Dav of Infamy: An Interview with Pearl Harbor Survivor Captain Victor Delano

Interviewer: Tom McMackin

Instructor: Mr. Alex Haight

Dale of Submission; February 12, 2007

OH MCM 2007

McMackin, Tom Tabic of Contents

Inlerviewer/Interviewee release forms 2

Statement of Purpose 3

Biography 4-5

Historical Contextualization- "The origins and events ofthc attack on Pearl Harbor" 6-26 Interview Transcription 27-54

Interview Analysis 55-59

Appendix A 60

Time Indexing Recording Log 61

Works consuhed 62-63

) St-Andrew's EPISCOPAL SCHOOL

American Century Oral History Project Interviewee Release Form

1,. Vv/cr^(< I CT^t^ - <^'XJ^l.^/^AJtP' hereby give and grant lo St. Andrew's (interviewee) Episcopal School the absolute and unqualified right to the use ofmy oral history memoir conducted by

lor--x / ^ t.'/\i^L[^i r^ on \L / ["^ / oL I understand that (student interviewer) (date)

the purpose of this project is lo collect audio- and video-taped oral histories of first-hand memories ofa particular period or event in history as part ofa classroom project (The American Century Project). I understand that these interviews (tapes and transcripts) will be deposited in the Saint Andrew's Episcopal School library and archives for the use by ftiture students, educators and researchers. Responsibility for the creation of derivative works will be at the discretion of the librarian, archivist and/or project coordinator. I also understand that the tapes and transcripts may be used in public presentations including, but not limited to, books, audio or video documentaries, slide-tape presentations, exhibits, articles, public performance, or presentation on the World Wide Web at the project's web site www.americancenturyproject.org or successor technologies. in making this contract I understand thai I am sharing with St. Andrew's Episcopal School librar>' and archives all legal title and literary property rights which I have or may be deemed to have in my interview as well as my right, title and interest in any copyright related to this oral history interview which may be secured under the laws now or later in force and effect in the Uniled States of America. This gift, however, does not preclude any use that I myself want to make of the informalion in these transcripts and recordings. I herein warrant that I have not assigned or in any manner encumbered or impaired any of the aforementioned rights in my oral memoir. The only conditions which I place on this unrestricted gif^ are:

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Signaturgnature of Intervrewce.'Donor

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8804 Postoak Road • Potomac, MD 20854 • Phone 301-983-5200 • Fax 301-983-4710 • www.saes.org McMackin 3

Statement of Purpose

Tlu'ough an oral interview wilh Captain Victor Delano, a Pearl Harbor survivor, I

hope to record and preserve his experiences concerning the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor

and its historical significance. I will not only record Captain Delano's experiences but

also attempt to analyze his perspectives within the context of what protessional historians

have wrilten about the subject. I believe il is important, since resources like Captain

Delano will nol always be available, to preserve the invaluable perspectives of the actual

witnesses ofthc landmark events in American history such as the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Without the perspectives of individuals like Captain Delano, il is impossible lo develop a

full understanding ofthc events that have shaped our history.

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Biography

Captain Victor Delano, a distant cousin of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was born on December 20''\ 1919, in Washington. His father was an officer in the United

States Navy and evenlually became the Chief of Staff for whal was known as the

"European Squadron." Captain Delano often traveled as a young child because of his father's various assignments. Wlien he was aboul five years old, Capt. Delano spent time in the Mediterranean. Laler, at the age of seven, he returned to the United Slates and took up residence with his grandparents in Wicliita, Kansas, where he attended school for two years. He then went to school in Boston for a year and in Washington for thi'ee more years. In the early thirties, Capt. Delano's father was stationed in Newport, Rhode Island.

In order to live with his father, Capt. Delano transferred to Rodger's Highsehool for tlu'ee years. He wouki spend his senior year at Severn School in Severna Park, Maryland.

Following high school, he emolled in the Uniled Slales Naval Academy. On July 2"'',

1939, Capt. Delano entered the Navy with the rank of Ensign. He was assigned to Pearl

Harbor for service on the U.S.S. West Virginia as the assistant plotting room officer, responsible for control of the battleship's 16-inehguns. Capt. Delano was at liis post on

Dec. 7, 1941, when Japan launched a surprise attack against the Pearl Harbor. Having survived the attacks, he was em*olled on the U.S.S. Pennsylvania. He would serve with distinction as a surface warfare officer aboard battleships, cruisers, and amphibious crafts. After having been involved in both World War II and the Korean War, Capt.

