this and said, if there is any reelect session of these.

situation with japan, with their put the you relaxed nature of the asset freeze, who will be a can total disaster for china. they will collapse the army will collapse. and in the thinly veiled statement, you will pay the price. you will not be the loser will come the loss will come to you. also with that, for the whole gave a much more difficult and strident oh paper to the japanese, which required for them to withdraw from all of indochina, from all over china, and possibly all even manchuria, which they'd occupied for a long time. this was not satisfactory to japan and pearl harbor occurred two weeks later. why don't so too what was the

final crisis between japan and the u.s. that precipitated the war that that really drove that that the just the the lack of being able to come to an agreement or the stranglehold of oil or the need to go elsewhere for their oil or. well, there was nowhere else they could go for oil. they had an agreement with the dutch east indies to supply them with oil. but we prevailed upon the dutch who really were operate operating out of london at that point to agree to or asset freeze. so that cut off the oil from the dutch east indies very. there was something else that was going on which was also misunderstood that our military very was not prepared for war. they were looking at hitler as the major threat.

japan had a limited economy. there was no threat that they could ever invade the west coast of the united states. but hitler was a mortal threat and our military wanted to delay any involvement in war until we had a chance to build up. but their concern was hitler. and they said to. a whole new terrors about whatever you do, don't get involved with japan because that put us into a two front war. they were not prepared for a two front war. so there was delay on the part of the military. but that delay was a qualified delay. delay to hull and his advisers, as was just put the japanese off and will just play little long for time and of course, delay to

the japanese meant we're getting weaker every day that is as it freezes in place and they're getting stronger because they're rebuilding their military. so they said there's got to be a deadline who either haven't agreement or we're going to fight. and so in the end, even though there was a chance for agreeing an agreement, it fell through. and we had pearl harbor. so you mentioned chiang kai shek being kind of the the voice of dissent on the initial draft. was that the part that he played, the primary part that he played in the negotiations about pearl harbor prior to pearl harbor? or what part did chiang kai shek actually play? well, chiang kai shek delivered the note to rose the world and also copied churchill in london. and they had their their lobbying groups around washington spreading the word

that, oh, oh, we're appeasing the japanese and appeasement. of course, had a nasty connotation because of the appeasement that had occurred with hitler in 1938. so that there was tremendous pressure to not revoke this. asset freeze with japan. and it really all came from chiang kai-shek. so. pearl harbor happens and did the carrier fleet make a comprehensive attack on pearl harbor. it's a subject of great debate that goes on and on. what in fact occurred was that the japanese launched two waves of planes that sank.

seven battleships. of course, some other damage. and at that point, admiral degarmo, the japanese carrier commander, withdrew. there's a line in my book which you see that admiral yamamoto, the chief head of the entire japanese navy, looked at his chief of staff, who are no reports of the damage came in and said, admiral nygma is going to withdraw. and the implication of that was that there was going to be much, much more serious series of attacks after the first attack had a motive, even drawn into a battle with the enterprise, which was nearby with admiral horsely aboard and the lexington, which was about a day steaming. i said to myself, would. yamamoto have sent six carriers across 3700 miles of ocean just

to sink some obsolete battleships? well, i think that he probably wanted to do more. do you guys think personally, i don't think they did. conducted a comprehensive attack because you i'm sure they sunk some, you know, seven obsolete battleships. but they didn't hit they didn't hit the submarine base. they didn't hit the oil farms or the or the oil fields and the repair repair base and stuff like that that was used to get the pacific fleet back in action a lot faster than it would have if they had conducted a second wave or a second strike. so i think i think that's true. look at it. we were just recently in pearl harbor, and i remember scratching my head on that. the dry docks were left intact, the fuel was left intact. everything needed to even take those seven obsolete battleships and replace or repair them was left intact. it did seem like it was not at

all comprehensive. one man's opinion. so battle commanders all have personalities and its interesting to speculate why enigma was so timid that he would have pulled back early. so do you think roosevelt's war council and cabinet members was informed of the naval strength of japan? did they did they have a clear picture of japan's navy? they did not. it's incredible. the lack of information that they had. i quote several places, including iggy's diary. harold ickes, who was secretary of the interior, but actually was part the war council and he stated that we will do too it. it'll take us about six months to dispose of the japanese navy and then we'll send our navy, the british navy and the dutch

east indian navy around to the atlantic to confront hitler. this is just an incredible lack of information and communication. and you wonder how this could possibly have occurred occurred. a five minute conversation with admiral harold stark, who in a bid completely disabused him of this notion. but there clearly was not that communication the war council would get together. they would discuss things. they would bring in stark and general george, wash. marshall, who would be posed questions that marshall and stark would give answers. and that was the end of it. it was just a drastic last lack of communication and led to the terrible errors that we've seen. you had mentioned sort of the cocktail club in the book and how actual informers were not

