- Chapter
I:
-
- THE WAR PLANS
-
- During the years between the end of World
War I and the beginning of World War II there
were always a few officers at work in Washington
on the war plans of the Army and Navy. It was
the duty of these officers to study situations
that could suddenly arise in which the federal
government might resort to the use of armed
force, and to propose the courses of action
that the services should be ready to take.
From tune to time the War or Navy Department
approved one of these studies as a war plan
to guide the special plans and preparations
of their staffs and operating commands. Several
war plans were prepared jointly and approved
by both departments for the common use of the
Army and Navy.
-
- During these years national policy was deeply
influenced by popular beliefs ,relating to
national security which had in common the idea
that the United States should not enter into
military alliances or maintain military forces
capable of offensive operations. , National
policy provided a narrow basis and small scope
for military planning. During the 1920's the
United States entered into international agreements
to limit naval construction and to "outlaw"
war. In the 1930's the United States experimented
with the use of diplomatic and economic sanctions
to discourage military aggression, and with
legislation intended to keep the United States
out of European and Asiatic wars. As international
tension increased, President Franklin D. Roosevelt
became more and more anxious over the diplomatic
and military weaknesses of the United States.
But it was not until the summer of 1939 that
he took official notice of the joint war plans
of the Army and Navy. The planners had just
finished a study of the situations in which
the United States might enter a war begun by
Germany and Japan. By the outbreak of World
War II in September 1939, the Army and Navy
were hard at work on their first strategic
plan for coalition warfare, on the hypothesis
that the United States would join the European
colonial powers in defending their common interests
in the western Pacific against attack by Japan.
-
-
- The strategy of a war in the Pacific with
Japan was the only part of American military
planning that had a long, continuous history.
Since the early 1900's it had been evident
that the United States Government, if it should
ever oppose Japanese imperial aims without
the support of Great Britain and Russia, might
have to choose between withdrawal from the
Far Fast and war with Japan.
-
- After World War I the Army and Navy paid
more and more attention to just this contingency
as a result of the resurgence of Japanese imperialism,
the exhaustion of Russia and its alienation
from the Western world, the disarmament of
the United
- [1]
- States, and the withdrawal of the United
States from its temporarily close association
with the European colonial powers. In the Pacific
the Japanese had strengthened their position
early in World War I by taking the Marianas,
Carolines, and Marshalls. Japanese control
of these strategically located islands was
confirmed in 1920 by a mandate from the League
of Nations. After the Washington naval treaty
of 1922, the United States began to fall behind
Japan in the construction of new naval vessels.
-
- The Army and Navy watched with growing anxiety
during the 1930's as Japan acquired control
of Manchuria, seized strategic points on the
north China coast, and forbade access to the
mandated islands. The Japanese Government acted
with growing confidence, in the belief that
the United States, the Soviet Union, and the
European colonial powers were not likely to
take concerted action against its expansion.
In 1933 the Japanese Government exhibited this
confidence by withdrawing from the League of
Nations in the face of the Assembly's refusal
to recognize the Japanese puppet regime in
Manchuria. Having taken this step with impunity,
the Japanese Government served notice, in accordance
with the 1922 treaty terms, of its intention
to withdraw from the 1922 and 1930 naval limitations
agreements, both of which accordingly expired
in 1936.
-
- By the mid-1930's the American military planners
had finally concluded that Japan could be defeated
only in a long, costly war, in which the Philippines
would early be lost, and in which American
offensive operations would take the form of
a "progressive movement" through
the mandated islands, beginning with the Marshalls
and Carolines, to establish "a secure
line of communications to the Western Pacific."
1
The planners then faced the question
of whether the makers of national policy meant
to run the risk and incur the obligation of
engaging in such a war. The Mate Department
had not relaxed its opposition to Japanese
expansion on the Asiatic continent. This opposition,
for which there was a good deal of popular
support, involved an ever-present risk of armed
conflict.
