12-7-19

12/7/91 #2   HATONN

 

LET'S REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR?"

Segment 2, Mike Blair

The reason these articles are in separate writings is that they were not all written as a single document but now appear as an "OVERVIEW".  We shall effort to keep them in the same "order" as originally presented.

SUICIDE MISSION TO SPARK WAR

In his perfidious efforts to get the United States into a Pacific war with Japan and thus involve millions of American servicemen in Britain's European war with Germany and her allies, President Franklin Roosevelt burned the lights late at the White House, concocting wild schemes.

Roosevelt called a top-secret meeting at the White House on December 1, 1941, to discuss means to induce the Japanese to initiate hostilities against the United States.

The meeting was reportedly attended by key presidential adviser Harry Hopkins, Secretary of State Cordell Hull, and Adm. Harold Stark, Chief of Naval Operations.

Years later, Frederick Sanborn, a noted historian of FDR's for years, stated the key issue discussed was how to create an "incident", in which the Japanese would attack a U.S. warship and thus provide Roosevelt a pretext for asking Congress for a declaration of war.

Stark was tasked with carrying out the decision made by FDR at the meeting.  The following day, December 2, the Department of the Navy dispatched the following top-secret message to Adm. Thomas C. Hart, Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet:

President directs the following be done as soon as possible and within two days, if possible, after receipt of this dispatch.  Charter 3 small vessels to form a "defensive information patrol" Minimum requirements to establish identity as U.S. men-of-war are command by a naval officer and to mount a small gun and one machine gun would suffice.  Filipino crews may be employed with minimum number naval ratings to accomplish the purpose which is to observe and report by radio Japanese movements in West China Sea and Gulf of Siam.  One vessel to be stationed between Hainan and Hue, one vessel off the Indo-China coast between Camranh Bay and Cape St. Jacques and one vessel off Pointe de Camau.  Use of Isabel authorized by president as one of the three but not other naval vessels.  Report measures taken to carry out president's views.  At same time inform me what reconnaissance measures are being regularly performed at sea by both Army and navy whether by air, surface vessels or submarines and your opinion as to the effectiveness of these latter measures.

'COCKLESHELL WARSHIPS'

Sanborn noted that "on December 1, 1941, Mr. Roosevelt very secretly issued the needless order to send the cockleshell warships to their appointed positions of destruction."

The entire deplorable episode of how FDR planned to bait the Japanese into firing upon three almost defenseless U.S. vessels and thus provide him a reason to ask for a declaration of war is detailed in a book, Cruise of the Lanikai: Incident to War, which was published in 1973 by retired Rear Adm. Kemp Tolley who, as a young lieutenant, had been assigned the task of commanding one of the "cockleshell warships".

Tolley's "man-of-war", a two-masted sailing ship with a top speed of seven knots, had been commissioned the USS Hermes in 1914.  It was decommissioned in 1926 as being unfit for naval duty.

In 1937, the sailing ship had been used by Hollywood producers for the film Hurricane starring Dorothy Lamour and Jon Hall.

On December 6, 1941, the day before the Pearl Harbor attack, the old Hermes was recommissioned the USS Lanikai, a man-of-war, in line with the definition required by FDR, complete with a Spanish-American War three-pounder deck gun and two Lewis machine guns of the World War I era.

NO RADIO ABROAD

For those who believe the little ship was meant to just spy on the Japanese and send back reports of what it spotted, it should be noted that the Lanikai was not even equipped with a radio, according to Tolley.

The Lanikai sailed from Manila to Corregidor, where it was waiting for dawn to begin its mission when word reached the Philippines of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

The mission was scrapped, and Tolley was ordered to sail his ship to Australia and never to discuss the mission with anyone.

Arriving in Australia in March, 1942, Tolley was subsequently awarded a Bronze Star for heroism in bringing his ship to safety, while the Philippines fell to the Japanese.

Tolley, who went on to a distinguished career of naval service, later had the opportunity to discuss his mission with Hart, who had been directed by Stark to carry out FDR's orders involving the three little ships.

Hart told Tolley that, yes, he had been intended as bait.  "And I could prove it", Hart said. "But I won't.  And don't you try either."

"As a war measure", Hart later told Rear Adm. John Heffenan, the director of naval history, the project was very ill advised.  Pickets in such locations could not be useful because the Japanese were bound to have them marked down which would mean no chance to let them see anything of value."

ONE SHIP SAILED

One ship, the Isabel, actually was dispatched on December 3 with Lieutenant John Walker Payne Jr. in command.