Delano retii*ed fi-om the Navy on Dec. 1, 1969. During his career he had been awarded two Legions of Merit, one Purple Heart, one Bronze Star, three Letters of

Coimnendation, and various other honors. Following his retirement fi-om the Navy, he McMackin 5 was the president ofa newspaper publishing company m Kansas. Currently, he alternates liis tune between Naples, Florida, and Chevy Chase, Maryland. He enjoys playing golf and spending time with his daughter, son, and grandchildren. McMackin 6

The origins and events of the attack on Pearl Harbor

The date was December 7", 1941 , and by all appearances it was nothhig bul an ordinary Sunday morning on the island of Oahu, Hawaii for lawyer and amateur pilot

Roy Vilousek. He and his son Martin had taken tlieii- small Aeronca aucraft for an early morning spin. Their flight was coming to a close when the two saw the first explosions on Ford Island, the military airstrip in the center of the nearby naval installation. Pearl

Harbor. As he descended, more explosions violently ripped through the harbor. Vilousek spotted a group of low flying aircraft darling away from the explosions. The planes approached closer, and he strained his eyes to catch a glimpse. Much to his aslonishment the vibrant red ofa rising sun was clearly distinguishable on the ftiselage of the planes.

Though he did not fiiUy understand the implications of what he saw, deep down he knew that tilings were never again going to be the same (Lord 82). That morning Roy Vilousek witnessed a landmark event m American history, Japan's surprise bombing of the United

States, wiiich would serve as the dii-ect catalyst for America's entry into World War II.

Historian Gordon Prange slated about the attack on Pearl Harbor, "It combmed so much, so suddenly, so unexpectedly, so spectacularly m such brief and tragic compass. It embraced so much which in the perspective of years slill seems inexplicable and mysterious" (XV). Prange is correct to emphasize the complex nature ofthc attack, but the attack on Pearl Harbor was not a totally unexplainable occurrence of nature; rather, it was the product ofa precisely laid oul and executed Japanese plan, as well as, on a more basic level, growing tensions belween the two great powers of the Pacific, Japan and the

United States. Consequently, in order lo better understand the events of December T\

1941, one must firsl examine the development of Japanese-American relationships, the McMackin 7 technical aspects of the attack ilself, the historical interpretations of Pearl Harbor to date, as well as gain a fii'sl-hand perspective fi"omsomeon e who was there.

To a large degree the history of Ameiica's relationship wilh Japan and, therefore the llistory of the attack on Pearl Harbor, beguis with Conmiodore Matthew C. Perry's famous expedition to the Japanese home island in 1852. President Fillmore had charged

Conmiodore Perry wilh the task of establishing relations with Japan, asking him to secure

"Iriendship, coiniiierce, a supply of coal, and provisions for our shipwrecked people"

(qtd. in Costello 14). Employing a show of bravado that impressed the industrially primitive Japanese people, Conmiodore Perry successfiilly carried out his task of charming the, as he says, "weak and semi-barbarous people" (qtd. in Costello 14) into the

Treaty of Kanagawa in 1857, which gave the Uniled Stated trading rights to five Japanese ports. Prange comments on the historical significance ofthis event in his book At Dawn

We Slept, writing, "Since Commodore Matthew Perry had opened Japan to the modern world, the two nations had enjoyed a unique history of fiiendship and mutually profitable trade" (5). Unfortunately, whatever goodwill existed between the nations could not survive the tensions created by the rise of Japan and the United States as the two imperial powers vying for ideological, economic, and strategic control of the Pacific.

In 1839 Journalist Jolm O'Sullivan coined the phi-ase "America's Manifest

Destiny" which referred to America's God-given right to expand across the continent to the Pacific. As soon as it became clear that the great West was rapidly slu'inkmg,

America began lo look beyond the West Coast towards the Pacific. After emergmg fi'om the costly Civil War, the United States' expansion efforts were greatly curtailed by a

Congress that was reluctant to sustain a large navy during the arduous Reconstruction McMackin 8

following the Civil War. Nevertheless, in 1867 William H. Seward commenced

America's path to becoming a great power in the Pacific by purchasing Alaska fi-om

Russia for $7.2 Million and annexing the Midway islands to serve as a coaling station for

the U.S. Navy Asiatic Squadron wliich was sent "to protect American interests" (Costello

16).

American expansion continued during the Republican presidency of William

McKinley in 1896 under the influence of Captain Alfred Malian, whose beliefs were

published m his 1890 book, The Influence of Sea Power upon History., in which he

argued that all great nations derived theii- power fi'om the strength of their navy, which

was the essential "midwife to commerce" (Prange 7). Mahan's theory of the necessity for

a strong navy fell on receptive ears as American business clamored for new markets. In

1898 the American Banker's Association slated, "Our capacity to produce far exceeds

our capacity to consume," and, reiterating the need for economic expansion. Brooks

Adams in his analysis America's Economic Supremacy wrote, "Easl Asia [Cliina] is the

prize for which all energetic nations are grasping" (Costello 23). Spurred on by Mahan's

ideology, the need for foreign markets, and fear of foreign powers— specifically

Germany^— monopolizing the Pacific, President William McKinley amiexed Hawaii m

1898 and proceeded to acquii-e Guam and the Philippines as spoils ofthc recently won

Spanish-American war. Historian Paul Jolmson, encapsulating the time would write,

"American mterest in Asia had grown steadily tliroughout the 19"' century" (771).

