America at war! (1941--) -- Part 2

Record of Presidential Press Conference No. 898, 10:50 a.m.

Washington, May 21, 1943.

Confidential
[Extracts]

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Q. Mr. President, you have had a number of recent conferences with Dr. (T. V.) Soong. Is there anything you can tell us about that?

THE PRESIDENT: I don’t think so. There isn’t any particular news, one way or another.

Q. I wondered if there was anything special you had up between you?

THE PRESIDENT: No. I suppose the– the principal thing relates to getting war materials of all kinds into China.

Q. Did you say more material?

THE PRESIDENT: War materials – and medical things – things of that kind. That is going along pretty well.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Q. Mr. President, is there anything you can tell us about the visit of Prime Minister Mackenzie King (of Canada) here?

THE PRESIDENT: I don’t think so. He is just– just down here on the same– same thing that everybody else is here – furtherance of the war. I am seeing him again this morning.

Q. Mr. President, back to Dr. Soong, we have noticed that he has been in here, particularly since Prime Minister Churchill arrived. Could you say if your talks with the Prime Minister concerned something about China?

THE PRESIDENT: Oh, sure. We talked about China. It isn’t the only place we have been talking about.

Q. Mr. President, when you referred to the majority of our forces, you were speaking then of a majority of these forces which are outside the continental United States?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, yes.

MR. GODWIN: (aside) How about it?

Q. Mr. President, any sort of progress report you can give us on your talks with the Prime Minister (Churchill)?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I suppose the best way to put it is this: that, so far, most of the work has been done by the Combined Staffs. And they have been at it, and we expect to get some preliminary recommendations from the Combined Staffs – you might call them tentative recommendations – probably in tonight’s meeting. Then those will be gone over – and I might say the Combined Staffs have been getting along extremely well – and then over the weekend we will be going over them, and take up the preliminary recommendations next week and iron out any kinks that are in them and make them final.

Q. Mr. President, has any consideration been given to the political future of Italy?

MR. GODWIN: (aside) What?

THE PRESIDENT: Unconditional surrender. I think that—

Q. (interposing) Thank you, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: (continuing)—speaks for itself.

Q. Thank you.

Q. Thank you, Mr. President.

MR. GODWIN: Italy?

THE PRESIDENT: What?

MR. GODWIN: Italy?

THE PRESIDENT: Italy.

MR. GODWIN: He asked about Italy?

THE PRESIDENT: Unconditional surrender.

Leahy-Soong meeting

Present
United States China
Admiral Leahy Foreign Minister Soong

Soong spoke of Burma and made a “categorical statement” that Chinese forces would not undertake a campaign in Burma unless an attack were launched on Rangoon.

Roosevelt-Mackenzie King meeting, 12:30 p.m.

Present
United States Canada
President Roosevelt Prime Minister Mackenzie King

This was a farewell meeting between the President and the Prime Minister. Matters discussed included Roosevelt’s letter of May 5, 1943, to Stalin asking the Soviet leader for an informal meeting, and Roosevelt’s proposal for a summer trip to Canada.

Roosevelt-Churchill luncheon meeting, 1 p.m.

Present
United States United Kingdom
President Roosevelt Prime Minister Churchill
Mr. Hopkins

The Pittsburgh Press (May 21, 1943)

YANKS HAMMER U-BOAT BASES
12 Fortresses lost in raid on Nazi ports

Emden, Wilhelmshaven hit; RAF bombs Berlin for second night

Jap Navy commander killed

Yamamoto said he would dictate peace terms in White House
By the United Press

His_Excellency_Admiral_Yamamoto_Isoroku O Norman
Adm. Yamamoto

Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, who boasted that he would dictate peace terms in the White House, died in aerial combat, Radio Tokyo disclosed today in broadcasts suggesting that the foremost Jap naval commander was killed, possibly by Americans, while directing a South Pacific battle.

Gosh!

Washington (UP) –
President Roosevelt was informed at his press conference today about the death of Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, the Jap naval leader who had promised to write the final terms of American surrender in the White House.

Mr. Roosevelt’s comment: “Gosh!”

The broadcasts did not fix specifically how the 59-year-old commander-in-chief of Japan’s fleet was killed except that it was on a “foremost front” and that Yamamoto, a flier, had gone up to lead the fight himself.

A Tokyo report heard in Chungking fixed the approximate place and said that the time was mid-April. The South Pacific might mean anywhere along the broad front where U.S. fliers, with the aid of Australians, are holding Allied outposts.

One of Japan’s top air leaders, Yamamoto was chief of the Jap fleet from which the fliers embarked to pull the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor that sent Japan and the United States into war.