Two days later the ship's crew spotted a Japanese aircraft, No. Z126, which circled the Isabel several times, prompting Payne to order battle stations.

However, the Japanese seemed interested only in taking photographs, and the ship's crew did the same.  Some hours later, the coast of Indo-China was spotted about 22 miles away.  A scant 10 minutes afterward, the Isabel, which was equipped with a radio, received a message to return immediately to Manila.

Upon arriving at Manila on December 8, the Isabel crew learned of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

There are no records available indicating the third "cockleshell warship" was ever selected for FDR's suicide missions to involve America in World War II.

CONFIRMED: FDR DELIBERATELY SOUGHT TO GOAD TOKYO INTO WAR

Japan might never have attacked Pearl Harbor and December 7, 1941, might not have become, as President Franklin Roosevelt originally described it, "a day of infamy" in American history, if a once top-secret plan of the president had been implemented.

Research into the archives by a number of respected historians has recently revealed that months before the Japanese attack on America's giant naval base in the Hawaiian Islands, FDR had planned some "sneak attack" plans of his own--to bomb Tokyo with American-built and piloted aircraft bearing the insignia of the Nationalist Chinese Air Force.

Roosevelt conspired with then-Col. Claire Lee Chennault, later to achieve fame as the commander of the legendary "Flying Tigers", and Chinese leaders, at least as early as 1940, to bomb Tokyo and other Japanese cities.  At the time, Chennault was an advisor for the Chinese Air Force.

Roosevelt personally ordered 18 Lockheed A-29 Hudson bombers be assigned to Chennault for the surprise attacks.  When the Japanese hit Pearl Harbor on December 7, the American Hudsons were in Burbank, California, the site of Lockheed Aircraft's major production facility, awaiting shipment to the Far East.

WANTED B-17'S

Had Roosevelt had his way, the attack would have been made with heavy four-engine Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses instead of the Hudson light bombers.

On the day of the Pearl Harbor attack, 49 ground crewmen for the Hudsons, including mechanics, were aboard a ship bound for the Far East.  The vessel was diverted to Australia when it was learned the Japanese had struck the U.S. naval base and other military installations in Hawaii.

Apparently the bombers' aircrews had been in China about a month, awaiting delivery of their planes and the arrival of the ground support personnel.

The Lockheed Hudson was built primarily for export to Britain under the so-called U.S. Lend-Least aid plan, which provided weapons and munitions for the British and other nations at war with Germany and the other Axis powers in Europe.

The aircraft was a light twin-engine bomber with a top speed of about 275 miles per hour and a bomb load capacity of about 1,400 pounds.  The version intended for Chennault's attack force was believed to be the advanced Hudson MKIIIA, which was equipped with powerful 1,200-horsepower Wright Cyclone engines and extended-range fuel tanks in the wings.

Actually the Hudson was a derivation of the famous Lockheed Electra transport plane.

EARHART MISSION

Ironically it was a Lockheed Electra that famed aviatrix Amelia Earhart had used on her ill-fated around-the-world flight in 1937.  There has been considerable speculation, and some evidence, Miss Earhart was really on a spy mission for FDR targeted against the Japanese mandated islands of the Pacific (former German possessions turned over to the Japanese at the end of World War I) when her plane went down and she disappeared.  [H: This is indeed true and it is, further, why any reasonable information has been totally blotted out and direct investigation refused.]

Chennault, a rugged Texan known as "Old Leather Face" due to his rough complexion from year of flying open-cockpit aircraft, joined the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War I and later commanded a squadron of open-cockpit pursuit planes in Hawaii.  He studied pursuit tactics, particularly those of World War I German ace Oswald Boelcke, and had written a textbook on the subject.

In 1937 Chennault, suffering from partial deafness, resigned his captain's commission in the U.S. Air Corps to accept an invitation from Madame Chiang Kai-Shek, wife of the Generalissimo and Chinese Nationalist leader, to train and organize the Chinese Air Force.  He was given the Chinese rank of colonel.

In the fall of 1940, Chennault and Chinese Gen. P.T. Mow flew to Washington to get help for the Chinese Air Force, which was no match for the powerful Japanese air armada that was hammering China.

SOUGHT $300 MILLION

Chennault, Mow and Chinese Foreign Minister T.V. Soong asked the Roosevelt administration for U.S. ground crews, training planes, parts and field equipment and advanced schemes for purchasing arms and combat aircraft.  Soong proposed a joint British and American loan of up to $300 million to set up the Chinese Air Force, including B-17 bombers "to sink the Japanese navy".