part of that. right. well, roosevelt liked to have a drink at the end of the day. oh. and so he'd bring his inside group in, which were stimson store, cordell hull, harold ickes, sometimes harry hopkins. they'd sit around and be telling jokes and quips and, you know, roosevelt would wave is cigaret holder and say, that's great. i love it. i love it. and this is this is the chatter we know. but the general marshal and admiral stark were not part of that. they were brought in for a formalized meetings. who would answer questions when they were posed? but this what this is what went on. and it was it was just too much of an inside group. the curious thing about roosevelt is that he appointed his cabinet in 1933 when he took

first took office and by and those people were there right up to 1945. and you wonder why? because cordell hull had been for a long time a congressman from tennessee. he had been senator from tennessee. he had been instrumental in bringing in some of the southern states. and it 1932 election and after that is a reward was to be appointed secretary of state. he was somewhat busy with with south america like being the american council. he effectively knew nothing about the far east and probably not much about europe either. roosevelt had every intention of being in his own secretary of state. so as far as he was concerned, it didn't matter very much. how would you praise admiral yamamoto, a strategy following pearl harbor after pearl harbor?

pearl harbor was a curious thing. the carrier fleet withdrew. whether they planned to do more or whether they didn't plan it. the more they withdrew. this left our carriers intact and they were ready to raid throughout the central pacific because yamamoto took his carriers, all six of them, back to japan, and then went down to truc to rabaul. they they invaded and took rabaul. then they went into the northwest part of australia and they went into the indian ocean and they raided royal navy bases around seven and single other ships. oh, in the indian ocean. why did they do that? perhaps she was to cut off

supplies going into the burma road to. support china. yamamoto did not survive the war. we don't know why he did that. it seems to be a bad decision because it allowed hosey and wilson brown with their carriers raid all through the central pacific and also to carry out the doolittle raid against tokyo. if yamamoto would have left his carriers in the pacific, presumably all of that would have been prevented. so what was what was admiral nimitz battle plan to meet the japanese fleet? actually, i skipped a question here. i apologize. why did admiral halsey? why was halsey not in command of the pacific fleet carriers at. admiral hosey had been underway almost couldn't tenuously since

pearl harbor. this is six months from following pearl harbor. he was around hawaiian islands. then he went, i mean, the distances in the pacific are enormous. the pacific covers a third of the planet. so he went south to support to samoa to support of marines coming into samoa 2500 miles. went back up to with the yorktown under fletcher to raid the japanese in the marshall islands back to pearl harbor. then all the way over to marcus, which is. 800 miles from japan, to raid the japanese islands back to pearl harbor to get to meet up with the hornet. there was had the doolittle planes aboard. they took the doolittle planes all the world was in charge.

gallagher massacre, chief electronics, u.s. navy, 1971, 1991. turn into vietnam and desert storm. welcome aboard. thank you for your service. so apologies for that. somebody get the memo there. all but jose was was in charge of the doolittle raid. they got within about 600 miles japan. the doolittle fires took off all the way back to pearl harbor. and at that point. the infamous asian did the intelligence that nimitz had his very astute linguistic cryptology group in pearl harbor under lieutenant commander. they had broken the japanese code. they knew that japanese were going to try to invade port

moresby around the eighth or the 10th of may. there'd be battles in the seventh and eighth and they. king admiral king in washington. his intelligence said, oh, no, it's going to be much later than that, two weeks later. so king knew who ordered halsey to leave pearl harbor on the 1st of may to go all the way to the coral sea and take command of the carriers there. there would have been four carriers if he could have arrived in time, but he couldn't possibly arrive in time because his his restriction was the speed of his oilers who had to refuel from they could make about 300 miles a day. it was 3500 miles to the coral sea. divide it all out. where do you get you get that? he couldn't possibly be there before the 10th or 11th of of

may. so nevertheless, orders were order. he goes all the way across the pacific ocean to the coral sea. he arrives after the is decided and comes all the way back. 3500 miles. he arrives back, having been underway almost continuously for six months. he's sick. he's got dermatitis. he's lost £20. and nimitz takes one to look at him. in terms of mr. date to the pearl harbor hospital. so he's at the pearl harbor hospital, the most experienced, qualified carrier commander. we had his watch in part to task forces leave pearl harbor bound for midway. he's watching out of the window of the pearl harbor hospital. so what was nimitz plan to meet the to meet the japanese fleet at midway.

we had broken the japanese. we knew they were coming they were going to be coming from the northwest. strait towards midway. and, of course one, three, five, which was the southeast course. and they were going to be coming early in the morning on the 4th of june. they were launch planes that zero 430 in the morning about half of their planes to attack midway itself and had to blow up the defenses on midway. so half their planes would be gone. oh, our plan. the nimitz plan was to have pbi float planes take off. also at zero 430 and in a fashion shape search pattern. 20 2pb wise would be looking for the japanese carrier fleet.