McKinley's expansionist successor, Theodore Roosevelt, continued America's

ascendancy in the Pacific. Roosevelt sent a request to Congress for the fiinds lo speed up ) ) construction of twenty-eight battleships in order lo ensure America's Iwo-to-one naval 1 I ) ) J McMackin 9 superiority in the Pacific and later he would call on Congress to double the rate of battleship production (Costello 26-27). Further, in 1907 Roosevelt did much lo enliance the reputation of the Uniled Slates Navy through his deployment of "The Great Wliite

Fleet" which was a collection of sixteen American battleships that cii-cumnavigated the globe in a spectacular fleet review. This bold show of American strength served lo cement America's reputation as a powerfiil naval presence and lo gain public support for the increased naval budget. Consequently, less then fifty years later, on the eve of World

War 11, America would be in a position of relative power in the Pacific.

Slill, America was not the only counlry that developed inlo a great force in the

Pacific since Captain Matthew Perry's 1852 expedition. By 1941 Japan had risen from its industrially primitive beginnings to a power rivaling that of the Uniled States. With its newfound economic prosperity, Japan began a period of rapid modernization. Foreign investment provided the ftmds for Japan to purchase the steel-hull and impressively gumied new battleships that were being built for the Japanese in European shipyards.

Taking a page fi-om Western diplomatic imperialism tactics, m 1876 Japan sent her collection of warships across the China Sea in order to demand concessions fi-om the independent kingdom of Korea (Caslello 16). A few years later, in 1893, Japan went to war with China in hopes of turning it in to a tributary state. In a few decisive victories the well trained and disciplined Japanese army trounced the Chinese army, but Russia, afi-aid of an overly powerfiil Japan, blocked Japan's intended domination of China and Korea

(Prange 4). In 1904, Japan again flexed ils mililary muscle by surprise-attacking the

Russian Far East Squadron as il lay at Port Arthur. In an amazmgly well coordinated attack, the Japanese landed troops who quickly captured the poi-t and embarrassingly McMackin 10 outclassed the Czar's army as they marched up the Darieii Peninsula (Costello 25). With its victories over Chma and Russia, Japan had become the dominant military force m East

Asia.

Recognizing the development ofa strong Japanese military, Britain had signed the

Anglo-Japanese treaty in 1902, and during World War I from 1914 to 1918, Japan would serve as an important ally to Great Britain, providmg naval protection to the troop- carrying ships of Australia and New Zealand as they transported soldiers lo the Middle

Eastern theater. While British planners had made use of the growing Japanese power,

Johnson in A History of the American People notes, "The United Slates did nothing to prevent the development of hostile U.S.-Japanese relations" (772). These relations would continue lo deteriorate for almost twenty-five years until eventually culminating in the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.

One possible explanation for the lack of an American effort to improve the deteriorating relationship with Japan is the racial tensions belween the two nations. The

"Anglo-Saxon" myth embodying a belief in the superiority of Anglo-Saxons pervaded

American CuUure al the lime. The ardent expansionist Reverend Josiah Strong in his widely popular book Our Country wrote thai the Uniled Slates was deslmed lo become

"the mighty workshop of the world and our people the hands of destiny" (Costello 18).

Echoing a similar sentiment, Rudyard Kipling, the British poet laureate, wrote a poem urging America to spread ils naturally superior culture, beliefs, and organizations:

Take up the White Man's burden—

Ye dare not stoop to less—

Nor call too loud on fieedom McMackin 11

To cloak your weariness (Kennedy, 387).

Kipling and Strong's altitudes certainly had an effect on the American people. Historian

Paul Jolmson comments on this phenomena, writing, "There was somelhing in Asian

culture that persuaded Americans that they had a mission to intervene and change it, for

the better" (772). In a now famous 1908 event the San Francisco Board of Education

displayed its disdain and lack of respect for Asian culture and people by segregating

Japanese, Chinese, and Korean fi-omwhit e students. The San Francisco Board of

Education agreed to reverse ils decision only after Japan in the "Gentlemen's Agreement"

agreed lo withhold passports for laborers attempting to travel to America. In fact, at the

close of World War One during the deliberations over the treaty of Versaille, President

Woodrow Wilson fiirther angered the race-sensitive Japanese by refiising to include a

condemnation of national racism in the treaty.

U.S.-Japanese relations continued lo worsen following World War 1. In 1922

when the still existent Anglo-Japanese alliance was to be renewed, American diplomats

convinced England not to renew the treaty. Initially, England, Australia, and New

Zealand had all been in favor of renewing the alliance with what they deemed a "restless

and aggressive" power, but America convinced England and Japan lo attend the

Washington Naval Conference instead (Jolmson 772). At the conference Japan, England,

1 and the United States worked out a treaty for controlling the construction of warsliips in \ which the ratio of American to British to Japanese battleships and aii'craft carriers would 1 I be 5-5-3. In return for being allowed a larger navy America agreed not to fortify bases ) west of Hawaii or north of Singapore. Japan was ultimately displeased with the treaty. » ) Paul Jolmson comments on Japan's negative perception of the proceedings, writing, "The I

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) J McMackin 12

Japanese saw the agreement as the Anglo-Saxons ganging up on them, and the net result

was to turn Japan fi-oma n active fi'iend inlo a potential enemy" (772).