-
- After the passage of the Philippine Independence
Act (Tydings-McDuffie bill) in 1934, the belief
gained ground in the War Department that the
United states should not run the risk nor incur
the obligation of fighting the Japanese in
the western Pacific. When the question finally
came up in the fall of 193;1, the Army planners
took the position that the United States should
no longer remain liable for a fruitless attempt
to defend and relieve the Philippines and the
costly attempt to retake them. The senior Army
planner, Brig. Gen. Stanley D. Embick, stated
the case as follows:
-
- If we adopt as our peace-time frontier in
the Pacific the line Alaska-Hawaii-Panama:
- a. Our vital interests will be invulnerable.
- b. I n the wont of war with Japan we will
be free to conduct our military (including
- [2]
- naval) operations in a manner that will promise
success instead of national disaster.2
-
- This view was entirely unacceptable to the
Navy planners. The whole structure of the Navy's
peacetime planning rested on the proposition
that the fleet must he ready to take the offensive
in the Pacific should war break out. It was
out of the question for the Navy planners to
agree to give up planning offensive operations
west of Hawaii. For two years the Army and
Navy planners engaged in intermittent dispute
over the military policy on which they should
base plans for fighting a war with Japan. The
Chief of Staff of the Army, General Malin Craig,
evidently shared the views of his planners,
but he was either unable or unwilling to have
the dispute brought before the President for
decision.3
-
- The weakness of the American position in
the Far Fast and the danger of war steadily
became more apparent. The expiration of the
naval limitations agreements re-opened the
possibility that the United States might fortify
Guam, thus partially neutralizing the Japanese
position in its mandates (which were presumably
being fortified, since it had become impossible
to gain access to them or much intelligence
about them). The Congress refused to authorize
this step. In the summer of 1937 the Japanese
began an undeclared war in China--the "China
Incident"--bringing closer the moment
at which the United Mates must choose either
to accept or contest Japanese aims.
-
- The planners finally came to an agreement
by avoiding the disputed issues. Early in 1.938
they submitted a revised plan, which the joint
Board ; the Chief of Staff and the Chief of
Naval Operations) and the Secretaries at once
approved. The Navy planners agreed to eliminate
references to an offensive war, the mission
of destroying Japanese forces, and the early
movement of the fleet into the western Pacific,
in return for the agreement of the Army planners
to eliminate the proviso that any operations
west of Midway would require the specific authorization
of the President. The revised plan gave no
indication of how long it should take the Navy
to advance into the western Pacific and tacitly
recognized the hopeless position of the American
forces in the Philippines. Those forces retained
the basic mission "to hold the entrance
to MANILA BAY, in order to deny MANILA BAY
to ORANGE [Japanese] naval forces," with
little hope of reinforcement.4
- [3]
-
- The rising danger of war with Japan was in
keeping with the growing insecurity of all
international relations during the 1930's.
Every nation with which the United States had
extensive political and economic: relations
was affected by the prolonged economic crisis
of the 1930's and by its social and political
consequences. In Europe the principal phenomena
were the renascence of German military power
and aims under the -National Socialist Party
and the passivity of the British and French
Governments, paralyzed by conflicts in domestic
politics, in the face of the new danger.
-
- In 1938 the American military staff extended
the scope of war planning to take account of
the reassertion of German imperial aims. The
immediate cause was the German demand made
on Czechoslovakia in September 1938 for the
cession of a strip of territory along the border.
The area contained a large German-speaking
minority, among whom the Nazis had recently
organized an irredentist movement in order
to create a pretext for German intervention.
The area also contained strong border defenses
and a highly developed munitions industry,
which made it by far the most important area,
for military purposes, in Central Europe.
-
- The German ultimatum, backed by German troops
mobilized on the border of Czechoslovakia,
amounted to a demand that Germany be recognized
and accepted as the dominant military power
on the Continent-an evident objective of German
domestic and foreign policy since Hitler's
accession to power in 1933. After consolidating
his power at home, Hitler had accelerated German
rearmament, reintroduced military conscription,
and remilitarized the Rhineland. Thereafter,
by forming an alliance with Italy (already
dedicated to a program of tyranny, autarchy,
chauvinism, and conquest), and by intervening
in Spain and absorbing Austria, he had greatly
strengthened the German position and weakened
the British and French position in Central
Europe and the Mediterranean. To complement
these military measures he had sought to neutralize
opposition abroad by subsidizing parallel political
movements, propaganda, and treason and by negotiating
bilateral trade arrangements and cartel agreements.
