WARNINGS
Warnings do no harm and might do inexpressible good

    * 27 January 1941, Dr. Ricardo Shreiber, the Peruvian envoy in Tokyo told 
Max Bishop, third secretary of the US embassy that he had just learned from his intelligence sources that there was a war plan involving a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. This information was sent to the State Department and Naval Intelligence and to Admiral Kimmel at Hawaii.

    * 31 March 1941 - A Navy report by Bellinger and Martin predicted that if Japan made war on the US, they would strike Pearl Harbor without warning at dawn with aircraft from a maximum of 6 carriers. For years Navy planners had assumed that Japan, on the outbreak of war, would strike the American fleet wherever it was. The fleet was the only threat to Japan 's plans. Logically, Japan couldn't engage in any major operation with the American fleet on its flank. The strategic options for the Japanese were not unlimited.

    * 10 July - US Military Attache Smith-Hutton at Tokyo reported Japanese Navy secretly practicing aircraft torpedo attacks against capital ships in Ariake Bay. The bay closely resembles Pearl Harbor.

    * July - The US Military Attache in Mexico forwarded a report that the Japanese were constructing special small submarines for attacking the American fleet in Pearl Harbor, and that a training program then under way included towing them from Japan to positions off the Hawaiian Islands, where they practiced surfacing and submerging.

    * 10 August 1941, the top British agent, code named "Tricycle", Dusko Popov, told the FBI of the planned attack on Pearl Harbor and that it would be soon. The FBI told him that his information was "too precise, too complete to be believed. The questionnaire plus the other information you brought spell out in detail exactly where, when, how, and by whom we are to be attacked. If anything, it sounds like a trap." He also reported that a senior Japanese naval person had gone to Taranto to collect all secret data on the attack there and that it was of utmost importance to them. The info was given to Naval IQ.

    * Early in the Fall, Kilsoo Haan, an agent for the Sino-Korean People's League, told Eric Severeid of CBS that the Korean underground in Korea and Japan had positive proof that the Japanese were going to attack Pearl Harbor before Christmas. Among other things, one Korean had actually seen the plans. In late October, Haan finally convinced US Senator Guy Gillette that the Japanese were planning to attack in December or January. Gillette alerted the State Department, Army and Navy Intelligence and FDR personally.

    * 24 September 1941, the "bomb plot" message in J-19 code from Japan Naval Intelligence to Japan' s consul general in Honolulu requesting grid of exact locations of ships pinpointed for the benefit of bombardiers and torpedo pilots was deciphered. There was no reason to know the EXACT location of ships in harbor, unless to attack them - it was a dead giveaway. Chief of War Plans Turner and Chief of Naval Operations Stark repeatedly kept it and warnings based on it prepared by Safford and others from being passed to Hawaii. The chief of Naval Intelligence Captain Kirk was replaced because he insisted on warning HI. It was lack of information like this that lead to the exoneration of the Hawaii commanders and the blaming of Washington for unpreparedness for the attack by the Army Board and Navy Court. At no time did the Japanese ever ask for a similar bomb plot for any other American military installation. Why the Roosevelt administration allowed flagrant Japanese spying on PH has never been explained, but they blocked 2 Congressional investigations in the fall of 1941 to allow it to continue. The bomb plots were addressed to "Chief of 3rd Bureau, Naval General Staff", marked Secret Intelligence message, and given special serial numbers, so their significance couldn't be missed. There were about 95 ships in port. The text was: "Strictly secret".

"Henceforth, we would like to have you make reports concerning vessels

along the following lines insofar as possible:

"1. The waters (of Pearl Harbor ) are to be divided roughly into five

subareas (We have no objections to your abbreviating as much as you like.)

"Area A. Waters between Ford Island and the Arsenal.

"Area B. Waters adjacent to the Island south and west of Ford Island.

(This area is on the opposite side of the Island from Area A.)

"Area C. East Loch .

"Area D. Middle Loch .

"Area E. West Loch and the communication water routes.

"2. With regard to warships and aircraft carriers, we would like to have

you report on those at anchor (these are not so important) tied up at

wharves, buoys and in docks. (Designate types and classes briefly. If

possible we would like to have you make mention of the fact when

there are two or more vessels along side the same wharf.)"

    * Simple traffic analysis of the accelerated frequency of messages from various Japanese consuls gave a another identification of war preparations, from Aug-Dec there were 6 messages from Seattle, 18 from Panama, 55 from Manila and 68 from Hawaii.

    * Oct. - Soviet top spy Richard Sorge, the greatest spy in history, informed Kremlin that Pearl Harbor would be attacked within 60 days. Moscow informed him that this was passed to the US. Interestingly, all references to Pearl Harbor in the War Department's copy of Sorge's 32,000 word confession to the Japanese were deleted. NY Daily News, 17 May 1951.

    * 16 Oct. - FDR grossly humiliated Japan's Ambassador and refused to meet with Premier Konoye to engineer the war party, lead by General Tojo, into power in Japan.

    * 1 Nov. - JN-25 Order to continue drills against anchored capital ships to prepare to "ambush and completely destroy the US enemy. "The message included references to armor-piercing bombs and 'near surface torpedoes."

    * 13 Nov. - The German Ambassador to US, Dr. Thomsen an anti-Nazi, told US IQ that Pearl Harbor would be attacked.

    * 14 Nov. - Japanese Merchant Marine was alerted that wartime recognition signals would be in effect Dec 1.

    * 22 Nov. - Tokyo said to Ambassador Nomura in Washington about extending the deadline for negotiations to November 29: "...this time we mean it, that the deadline absolutely cannot be changed. After that things are automatically going to happen."

    * CIA Director Allen Dulles told people that US was warned in mid-November that the Japanese Fleet had sailed east past Tokyo Bay and was going to attack Pearl Harbor . CIA FOIA

    * 23 Nov. - JN25 order - "The first air attack has been set for 0330 hours on X-day." (Tokyo time or 8 A.M. Honolulu time)

    * 25 Nov. - British decrypted the Winds setup message sent Nov. 19. The US decoded it Nov. 28. It was a J-19 Code message that there would be an attack and that the signal would come over Radio Tokyo as a weather report - rain meaning war, east (Higashi) meaning US.

    * 25 Nov. - Secretary of War Stimson noted in his diary "FDR stated that we were likely to be attacked perhaps as soon as next Monday." FDR asked: "the question was how we should maneuver them into the position of firing the first shot without too much danger to ourselves. In spite of the risk involved, however, in letting the Japanese fire the first shot, we realized that in order to have the full support of the American people it was desirable to make sure that the Japanese be the ones to do this so that there should remain no doubt in anyone's mind as to who were the aggressors."