Beyond Japanese feelings of unease about the developing political alliance

belween the United Slates and Britain and racial discrimination, the clash between the

two great powers, Japan and the United States, is best illustrated by the two countries'

atlempt for influence m China. After China's defeat by Japan in 1894, European powers,

specifically Russia and Germany and Japan, moved in. Historian John Costello wrote on

the subject, "They seemed intent on carving the rotting Chinese watermelon into their

own spheres of economic interest" (Costello 19). In 1899 America, fearing Chinese

markets would soon be dominated by European powers, formulated a response in the

form of the "Open Door Policy." This policy urged that every nation respect the rights

and territorial integrity of China as well as the ideal of fair competition. Seeing mutual

benefit in this agreement, all the great powers eventually agreed. Though Japan would

again, separately, agree lo uphold the "Open Door Policy" in the Root-Takahira

agreement in 1908, in truth, the presence of the Uniled States as well as tlie European

powers was a great ii-ritation for the proud Japanese people. The "Open Door Policy"

interfered with Japan's vision for a gi-eat Japanese Enipii-e and domination over East

Asia. The Japanese press publicly proclaimed these beliefs, stating, "Japan must remove

all elements m East Asia that interfere wilh its plans. Britain, the United States, France

and the Netherlands must be forced oul ofthc Far East. Asia is the territory ofthc

Asiatics..." (772). On July 1^' 1937, these Japanese expansionist feelings erupted into a

fiill-fledged conflict with China.

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Starling the Sino-Japanese War, Japan completely disregarded the "Open Door

Policy to which it had agreed, but, to the dismay of the Chinese, for the most part

America and her allies were both unwilling and unable to come to China's defense. Slill,

the Nationalistic Chinese governmenl adamanlly proclaimed ils mdependence: "China's

sovereign rights cannot be sacrificed, even at the expense of war" (qtd. Costello 52). It

would be a bloody and gruesome conflict, as by auluimi the Japanese army had captured

Peking and Tiensm, and by December 1937 were partaking in the infamous "Rape of

Nanking" m which an estimated quarter ofa million Chinese men, women, and children

were systematically butchered. This blatant disregard for human life shocked outside

observers and roused great sympathy from the American public (Costello 56).

As a result of Japan's invasion of China, tensions began to drastically escalate.

President Roosevelt pushed through a willing Congress the Naval Expansion Act that

raised the Navy's strength by twenty percent over the old treaty's limit. Two modern

battleships were commissioned, 40,000 tons of carrier construction, and fitnding lo bring

the total number of naval aircraft to 3,000 was authorized (Costello 58). Japan was

greatly worried by the American moves. Il gave America the title Taiheiyo-no-gan (in

English "Cancer ofthc Pacific). Prange wrote a particularly insightfiil analysis of Japan's

interpretation of American naval expansion:

' Above all, Japan considered America's huge naval expansion program 1 aimed directly at il. Since the stationing ofa large segment ofthc Fleet at ^ Pearl Harbor in the sprmg of 1940, the United States Navy had stood f . athwart Japan's path—a navy which Japanese admirals thought capable of

' menacing tlieii- nation's very existence (5).

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Frightened that Japan's vision for a "New Order" Asia would be threatened by America,

Japan looked lo Europe for a new powerfiil ally. Deciding on Germany that had already courted a Japanese-German alliance and that had dazzled the Japanese with its impressive take-over of France, Japan signed the Tripartite Pact on September 27''', 1940, wliich allied Gerinany, Italy, and Japan lo "assist one another with all political, economic and military means" (Prange 4). This dangerously offset the balance of power in Europe and the Pacific.

Emboldened by its new alliance with Germany, on July 26", 1941, Japanese forces pushed into the French colony of Indochina. An angry Roosevelt responded by fi-eezing Japanese assets in the U.S. and declaring an embargo on petroleum and the shipment of other vital war material including scrap metals to Japan, which still was m the midst of driving deeper into a weakened China. By the end of 1941, Japan, relying on foreign raw material, had begun to experience a real pinch as a result of U.S. policies

(Prange 5). This would prove lo be one ofthc final steps towards an American-Japanese war that had been so many years in the making.

The messages traded back and forth by the American and Japanese government reveal much about the final days before the outbreak of war. On November 20"', 1941, the Japanese Foreign Ministry made an offer to pull land forces out of Southern

Indochina if the United States lifted its trade embargoes (Jolmson 778). President

Rooseveh chose to disregard the message, and the angered Japanese Foreign ministry began urgent preparations for war. Bringing Japan even closer to the brhik of war with the Unites States, Japan landed fiirther troops in Indochina six day later. Sensing that the McMackin 15

situation had ahnost escalated out of control, President Roosevelt sent an urgent message

to the Emperor of Japan on December 6"', 1941:

Developments are occurring in the Pacific area which tlii-eaten to deprive

each of our nations and all humanity of the beneficial influence ofthc long

peace between our two countries. These developments contain tragic

possibilities... I am certain that il will be clear to your Majesty, as it is to

me, that in seeking these great objectives both Japan and the Unites Stales

should agree to eliminate any form of military threat (The Avalon Project).