The details of the proposal are well documented in a little-known report of the Historical Division, Department of the Army, written in 1953 by researchers Charles Romanus and Rile Sunderlane.

Through Thomas Corcoran (Tommy the Cork), one of Roosevelt's original "brain trusters", Chennault was put in touch with the president.  With the help of Corcoran, Chennault and Roosevelt reached an agreement to organize the American Volunteer Group (AVG) for China.

Under a secret executive order signed by Roosevelt on April 15, 1941, which circumvented the wishes of the Congress, U.S. military personnel were authorized to resign from the U.S. services to join the AVG, which eventually evolved into the famous "Flying Tigers".

TOP ASSISTANT

Corcoran, who was one of Roosevelt's two top executive assistants at the time, left his White House job, at FDR's request, and took up a private law practice.  China quickly became his biggest client.

Until now, the part played by another American friend of Roosevelt has missed the attention of historians.

However, Bob Fausel, a demonstration and test pilot at Curtiss-Wright Corp. during the early 1940's, recently detailed the efforts of his friend, Bill Pawley, U.S. Ambassador to Peru and Brazil.

Fausel broke the air speed record in June 1941 by flying a Curtiss P-40 fighter in a vertical dive at 661 miles per hour.  The P-40 became legendary as the fighter aircraft of the "Flying Tigers", its well-known gaping tiger's mouth emblazoned on its engine cowling.

Fausel recently related in an issue of the Winter Park (Florida) Observer the mysterious part played by his friend Pawley in setting up the AVG.

In 1938 I accepted an assignment to demonstrate two Curtiss aircraft in China.  One was the Hawk 75-Q, designed to carry two 23-mm Madsen cannons Col. Chennault wanted for sinking Japanese riverboats bringing their logistic supplies up the Yangtze River.  The plane also carried two .50-caliber machine guns.  The other was the CW-21 interceptor.  Bill Pawley was president of the Intercontinental Corp. at that time and was the agent for Curtiss-Wright airplanes and engines in China.

Pawley had talks with Col. Chennault, Gen. P.T. Mow (Mme. Chiang's advisor who later absconded to Brazil with millions of Nationalist Chinese dollars), Gen. Chow (chief of the Air Force), Dr. H.H. Hung and T.V. Soong.

Pawley had an office in Hong Kong and one in New York.  He spent a lot of time commuting from Hong Kong since he was building a new plant.  Central Aircraft Manufacturing Corp., in Loi Wing, where a runway has been built to my specifications.

Actually the armaments were sold to China through a front, China Defense Supplies Inc., a purchasing group set up at FDR's suggestion.  It was headed by William Youngman, again at FDR's direction.  Roosevelt asked Youngman to leave his post as head of the Federal Power Commission to take the new assignment.

Since the United States was not yet at war with Japan and therefore could not deal openly with China as a co-belligerent, it was decided all arrangements would be made by an unofficial agency, which would also help to ensure secrecy.  Pawley's Central Aircraft Manufacturing Co. was therefore set up and given authorization to hire the air and ground crews to "operate, service and manufacture aircraft in China".

SOUGHT U.S. AID

Fausel relates that in June 1939 he had taken the same Pan-American China Clipper flight back to the United States from China with Pawley, Pawley's secretary and a Dr. Buck, whom he identified as an "economist and financial adviser on Chiang Kai-Shek's staff".

"He (Buck) said his business involved groundwork for getting financial support from the U.S.A. for China", Fausel said.

Under the rules of the Geneva Convention, U.S. pilots were not supposed to be fighting in China; and they were instructed; "You'll be agents for the Chinese government.  In other words, we don't want to have it known, or at any rate advertised, you're going over there to fight against the Japanese or, for that matter, that you were in the U.S. forces.  In no way must it be known you're even in China with the official knowledge of the U.S. government."

Fausel related that a "friend to him of Pawley's part in the recruitment of pilots.

"He (the friend) was a second lieutenant in the 6th Pursuit Squadron at Wheeler Field, Hawaii in the fall of 1940 (more than a year before the Pearl Harbor attack)", Fausel said.  "While taking a walk along the beach at Waikiki he saw a small group of fellow pilots from Hickman and Wheeler Fields listening to a man addressing them under the old banyan tree behind the Moana Hotel.  It was Bill Pawley."

The friend explained Pawley was endeavoring to recruit the fliers for the AVG.

ASSEMBLED IN SECRET

The air and ground crews were assembled in secret in San Francisco in the summer of 1941. Special passports were arranged by the State Department and the men were listed as salesmen, teachers, actors, etc., even as undertakers.