-
- The British and French Governments, weighing
the value of the French alliance with Czechoslovakia
and the Soviet Union against their own unpreparedness,
military and political, had an extremely hard
decision to make. After conferences at Berchtesgaden
and Munich, Prime Minister 1ille Chamberlain,
with the concurrence of Premier Edouard Daladier,
agreed not to oppose the German ultimatum.
In so doing, they went far to relieve Germany
of the fear of having to fight again on two
fronts at one time, for in abandoning Czechoslovakia,
which upon the loss of the Sudeten area became
indefensible, they greatly weakened the military
alliance between France and the Soviet Union.
Their decision constituted admission and resulted
in the aggravation of the political and military
weakness of their countries.
-
- After Munich the prospect of a general European
war, which had briefly seemed imminent, receded,
but the military situ-
- [4]
- ation in Europe was far more threatening
than before. President Roosevelt warned the
American people that the danger had a bearing
on the security of the United Mates and warned
the world at large that the United States recognized
this danger and would act to meet it, specifically
in the Western Hemisphere.5
His declaration carried very little
weight at home or abroad. Neither tile news
reports nor the warnings that accompanied them
greatly affected, except perhaps to confirm,
the widespread American belief, shared and
expressed by many well-known men, that the
United States need not and should not accept
the risk of being drawn into another European
war. 6
The President could neither change nor
ignore that belief. His military subordinates
were as well aware of that fact as his political
adherents and opponents and the heads of foreign
governments. Yet his evident concern licensed,
as the events obliged, the military planners
to study, within narrow limits, the possible
effects on American security of action by German,
with the support of Italy and, perhaps of Spain,
in conjunction with action by Japan.
-
- Early in November the Joint Board sent the
joint Planning Committee (JPC) the following
problem to study: . . . the various practicable
courses of action open to the military and
naval forces of the United State. in
the event of a) violation of the Monroe
Doctrine by one or more of the Fascist powers,
and (b) a simultaneous attempt to expand Japanese
influence in the Philippines.7
-
- The planners studied the problem during the
winter of 1938-39, the winter during which
the Germans annexed the rest of Czechoslovakia.
They presented the result, five and a half
months later, in April 1939. Their final report
listed the advantages Germany and Italy would
stand to gain by a violation of the Monroe
Doctrine and described the form it could be
expected to take. What Germany and Italy would
try to do would be to establish "German
and Italian regimes that would approach or
attain the status of colonies," with the
usually alleged attendant advantages-increased
trade, access to raw materials, and military
and naval bases. They might acquire bases "from
which the Panama Canal could be threatened
to an extent that pressure could be exerted
on United Mates Foreign Policies." The
probable means of German and Italian aggression
with these objectives would be "direct
support of a fascist revolution" The planners
concluded that the danger of this kind of offensive
action in the Western Hemisphere would exist
only (1) in case Germany felt assured that
Great Britain and France would not intervene;
and (2) in case Japan had already attacked
the Philippines or Guam, and even then only
in case the United States had responded
to the Japanese attack by a counteroffensive
into the western Pacific.
-
- The planners considered it quite unlikely
that in the near future Great Britain and
- [5]
- France would give Germany the necessary assurances
or that Japan would decide to attack. They
nevertheless believed that the kind of problem
posed-resulting from concerted aggression by
Germany, Italy, and Japan-was one that should
be taken into account in future planning, and
recommended steps to be taken "to overcome
salient deficiencies in our readiness to undertake
the operations that might be required." 8
This study having been approved by the joint
Board, the planners proceeded to distinguish
the principal courses of action open to the
United States as a belligerent in the crises
that seemed most likely to develop out of future
German and Japanese moves and the delayed responses
thereto in American foreign and domestic policy.