Japan responded to this message with a Japanese note to the United States on December

7"\1941:

The govermneiit of Japan has continued negotiations with the utmost

sincerity since last April with the govermiient ofthc Uniled States

regarding the adjuslment and advancement of Japanese-American

relations and the stabilization ofthc Pacific Area... Obviously il is the

intention ofthc American governnient to conspii'c with Great Britain and

other countries lo obstruct Japan's effort toward the establishment of

peace tlirough the creation ofa new order in East Asia, and especially to

preserve Anglo-American rights and interests by keeping Japan and China

at war (The Avalon Project).

Upon being handed by the Japanese ambassador tliis communication at 2:20 P.M., after

being informed of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Secretary of State Cordell Hull read the

doeunient and responded, "In all my years of public service, I have never seen a

document that was more crowded with uifamous falsehoods and distortions... 1 never i I

) J McMackin 16 imagined until loday that any governnient on this planet was capable of uttering them"

(The Avalon Project). Inftuiated, Secretary Hull dismissed the ambassadors and hastily began war preparations.

Less than a year before Secretary Hull received this message on December 7"',

1941, when the Harvard-educated Commander and Chief of Japan's combined fleet

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto remarked to a colleague, "If we are lo have a war with

America we will have no hope of wimiing unless the U.S. fleet in Hawaiian waters can be destroyed" (Lord 10). Tliis marked the begimiing of Japan's extensive planning for the eventual December 7"' attacks. Interestingly, even as Japan eagerly hammered out the different aspects of the attack, farsighted Japanese planners realized that Japan's hope for victory in sustained combat against the United Slales was slim. Naval Chief of Staff,

Admiral Nagano, reportedly coimnented on Japanese prospects in a war with America statuig, "If I am told lo fight regardless of consequences, I shall run wild considerably for six months or a year, but 1 have utterly no confidence in the second or thii-d years"

(Johnson 778). Similarly, Admii-al Yaiiiamoto himself once stated, "However spectacular its early victories, Japan could not hope lo win an all-out war againsl America and

Britain" (Johnson 778).

Regardless, Admiral Ryunsuke Kusaku, having been assigned the task of creating an attack strategy agamst Pearl Harbor, had developed a working plan ready for submission lo the Japanese Naval War College by September 2, 1941. The plan called for a fleet of six carriers along with support and escort vessels to sail across the Pacific to

Oahu Island in order to surprise attack the unsuspecting America fleet at Pearl Harbor.

The attack would correspond with military landings fiom Guam to Burma and Manila to McMackin 17

Malaya. Japanese leaders, especially Adniiial Yamamoto, believed that if the fleet al

Pearl Harbor could be destroyed and the resource-rich neighboring islands could be quickly acquii-ed, then by the time America recovered Japan would have the resources needed lo defend its territory. Though the plan initially received only hikewarm suppori, as the technical challenges ofthc attack were solved, opponents of the attack, such as the important Admiral Naguino, conmiander of the important Fii'st Air fleet, eventually quieted their criticism. Japanese engineers spurred on by Ihe ideas of Commander

Minoru Genda, a crack young aiiman, developed shallow-water torpedoes for use in the shallow watet-s of Pearl Harbor. Sixteen-inch armor piercing shells were developed for those U.S. ships that were shielded from torpedoes by other battleships, and comprehensive intelligence concerning the layout of ships and structures at Pearl Harbor was compiled from Japanese agents who were able to photograph Pearl Harbor fi-om sightseeing aerial lours. As the last pieces had come together, Japanese plamiers moved the attack into ils final stages. On November 3^'' Admiral Nagano gave the plan his final blessing, on November 7'\ Admii-al Nagumo was officially named conmiander of the

Pearl Harbor Striking Force, and the date ofthc attack was set for December 7"\ 1941

(Lord 14-17).

By November 19"', under a great veil of secrecy including a convincing flury of fake radio messages about the fleet's position, the Japanese strike force had assembled at the secret rendezvous in Hitokappu Bay. The force included the lumbering carriers//^r/g/ and Kaga, the light carriers Hiryu and Soryu, the huge new flaltop Zuikaku, the new cruiser Tone and Chikimm, nine destroyers, eight tankers, and three screening submarines McMackin 18

(Lord 15). In total, 32 ships sal assembled in the secluded harbor. Seven days later on the

26"', the mighty armada set sail for America on its world-allermg mission.