they had done the same thing a day earlier and they found the amphibious fleet. so they knew the the attack was coming. that they found the japanese carriers about 715 in the morning. and the plan to have air carriers, 140 miles away to the north east. and so when the p b was found, the japanese carriers or planes on midway would take off immediately. the and this is all about zero 600 in the morning when this discovery would take place. they would launch their planes at zero 600 and fly up the reverse of the japanese course. the plan was for the carriers to launch their planes and fly on a

perpendicular towards the interception point, which was calculated to be 140 miles for midway and the carriers were to be 140 miles from midway and there would be a concentration of force over the japanese carriers. what happened was that for whatever reason, we don't really know why, but for whatever reason the carriers were 60 or 70 miles away, which put them 200 miles away from the interception point, which meant that they were beyond their operating range of 175 miles. and so they had to close the range to close the range to two 175 miles from 225 miles, which meant that a carrier had 25 knots who would take an hour to cover that distance. that meant that the plane for midway flew by themselves to meet the carriers.

japanese carriers, which they did, and most of them were shot down because there was no support from the carriers. the carriers just weren't there. so what did what did admiral spruance do to reverse that impending defeat? well, admiral spruance is detached from the rest of the he had two carriers. he was detached in command of enterprise in the hornet. so he had to calculate a new interception point. and instead they had to be further the south because the japanese carriers would presume to continue on their course. unfortunately, we had no black back up reconnaissance because we thought that all the recurrence lou was necessary would be used to find the japanese carriers had zero 600.

so spruance was operating strictly on the basis of a dead reckoning. just the assumption that the japanese would consider contain you on the same course. so launched his planes to intercept kept on a course of approximately 2 to 4 zero. some of them were on 231, but essentially they were moving towards the southwest. he had two air groups, one, the hornet air group. the other and the other entered enterprise air group, and they were to search. they crossed point where the they could expect to find the japanese carriers but there weren't in the japanese there. why? because they had slowed their advance because of the attacks from the midway planes and also some torpedo planes that had broken off earlier. and also by that time, the japanese scouts had found the

u.s. carriers and the japanese admiral changed course to the northeast to intercept and launch an attack on. the u.s. carriers. by this time, it's about zero 728 in the morning, the hornet commander couldn't find the japanese carrier, so he thought that perhaps they were further along and he going he was concerned that about them getting closer to midway. so he went to the southeast. oh, boy. you enterprise commander figured out that the japanese carriers had probable been delayed. so he took a course to the north west reverse, the course of the japanese would have been on continued on that course for about 20 minutes until he was satisfied they couldn't possibly be there. he figured they they couldn't be

further south than where we are right now. they probably are north. he turned 32 planes, 32 dive bombers to the northeast and started to search and just then saw a japanese destroyer heading to the northeast. he figured just possibly that destroyer is trying to regroup with the carrier force of them. and he did that and about 5 minutes later, all of a sudden they're coming out from under a cloud layer where the japanese carriers it was a magnificent feat of battle judgment under difficult conditions. and i should also add, they were running out of fuel and some of them never made it back.

all right. and the small planes flew this is once again shaking. all right. so. what were their tactics at midway that led to the final victory? i know. i know the guys on the panel might have some questions and comments also. we'll start with you. what were the what were the air tactics at midway that led to the victory. well, following i just described, there would be classically the group commander of enterprise had two squadrons under his command. it was a it was difficult because one of the squadrons because a crew member had trouble with his oxygen dropped down 5000 feet. so they couldn't use hand signals. he designated one carrier to the to the search squadron.

squadron. the other squadron to the view of the of the bombing squad, which had thousand pound bombs to the other carrier and they carried out those attacks. the the cargo the japanese carrier was completely destroyed by the squadron. the had been led by mccluskey though mccluskey's bomber missed others in the squadron hit. duke best. the bomber squadron had planes that knocked out the ecog. second divisions of of the best squadron had the latitude to bomb whatever they thought was left. it turns out they also bombed the cargo. it did really.

both squadrons hit their two carriers and the were destroyed at the same time. the yorktown, which had been conducting their own scouting, had found the other two carriers and so they had held back yorktown, one of the squadrons. so that there was just one dive bomber squadron left and that knocked out a third japanese carrier. so that the japanese still had one carrier left untouched, even though their torpedo attacks against it. but the zeros shot down the two torpedo planes that were trying to make that attack. later in the, i should say, the enterprise squadrons got

together another attack and they sank. here you there was a bomber pilot on an enterprise dusted class that. i actually spoke with on the phone who wrote his own biography or his own account of the battle. never call me a hero. thanks to a dive bomber veteran that i got to know that introduced to dust declines, i lose to veteran as described by barber tactics to me dusky dusty dropped a bomb on cargo. he also dropped a bomb on here you later in the afternoon, as did -- best. so the four carriers were destroyed. so i've heard it said that the japanese looked at midway the way we, looked at pearl harbor. lots of mistakes made. but. but your book has been very