Jap Navy Minister Adm. Shigetarō Shimada, in a statement reported by a Dōmei (Jap) News Agency dispatch, said Yamamoto’s service would be “remembered forever by every Japanese,” and that his death would not shake the fleet but would “redouble determination to crush the enemy.”

Yamamoto was “personally directing the operations in an airplane which engaged the enemy” at the time of his death, a broadcast said.

Nazis broadcast

A DNB (German) broadcast from Tokyo said Yamamoto:

…died a hero’s death in battle aboard an aircraft carrier in April while directing operations from a foremost line.

The dispatch was broadcast by Berlin radio.

The Federal Communications Commission said Tokyo reported that Adm. Mineichi Koga was named to succeed Yamamoto as the highest Jap naval officer.

Long high in Jap naval circles, Yamamoto made his peace terms boast almost a year before the Dec. 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. The boast was revealed by Dōmei (Jap) News Agency in a Tokyo broadcast 10 days after Pearl Harbor. The same broadcast credited Yamamoto with carrying out “the strategy of surprise” at Pearl Harbor.

Yamamoto was quoted as writing to a friend in a letter dated Jan. 24, 1941:

I am looking forward to dictating peace to the United States in the White House at Washington.

The announcement of his death was brief. Tokyo said:

Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander-in-Chief of the Japanese Combined Fleet, is dead. This was announced in a communiqué issued at 3 p.m. (Tokyo Time) this Friday afternoon by the Imperial Headquarters.

Dies in plane

The broadcast then described it as:

…a gallant death on the foremost front in April of this year while he was personally directing the operations in an airplane which engaged the enemy.

The FCC said that the Tokyo announcer choked, as if weeping, when he read the death notice and that he had to break off. The radio filled in with a wrestling match broadcast.

The Berlin broadcast said Emperor Hirohito made Yamamoto a marshal in posthumous promotion and that the funeral would be observed as a day of national mourning. The date of the funeral was not given.

Koga, a member of the Jap Navy General Staff and former commander of the Jap fleet units in Chinese waters, is already in command of the Combined Fleet, the FCC recording said.

Yamamoto, who lost several fingers in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, was an expert flier. He was a small, vigorous man and formerly headed the Jap Navy’s Aviation Division.

His letter reported by Dōmei said he would not be content with capturing Guam, the Philippines and with plans to occupy “Hawaii and San Francisco,” in case of war with the United States. He wanted, he said, to go back to Washington where he was once a naval attaché and dictate terms from the President’s residence.

Yamamoto was a delegate to the London Naval Conferences of 1930 and 1934 where he argued that Japan should be allowed a bigger navy.

Helps to wreck parley

That conference broke up amid the wreckage of the 5:5:3 limitation on the ratio of British, U.S. and Jap shipbuilding – a wreckage Yamamoto helped to create.

Before that, he had had an opportunity to study America during residence as Washington naval attaché shortly after World War I and again from 1925 to 1927. But as late as 1938, he promised, as Jap Navy Vice Minister, that Japan “will not engage in a building race” and “has never contemplated building a navy for the purpose of crossing the ocean to engage in conflict.”

He became Commander-in-Chief of the Japanese Combined Fleet and of the Japanese Navy’s 1st Fleet on August 30, 1939. At that time, dispatches from Tokyo noted that he was credited with doing most of the work in building up the country’s air arm.

Thus, he took part in all of the planning that went into Japan’s war strategy and was the chief of the Navy that drove to such far-flung outposts as New Guinea and Timor in the Southwest Pacific and to Attu in the Aleutians.

Yamamoto was born April 4, 1884, in Nagaoka City, the sixth son of Takano Teikichi. He graduated from the Japanese Military Academy at 20, taking part in the Russo-Japanese War the next year and being wounded at the Battle of Tsushima on May 28, 1905.

His rise in the Japanese Navy after 1920 was rapid. Part of his work was along technical lines in ships and aircraft. In 1936, he became Vice Minister of the Navy and Chief of Aviation in May 1938.

A Tokyo broadcast recorded by the FCC on April 7 last said he was a “great poker player” and talked about how he had “called the bluff” of Great Britain and United States. The date of that broadcast gave rise to speculation that he was killed sometime after that.

Talk of offensive

Yamamoto’s death came during a month when the Japs were strengthening their air forces, particularly in the Southwest Pacific, and throwing increasingly heavy raids at Allied outposts.