Though several military reports and exercises called into question the defenses at

Pearl Harbor and listed it as a possible target, for the most part senior American officials remained foolishly convinced that American forces on Oahu served as a powerfiil deterrent to Japanese aggression rather than a target. Ai'iiiy chief of Staff General George

Marshall propounded this view in his April 24"' memorandum lo the president:

The Island of Oahu, due lo its fortification, its garrison, and its physical

characteristics, is believed to be the strongest fortress in the world... Wilh

adequate air defense, enemy carriers, naval escorts and transports will

begin to come under air attack wilhin a distance of approximately 750

miles (qld. m Prange 122).

General Marshall tragically overestimated the strength of Pearl Harbor's defenses. Still,

considering the amazing audacity and complexity needed for the attack, the likes of

which on such a scale had never before been seen. Historian Paul Jolmson comments, "It

is no wonder General George Marshall brushed aside Japanese tlireats of an attack on

Pearl Harbor" (779).

As American intelligence agencies ignored or dismissed repeated war warnings,

the Japanese strike force, having nervously ventured across the vast Pacific, moved into

position. At tlii-ee mthe morning on December 7"', 1941, the unnoticed Japanese fleet

was less than 300 miles north of Oahu, a fiill 420 miles beyond where general Marshall

had predicted an enemy force's detection. At six in the morning, Admiial Nagumo

launched the first of his mighty waves against Pearl Harbor. 40 torpedo planes, 51 dive- McMackin 19 bombers, 49 horizonlal bombers, and 43 fighters to provide cover gently climbed into the ah- as they departed on their deadly mission. At 7:15 in the mornmg, Admu-al Nagumo launched the second wave of devastating attacks, including 80 dive-bombers, 54 high level bombers, and 36 more cover fighters, leaving only 39 planes lo guard againsl an

American counterattack. In total the Japanese had sent a massive force of 353 planes in two mighty waves agamst Pearl Harbor (Lord 31).

For the 70 U.S. fighting ships, including 8 battleships, 24 auxiliaries, and some

300 planes stationed at Pearl Harbor that had supposedly been placed under "ftill alert" because ofthc perceived imminent threat of Japanese aggression somewhere m the

Pacific, il seemed a normal Sunday morning except for a few strange events that unfolded as the morning progressed. At 3:50 in the morning a periscope of one of the Japanese midget subs that had accompanied the strike force in hopes of penetrating the harbor was sighted off the harbor mouth by the U.S.S. Condor. The Condor, which was one of two minesweepers patrolling off the harbor boom, radioed the destroyer WardiXnd the two swept the area finding no traces ofa sub; consequently, no report was signaled to the

Control Center on Ford Island. Al 6:37 the guard destroyer ^Ffl/r/spotted a submarine near the harbor entrance and ordered a depth charge and gunfire attack. A few minutes later it radioed a voice transmission to the Naval Control Center, stating, "We have attacked, fired upon, and dropped depth charges upon sub operation m defensive area"(qtd. in Costello 132). At 7:02 Private George S. Elliot, the plotter ofthc mobile

Army radar unit at the northermiiost promontory of the island, noticed a strange blip flash across the screen, bigger than anything Elliot had ever seen before (Lord 44). He called the duly pilot m the Army headquarters at Fort Shafter who assured Elliot that this blip on McMackin 20 the radar (aclually the massive Japanese ah* attack) was only an expected incoming flight of B-17s from the West Coast. Four hours after the initial sighting of an enemy sub's periscope, the crews aboard the ships slept soundly with many of tiieir watertight doors clipped open. Even if Elliot had recognized thai the radar was showing him a Japanese au-craft, il was too late to put the eighty-six ships in the harbor on alert. The Japanese had achieved the complete element of surprise of which they had dreamt.

At 7:49 Commander Mitsuo Fuchida, the lead pilot in the attack, ordered his operator to lap oul "Tora, Tora, Tora" -the prearranged code signifying the success of

Japanese planes in elluding American detection. At around 7:56 the carnage began, as

Japanese au'craft focused tlieii- uiitial attacks on American airfields on Oahu, including

Hickam Field where the army had parked it fighters wingtip lo wingtip m rows in order to protect against sabotage; these aircraft were now sitting ducks. As Japanese planes decimated American ahfields, 40 torpedo bombers hit the Battleships (Costello 134). Air raid siiens began sounding as the Arizona, Oklahoma, and West Virginia were soon being ripped apart by Japanese torpedoes. Conmiander of the Pacific fleet. Admiral Husband E.

Kiinmel, who along with Lieulenanl General Walter C. Short, commander of the U.S.

Ai'iny ground and ah forces in Hawaii, would largely lake the blame for the Pearl Harbor disaster, radioed the news of the attack lo outlying Pacific Fleet Commands. As the attack continued shocked American sailors, who as one seaman put it, "didn't even know they

[the Japanese] were sore at us" (qtd. in Lord 70), fought valiantly to save tlieii- ships, but were uUimately hindered by locked and stored weapom*y and by the fact that over a quarter of the crews of the ships were not aboard, proof of America's negligence in anticipating and preparing for an attack. McMackin 21

The attack continued as the Arizona exploded, the Oklahoma capsized, and the

West Virginia only narrowly avoided capsizing by lasl minute counter-flooding measures.