They proposed to assume that to begin with
"the Democratic Powers of Europe as well as
the Latin American States" would be neutral.
But they also proposed to set forth in each
situation that might arise "the specific cooperation
that should be sought" from these powers as
allies or as neutrals and, moreover, to provide
for possible action in case the United States
"should support or be supported by one or more
of the Democratic Powers," that is, by Great
Britain or France. 9
This projected series of new plans had a new
title-the RAINBOW plans that aptly distinguished
these plans from the "color" plans developed
in the 1920's for operations against one or
another single power (the plans for war with
Japan, for example, were called ORANGE). The
most limited plan (RAINBOW 1) would provide
for the defense of the Western Hemisphere south
to the bulge of Brazil (10° south latitude)
the Western Hemisphere being taken to include
Greenland (but not Iceland, the Azores, or
the Cape Verde Islands) to the east, and American
Samoa, Hawaii, and Wake (but not Guam or the
Philippines) to the west. Two other plans would
provide alternatively for the extension of
operations from this area either to the western
Pacific (RAINBOW 2) or to the rest of South
America (RAINBOW 3) . The directive also called
for modification of the first three plans under
the contingency (RAINBOW 4) that Great Britain
and France were at war with Germany and Italy
(and possibly Japan), in which case it was
assumed that the United States would be involved
as a major participant.10
After a few weeks' work under these terms of
reference, the joint Planning Committee concluded
that the requirements under this fourth contingency
w " different and divergent" from t in e three
basic plans that separate plans would have
to be made to deal with them. The planners
pointed out that in case of war among the great
powers-using current available forces-with
Great Britain and France, and possibly the
Soviet Union opposing Germany, Italy, and Japan,
and possibly Spain, German and Italian operations
in the western Atlantic and in South America
would be very much restricted in scope, whereas
Japanese operations in the Pacific might be
very much extended in scope. The Japanese,
if unopposed, might seize
. . . the English and French Islands in the
South Pacific, east of 180th meridian, such
as
- [6]
- Marquesas, Societies, Samoa, and Phoenix
Islands, as well as the extensive English and
French possessions in the Western Pacific,
and the United States possessions in the Pacific.
-
- The committee therefore recommended that
in addition to the three plans against the
contingency of a war with Germany, Italy, and
Japan, two plans, rather than one, should be
drawn up to (:over a war in which not only
the United States but also Great Britain and
France were involved against that coalition.
-
- One plan should provide for a large-scale
American effort against Germany; the other
for a large-scale American effort against Japan.
The committee stated these two cases as follows:
-
- The United States, England, and France opposed
to Germany, Italy, and Japan, with the United
States providing maximum participation, in
particular as regards armies in Europe.
- The United States. England, and France opposed
to Germany, Italy, and Japan, With the United
States providing maximum participation
in continental Europe, but maintaining the
Monroe Doctrine and carrying out allied Democratic
Power tasks in the Pacific.
-
- The latter of these contingencies, which
the Navy staff had independently been discussing
with the British naval staff in ever more definite
terms since 1934, the committee considered
to be peculiarly important, as involving problems
"that might conceivably press more for
answers" than all but the first, most
limited basic plan (for defending the Western
Hemisphere north of 10° south latitude). The
committee therefore recommended that it should
be placed second in order of priority in the
list of five situations to be studied, explaining:
-
- Whether or not we have any possible intention
of undertaking a war in this situation, nevertheless
we may take measures short of war, and in doing
so should clarify the possible or probable
war task that would be involved. 11
-
- On 30 June 1939 the joint Board approved
the recommended changes, including the recommended
change in order of priority. 12
The revised description of the Rainbow
plans, as approved, read as follows
- a. joint Army, and Navy Basic War Plan Rainbow
No. l:
- Prevent the violation of the letter or spirit
of the Monroe Doctrine by protecting that territory
of the Western Hemisphere from which the vital
interests of the United States can be threatened,
while protecting the United States, its possessions
and its sea-borne trade. This territory is
assumed to be any part of the Western Hemisphere
north of the approximate latitude ten degrees
south.