In April, the Japs talked of a new and great offensive to knock out the Allies – an offensive that so far has failed to develop. None of the Allied announcements of Pacific action during April mentioned a Jap aircraft carrier. Some may have been used to base Navy planes which Tokyo radio said attacked various Allied bases.

The Japs lost heavily both in the South and Southwest Pacific during April, as many as 37 of 98 planes being shot down in an engagement April 7 off Guadalcanal. There was nothing to indicate which of the many engagements cost Yamamoto his life.

Striking from Africa –
Yanks destroy 113 Axis planes

Italian bases raided; dam in Sardinia blasted
By C. R. Cunningham, United Press staff writer

Trapped Japanese dig in for last-ditch Attu stand

Enemy driven into 15-mile-square pocket, pounded from land, air

B and C gas cuts planned

Screws tightened here, police crack down on motorists


Official admits –
‘OPA cracking at the seams’

Criticism of policies grows in fury
By Arthur F. Degreve, United Press staff writer

28,500 urged to end strike at Chrysler tank arsenal

Politics of high UAW officials foment stoppages, member of union charges

If public buys sensibly –
No rationing of clothing likely in 1943, Nelson says

Danger removed at least for this year as changes in manufacture, sales are made
By Jewel Spangler, United Press staff writer

Tax conferees bog down again in uncertainty

Agreement unlikely without definite word from President

Nye demands victory before peace talks

Flood damage in millions in Midwest

Six states battle against unprecedented crests; Army camps aid
By the United Press

Solution near on mystery of Nazi Air Force

If they have any power left, they’ll need it in Mediterranean
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer

Davies’ flight to Moscow believed highly successful

Evidence in Soviet capital indicates approval; Stalin receives Roosevelt envoy quickly
By Henry Shapiro, United Press staff writer

Final decisions due next week, President says

Roosevelt says he and Churchill will iron out kinks

Yamamoto called best Jap military, naval strategist

By Robert Bellaire, United Press staff writer

The following closeup of the late Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto was written by the manager of the former United Press Bureau in Tokyo who was interned by the Japs at the start of the war. He returned to the United States in the exchange of diplomats and newspapermen.

New York –
Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto was probably the greatest military and naval strategist Japan ever had, and his death is a blow to Japan comparable to what the loss of Gen. Douglas MacArthur would be to the United States.

Outside of Premier Tōjō, Yamamoto was the best known and most popular of Japan’s war leaders. He was a poker player, a heavy drinker and a hard-hitting fighting man, a man who would go personally into air combat anytime.

There is no question but what he got close to Pearl Harbor during the sneak attack of Dec. 7. How close no one knows for sure, but the report he sent back is known. It was couched in poker lingo and it read:

America had a full house but we had a royal flush.

His death – and I suspect it may have been harikari – may well explain what happened to that long-expected all-out Jap offensive in the Pacific. He was the brains of any Jap offensive.

Yamamoto frequently said that he would take his own life by harikari rather than lose any Jap territory. He repeated that in a statement when Gen. MacArthur came out of the Philippines – a hero in defeat.

Regardless of how he died, Yamamoto’s death would force a new man to take over the projected offensive and that would cause delay. The offensive hasn’t started and meanwhile the United States has had a chance to get underway in the Aleutians.

Thus, Yamamoto’s death may have a very strange bearing on what happens next in the Pacific.

In June 1942, when the Japs moved toward Midway and the Aleutians. Yamamoto took the defeat of Midway very hard. He talked very little about the whole operations. When he did, he referred to the Aleutians as the main scene. There was the gain. But Midway he termed a diversion. There was the defeat.

At the end he said the Aleutians had to be covered “because they are the pathway to Washington.”

About two years ago, I had a long talk with Yamamoto about the comparative morale of the U.S. and Jap Navies. Our Navy, he told me, was a “social navy of bridge players and golf players – a peacetime navy.” The Japanese, he said were so high in morale they would take their own lives rather than live in disgrace after defeat.

After Pearl Harbor, the Jap newspapers carried dispatches about how Yamamoto, out with a fleet unit, would toss his empty liquor and beer bottles into the water after sinking an American ship. It was his peculiar way of paying tribute to the dead sailors.

His successor, Mineichi Koga, is a very different man, more in the old Samurai tradition, the frugal warrior class. But he is also an able strategist.

Plane repair bases built in South Pacific

One Navy plant as big as any in U.S.; trek back to States saved
By B. J. McQuaid


Push in Pacific by fall hinted

Smaller Allies comforted by assurances

Saturation bombing called key to strategy of Allies

Aviation editor sees indication in Churchill’s promise to plaster Germany, Japan
By William B. Ziff, written for the United Press