fascinating in revealing whole nother sort of facet to what happened at midway. enjoyed that a lot. i'll tell you, it was like if you could imagine a plan that it's like a football game where the we have a busted play and you have a kansas city with a jack mahomes 15 yards behind the line of scrimmage dodging linebackers and he throws a hail mary into the end zone and they've caught it. yeah, that's about what happened at midway. very good. hey, do you have any, any questions from our. from our or from the audience? we'll open it up also. kyle, can i get you to run a mic out here? if anybody has a question. there's one that's on fire at the track. if could have you ask that in the microphone there so we can hear it. right. it kind of had something to.

so the question is, why did chiang kai shek have so much influence? how much were so much influence? how white, how why did chiang kai shek have so much influence over the negotiation? it's a very good question. and, you know, their their motives were their their position was not the same as ours. it it just seemed like cordell hull was so married to. our so-called allies. which was the british, the dutch and the chinese, he could not act independently. both the british and. the chinese wanted us in the war. the british had been in the war for two years when. when churchill met with rosa velde in august of 41, churchill was desperate to get the united states the war. we were not about to get into the war we had. we had very strong isolationist groups that did not want us in

the war because they saw what had happened in world war one. we didn't really have to be in the war. but we did anyway and lost over 100 and that was in troops. chiang kai shek have been happy. if we'd have put troops into china and fought side by side with his army. we were not going to do that. but that influence was that cordell hull felt from china prevented him fr best of the united states. any other questions there's one. but what was your book about? you brought him into my. no. is your book available? the book about malls and admirals and diplomats. it is released today. and is available in our gift store downstairs. and you can sign it.

i'm sure he will. you be signing books out of you if you like to sign a book, i'll be happy to sign. okay. i'm sorry. i should also add add on to that statement if we'd have never gotten into that war with japan today, presumably. and it's hard to know exactly what could have happened. japan would not have given taiwan. they would not have given up korea. they would not have given up manchuria. we would have two powers in the far east today. taiwan had been taken by japan and as a result of the sino japanese war in 1895, they had taiwan. ever since that, all the way to the end of the war. taiwan never part of the chinese regime. and in power today. and that's a point that people have to think about, he was never taiwan was never part of

the chinese government, but exist today. this is a. son. this isn't really a question. it's just an elaboration on. back to midway, the destroyer that our aircraft ended up following that got him to the carriers. i've read that that destroyer there because it was chasing a u.s. submarine and that submarine hadn't been there. the destroyer wouldn't have been there. therefore, nobody to follow is just like you're saying. it's interesting, many dominoes had to fall into place to make all that happen. who saw part of the hail mary that went into the end zone? if it hadn't been for that destroyer, the whole thing would have been different than the japanese were all ready to launch a massive attack. even with the one carrier there was knocked out by yorktown. they had three carriers left,

all ready to go. dale back on chiang kai shek a moment. he was obvious lee working very hard at every diplomatic angle, all over the world at the same time trying to gather support. he was fighting a civil war at the same time, he was trying to repel the japanese things were very fluid, very complicated, and since he had the boots on the ground view, he in a fight for his life. so he was really highly motivated looking at alternative history here and what would have happened if we had not entered the war. that there were elements in japan who would like very much to have had asia, east asia, east asians. they wanted to expel foreigners

and wanted to have the japanese be in control. korea and china and indochina as well. so there were things that went on there that were really kind of getting under the skin of some of the american moderates, even we were unhappy about what had happened in manchuria, nanking, indochina. do you think that if we had kept our hands off that the japanese would have consolidated power and gradually would have formed a liberal society there and they would have been benevolent dictators controlling east asia and everything would have been fine. or do you think at some point we would have been forced to go in there and straighten things out some other way? i think it's, you know, speculations are so difficult.

i don't see them becoming very benevolent. they never were. it would this sort of in your suggestion, i think would have taken a long time. we don't see that happening in china now. i think there would been just an autocratic control who would have continued a long time. what took the japanese by surprise, of course, was the resistance of the chinese under chiang kai shek. they originally thought that their attack to china would be over in three months. well, it wasn't over in three months. it is still going after four years. they were bogged down and they were looking for a way out and that was part their negotiating position with us in 1941. all right, any other questions. all right, dale, thank you so

much. this has been a great having you out here. diplomats and admirals is released december 1st. that is today and in bookstores, hopefully everywhere and certainly in our bookstore down. thank you so much. coming out, if you have a copy of the book, said he would sign them. i know i'm going to get mine signed and i just want to extend another thank you too to our guests, our panelists and to dale personally for putting this together. and that came to our our little review of the book. so you very much have a great