The pay was exceptional by 1941 standards.  Pilots would get $600 per month, flight leaders would get $675 and squadron leaders would get $750.  A $500 bonus would be paid for each Japanese plane shot down.

When Roosevelt first heard of the proposal to bomb Japanese cities with American planes bearing Chinese insignia, he was elated.

"Wonderful!" he exclaimed.  "That's what I've been talking about for four years!"

FDR's Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimpson was also enthused by the proposal.

DIARY QUOTED

"I wanted so much to give those poor men, who have been fighting so hard for four years, everything we can", Stimpson wrote in his diary, the entry dated November 6, 1941--one month before the Pearl Harbor attack.

Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr. also detailed the plans in his diary.  [H: Now this is the same Morgenthau who worked out the plan with Eisenhower for the starving and killing the millions of Germans at the end of the war.]

Morgenthau wrote FDR Secretary of State Cordell Hull was "a bundle of fervor and vitality" on the bombing project.

"What we have to do, Henry", Hull confided and Morgenthau in turn related in his diary, "is to get 500 planes to start from the Aleutian Islands and fly over Japan just once... That will teach them a lesson... If only we could find some way to have them drop some bombs on Tokyo.

Fausel related that Pawley was responsible for selling "the idea of the AVG to Secretary of State Cordell Hull and also to President Roosevelt.  He worked out the arrangements with Generalissimo Chiang's staff, and I am sure he knew Gen. Henry (Hap) Arnold who had to approve the plan as well as the other top officials of the War Department."

 

Robert Schriebman, an attorney for veterans of the "Flying Tigers", who represented them in their efforts to obtain veterans benefits from the U.S. government, had unearthed a secret memo dated August 1941, five months before Pearl Harbor, from Arnold.  It notes the creation of the AVG "has the approval of the president and the War Department."

 

Morgenthau, according to researchers, confided to Lord Lothian, the British Ambassador to the United States, that he (Morgenthau) was going to try to get "four-engine bombers" and U.S. crews for the Chinese "with the understanding these bombers are to be used to bomb Tokyo and other big cities."

Morgenthau told his diary Lothian agreed the bombing "might change everything", meaning it is presumed, getting the U.S. involved in hostilities with Japan and thus dragged into Britain's war with Germany, an ally of Japan.

However, U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. George C. Marshall tossed cold water on their plans to use B-17 heavy bombers, explaining that neither the planes nor trained crews were available for such an undertaking at that time.  Thus the Lockheed Hudsons, available in large numbers, were selected for the task.

In any event, their purpose was not to flatten Tokyo and other Japanese cities but to spark war with Japan.

How strong is the evidence FDR conspired to get the United States involved in World War II through the use of air power before Pearl Harbor was attacked?

A PENTAGON ADMISSION

Last July 7, the Associated Press reported the Pentagon had ruled the supposed "volunteers" of the AVG were in reality on "active duty" in their battles in 1941, months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Air Force Brig. Gen. Ellwood P. Hinman III, according to AP, "announced the group of 'volunteers' was on 'active duty' and thus entitled to veterans status."

Armed with a secret report prepared by U.S. Army intelligence in 1942, which stated that in order "to avoid a breach of international law, the entire project (AVG) was organized as a commercial venture", columnist Patrick Buchanan noted three days after the Pentagon admission.

"Does not this secret, illegal dispatch of U.S. pilots to fight Japan constitute an impeachable act? Does it not confirm what many historians have long argued: That FDR deliberately sought to goad Tokyo into war, to embroil the United States in the Pacific, as the 'back door' through which to take us into war in Europe, a war FDR and Churchill concluded we had to fight, even though Congress voted, and the American people wanted, to stay out?" Buchanan asked.

END OF QUOTING

Let us interrupt the writing at this point and take a respite.  We have another segment but it will be more easily structured if we break it into these segments due to the length of the compiled material. I then would like to continue by sharing the "EDITORIAL" comments regarding this particular issue of the paper, SPOTLIGHT for it is indeed worthy of taking note.  It is not so much the happenings which are heinous enough to take your breath away--but the half century of continuing cover-up is without ability to imagine.  Alas, however, it is the fact of your life-streams as the adversary has laid an ever more tightly woven web in which to entrap you unsuspecting sleeping morsels for the black widow's bite.  Salu.

Hatonn to stand-by.  Dharma, please monitor the news for I want all of you to get saturated with the lie so that you can better accept TRUTH.