- 'This plan will not provide for projecting
U. S. Army Forces farther south than the approximate
latitude ten degrees south or outside of the
Western Hemisphere.
- b. Joint Army and Navy Basic War Plan Rainbow
No. 2:
- ( 1 ) Provide for the missions in a.
- ( 2 ) Under the assumption that the United
States, Great Britain. and France arc acting
in concert, on terms wherein the United States
does not provide maximum participation in continental
Europe, but undertakes, as its major share
in the concerted effort, to sustain the interests
of Democratic Powers in the Pacific, to provide
for the tasks essential to sustain these interests,
and to defeat enemy forces in the Pacific.
- [7]
- c. Joint Army and Navy Basic War Plan
- Rainbow No. 3:
-
- (1) Carry out the missions of the Joint Army
and Navy Basic War Plan--- Rainbow No. 1.
- (2) Protect United States' vital interests
in the Western Pacific by securing control
in the Western Pacific, as rapidly as possible
consistent with carrying out the rapidly in
a. d. Joint Army and Navy Basic War Plan Rainbow
No.4:
-
- (1) Prevent the violation of the letter or
spirit of the- Monroe Doctrine by protecting
all the territory and Governments of the Western
Hemisphere against external aggression while
protecting the United States, its possessions,
and its sea-borne trade. This Plan will provide
for projecting such U. S. Army Forces as necessary
to the southern part of the South American
continent or to the Eastern Atlantic.
- e. Joint Army and Navy Basic War Plan
- Rainbow No. 5:
- (1) Provide for the missions in a.
- (2) Project the armed forces of the United
States to the Eastern Atlantic and to either
or both of the African or European Continents,
as rapidly as possible consistent with carrying
out the missions in a above, in order to effect
the decisive defeat of Germany, or Italy, or
both. This plan will assume concerted action
between the United States, Great Britain, and
France. 13
-
-
- This analysis of possible courses of action
was easily adapted to the situation that existed
for several months after the outbreak of war
in Europe in September 1939. When the German
Army moved into Poland the planning staffs
were already working full time on plans for
a war in the Pacific against Japan, in which
the United States would be allied with the
European colonial powers, within the terms
of reference of RAINBOW 2. 14
Work on RAINBOW 2 went on during the
fall and winter of 1939 and into the spring
of 1940.15
During this time-the period of the German-Soviet
conquest and partition of Poland, the Soviet
war against Finland, and the "sitzkrieg"
on the Western Front-Rainbow 2 seemed to be,
as the planners had expected it to be, the
war plan most appropriate to the military situation.
Great Britain and France were at war with Germany
and its allies. They controlled northwestern
Europe and northern Africa. Their fleets controlled
the Atlantic and-though less securely-the North
Sea and the Mediterranean. It could be assumed
that only a Japanese attack would involve the
United States in war, and that, in case of
Japanese attack, the United States, while taking
precautions in the Western Hemisphere, would
set out-with the blessings of the British and
French Governments-"to sustain the interests
of Democratic Powers in the Pacific, to provide
for the tasks essential to sustain these interests,
and to defeat enemy forces in the Pacific.
16
-
- As the Joint Planning Committee had foreseen,
planning against this contingency
- [8]
- was indeed complicated. The planners faced
a war far more complex than that envisaged
in the ORANGE plan, with an immensely greater
range of possible Japanese operations to consider,
and with very difficult problem; of harmonizing
American operations with those of the forces
of Australia, New Zealand, and the European
powers concerned.
-
- The planners first had to assume how far
the Japanese would have extended their control
south and west at the moment the United States
and the other "Democratic: Powers"
began to act. The Navy planners at the outset
set up three alternative hypotheses. The first
was that Japan would not have begun moving
southward from Formosa. In that case the U.