All of the harbors major battleships had been hit by 8:00, including the Maryland, the

California, the Nevada, and the Tennessee. In the lull between the end ofthc fu*st of

Japan's waves of au*craft at and the arrival of its second, Admhal Kiinmel relayed a signal to the Secretary ofthc Navy, saying, "Air Raid Pearl Harbor. This is nol drill" (qld. in Costello 138). The lull in bombings ended at 8:40 with the arrival of the second wave of aii'craft. These aii-craft focused their tire on the damaged Nevada, which was attempting a mad-dash from the harbor, and in the process drawing attention away from the other grateftil ships including the Pennsylvania, which was helplessly undergoing repahs in dry-dock.

At 8:50 as the second wave of Japanese aiicraft returned jubilantly after tlieii" great success. Commander Fuchida's lone bomber cii-cled above pearl harbor photographically documenting the great success of his pilots. Thousands of servicemen would spend the day battling the fu*es that still threatened the ships, snatchmg survivors fi'om the water, and desperately attempting to reach the over four hundred sailors trapped inside the capsized Oklahoma, of which only thirty would be saved. The American death toll eventually rose to 2,403 serviceman killed and nearly 2,000 wounded. Eighteen ships were wrecked beyond repaii*. All eight major battleships were significantly damaged, though six would later be repaired. Forly-tlii'ee planes remained operational, as 188 were destroyed and another 159 damaged. America's Pacific forces had been, for the time, decimated (Costello 136-139). McMackin 22

However, to some degree, America had been very fortunate on December 7"',

1941. Japan had blundered ui failing to destroy two very important items: the American carriers and oil storage facilities. The Ihiee Pacific Fleet aiicraft carriers, which had been absent from Pearl Harbor because they were parlicipatuig in open-sea naval exercises, returned to Pearl Harbor unscathed shortly following the attack. The carrier, which had rapidly replaced the battleship as the ulimiate naval fightmg ship, would form the nucleus of U.S. naval defense in the Pacific. Further, Japanese pilots had failed to damage

American oil supplies, meaning that the U.S. could mmiedialely begin reftieling and re­ deploying its remaining ships. These blunders would prove very costly for Japan in the near future.

Public reaction was that of dismay and utter disbelief The following day,

December 8"', 1941, President Roosevelt issued his war message to congress: "The

Uniled Slates of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the empire of Japan" (qld. in Hofsladter 401). The war resolution was passed with only one dissenting vote. Newspapers of the day portrayed the event as a purely Japanese aggression; in the December 8"' issue of the Christian Science Adonitor, an article tilled

"Congress Declares War on Japan; 3000 Casualties in Hawaii Air Raid," the author wrote, "By declaration of Congress, the Uniled Slales of America is today at war— directly againsl the Japanese Empire in the Pacific because of its unprovoked attack." The

New York Times in its coverage of the event would elucidate a different aspect ofthc event m its article "Capital Dissension Fades oul in Necessities of Common Cause," writing, "The circumstances ofthc Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor were such that national unity was an mstant consequence. You could ahnost hear it click into place in McMackin 23

Washington loday." Historians would laler ponder whether or not President Rooseveh

had a more underhanded role than at fu'st perceived in "clicking" the nation into unity.

Following the calamity at Pearl Harbor for America and the successftil

corresponding Japanese aggression agamst, Malaya, Hong Kong, Guam, the Philippmes,

Wake Island, and Midway Island, it surprised even the mosl pessimistic Japanese

admirals how quickly America was able to reverse the tides ofthc war m the Pacific. On

may 7-8 1942 Japanese forces were engaged at a long range in the Coral Sea and were

damaged so badly thai the entii-e task force had to return to port. Later, on July 3^** at the

pivotal battle of Midway, American forces outwitted and defeated the Japanese which

lost four of its carriers and the "flower of the Japanese airforce" (Johnson 780).

Ironically, white faulty Uniled Slates' intelligence gathering had been an important cause

of America's downfall al Pearl Harbor, America's astounding resurgence wilh victories at

Midway and the Coral Sea can also be attributed to intelligence. Anglo-American code

breakers had broken the Japanese code at Midway in 1942, and, therefore, the Uniled

States had the inestimable advantage of knowmg the position of Japanese capital ships at

all times. Admii-al Yamanioto, the great architect of the attack on Pearl Harbor, died after

the flight plan ofa plane he was going lo be aboard was discovered by American code

breakers.

As the Japanese military leaders had foreseen, inevitably, American mduslrial

production dwarfed that of Japan's, a country barely the size of California, effectively

dooming the country to defeat. Johnson comments, "The United Stales embarked on a

mobilization of human, physical, and financial resources without precedent in hislory...