S. Fleet might move to Manila Bay, "with
certain groups visiting Singapore, Kamranh
Bay, and Hong Kong." Ground forces might
be moved to the western Pacific at the same
time or later. The Navy planners thought that
these acts might prevent Japanese moves southward,
and hence prevent a war in the Pacific. The
second hypothesis was that Japan had taken
Hong Kong, Kamranh Bay, and begun operations
in the Netherlands Indies, that the United
States would react by moving forces to the
far Pacific, and that the Japanese in turn
would begin operations to seize Guam and the
Philippines. The third hypothesis was that
the Japanese would already have control of
the Netherlands Indies and would have forces
in position t0 Isolate Singapore and take the
Philippines. In this case, as the Army planners
pointed out, "the principal advantages
of Allied participation will have been lost
and the problem becomes essentially that of
an Orange War." 17
-
- Since extensive operations in the Southwest
Pacific seemed less likely under the first
and third hypotheses, planning for Rainbow
2 proceeded on the second hypothesis . . .
that Japan has captured Hong Kong: occupied
Kamranh Bay; dominates the coast of Indo
China and has initiated operations against
the Dutch East Indies, including British Borneo,
and that Japan has force; available to undertake
Immediate operations against Guam and the Philippines
when it becomes evident that armed forces of
the United Status will be moved in strength
to the Western Pacific.18
-
- In this ease, the main initial movement of
American forces in the Pacific would be to
Singapore and the East Indies. The Army planners
emphasized that to retake the positions occupied
by the Japanese would be a slow, step-by-step
process, and that " even day's delay"
in the arrival of American forces would allow
the Japanese to effect establishments that
may require months to dislodge." As a
result, they continued, it might be necessary
to defer operations against the mandated islands
and to take into account the danger that the
Japanese might cut the lines of communication
through the South Pacific, unless the extension
of the Japanese lines might have forced them
greatly to weaken their forces in the mandates.
To avoid this danger, American forces would
move to Singapore, not by way of the Philippines,
but by way of the South Pacific : Canton, Phoenix
- [9]
- Islands), Suva ( Fiji Islands), Simpson Harbor
( Rabaul ) , Molucca Sea, and Java Sea.19
These forces would be supplied over
the long route across the Atlantic, around
the Cape of Good Hope, and across the Indian
Ocean, although the planners expected that
the United States could and would send air
reinforcements by way of the South Pacific,
either along the route traced above or by a
more southerly route from Hawaii to Palmyra
and Christmas, Canton and Hull islands, Suva,
New Caledonia, New Guinea, Port Darwin, and
Surabaja ( Java). In this war, the joint tasks,
in concert with British, French, and Netherlands
forces, would be to establish U. S. forces
in the East Indies area, obtain control of
the area, and drive the Japanese out. The peace
settlement would entail Japanese evacuation
of Hong Kong, the Philippines, and Guam.20
-
- In trying to lay down assumptions as to the
military position of Japan at the time when
the United States would act, the planners also
ran directly into a second problem---uncertainty
as to the course of action of the European
colonial powers. By April 1940 the planners
had gone about as far as they could without
having an explicitly approved basis for assuming
what the European colonial powers would do.
This, although not prerequisite to planning
for joint action by the U. S. and British Navies-
--already well advanced on the basis of the
President's implicit approval- --was a
sine qua non even of a hypothetical exploration
of the politically explosive question of sending
U.S. Army forces to defend European colonial
possessions in the Far East. The planners had
therefore no choice but to recommend that the
United States Government should propose conversations
with the British, French, and Netherlands authoritarian
"as soon as the diplomatic situation permits."
They also recommended that the diplomatic conversations
"should be conducted in coordination with
representatives of the Chief of Staff of the
Army and the Chief of Naval Operations. 21
-
- It was logical for the planners to expect
that the role of the United States in coalition
strategy would be to protect and, if necessary,
defend and re-establish its own position and
that of the European powers in the western
Pacific. The planners had selected this hypothesis
for study after taking into account the physical
facts of the military situation at the beginning
of World War II--order of battle, distances,
and so on. So far as it went, their analysis
of the American role was correct, and it was
to play an important part in strategic planning
throughout World War II.
- [10]
- Page created 10 January 2002
Endnotes
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