America won the war essentially by harnessing capitalistic methods to the unlimited

I ) ) McMackin 24 production of fuepower and mechanical manpower" (Johnson 780). During the conflict the United States, while eiu'oUing 11,260,000 soldiers, would build 290.000 planes,

102,000 tanks, and 88,000 ships and landing craft (Johnson 780). Struggling without avail against a better informed and economically superior enemy, Japan's empire would continue to decay after the battle of Midway until eventually it was forced to cede even ils home island m its unconditional surrender to the United States on April 14"', 1945.

Almost inmiediately following the events of Pearl Flarbor, mvestigations over who was to blame for the attacks were initiated. The findings of these cursory federal investigations placed the blame almost squarely on the shoulders of Admiral Husband E,

Kiinmel and Lieutenant General Waker C. Short, claiming that the two had failed lo take the steps necessary lo secure Pearl Harbor, bul tliis finding certainly did not end the debate; in fact, il fiieled il, giving rise to the "revisionists," a term now used almost universally lo describe the historians who have written critically of Roosevelt's pre-Pearl

Harbor Policy foreign policy and America's entry mto World War II (Cole 595).

Specifically, revisionists such as Charles Beard in his book President Rooseveh and the coming of the Way, propose m what is called the "Back Door" theory that Roosevelt exposed the fleet at Pearl Harbor m order to provoke a Japanese attack and, thus, gain suppori for Roosevelt's already existent uilention to bring America into World War II

(Melosi 88). Adding lo lliis theory wilh liis 1973 book Cruise of the Larikai: Incitement to War, former Naval officer Kemp Tolley claimed that President Roosevelt's odd order to send the defenseless windjammer, the Larikai, on a patrol mission mto dangerous East

China Sea was proof that Roosevelt had attempted to bring about the war. In fact, retired

Admu-al Kiminel disclosing his feelings on the subject said to Tolley, "When that [the McMackin 25

Larikai] and other moves failed to mvolve us, the betrayal of the fleet at Pearl Harbor was decided upon" (qtd. in Coox 29-31). Adding yet another chapter lo the revisionist saga, John To land in 1982 when he claimed in his book Infamy: Pearl Harbor and ifs

Aftermath that he had proof that the United Slales had tracked signals comuig fi'om the

Japanese strike force and that a Dutch naval attache had kept a secret diary that revealed government officials had known about the threat againsl Pearl Harbor. Toland writes,

"President Roosevelt undoubtedly exposed the American fleet at Pearl Harbor in hopes of inciting a Japanese attack" (qld. in Coox 29-30). While these claims could never be truly substantiated, lo this day many historians still suppori the revisionist perspective of

America's entry into the war.

Yet, historians have of late countered many revisionist claims. Historian Paul

Jolmson claims, "An objective survey of all the evidence shows the Pearl Harbor came as a real and horrifying shock to all the member of the Roosevelt administration, beginning with the president hmiself (769). Gordon Prange adds to this interpretation in 1991 wilh his book At Dawn we Slept. Prange argues that this was Admu-al Yamamoto's secret plan—not Roosevelt—and that Roosevelt, had he known, would not have sacrificed so many of the Navy's battleships by keeping them at Pearl Flarbor (740-745). Samuel

Morris m his durable histor)' of U.S. naval operations in World War II underscores this pomt of view: "Nobody in Washington could warn Hawaii of soinethmg he neither knew of nor suspected" (qtd. m Coox 29-31).

Whether Rooseveh intended lo bring America into war by luring Japan into a surprise attack or not. Historian Martin V. Melosi does reveal one thing that we can conclude aboul the ever raging debate over the "Back Door" policy: it "set the limits of McMackin 26

Pearl Harbor research and analysis to this day," leaving too many good questions ignored and unanswered (103). Because soon America will be no longer be able to interview and gather informalion fi"oin the actual survivors of Pear Harbor, it is importanl that the first­ hand historical knowledge be expanded and recorded, for Pearl Harbor served as a great

American turning point in history and its after-effects can still be observed. One of

Admiral Kinmiel's law>'ers would later best express this sentiment: "Pearl Harbor never dies, and no living person has seen the last ofil" (Prange 739). McMackin 27

Interview Transcript

hiterviewee: Caplam Victor Delano Interviewer: Tom McMackin Location: Capt. Delano's apartment. Chevy Chase, MD Date: 12-17-2006

Tom MclMackin: This is Tom McMackin. I am interviewing Captain Victor Delano as

part of the American Century Oral History Project. The interview took place at Caplam

Victor Delano's apartment on December the 17"\ 2006. To begm, could you briefly

describe your early life up to your eiiroUinent at the Naval Academy?

Victor Delano: Yes. My father was in the Navy, so we moved around a lot. My first

exposure lo the navy [uiterrupled by phone call]... you'll have lo excuse me [Capt.

Delano answers the phone] the fu'st that I can begm remembering what it was like was

when I was five years old. He had command ofa ship and we went lo the Mediterranean,

we were there for two years, where he had conmiand ofa ship and we followed him

around and he then became the cliief of staff of what was the European Squadron. So,

after two years I came back and went to school in Wichita Kansas where my

grandparents lived because my father wenl back to sea duty, and the school system in

Kansas was so good I lived with my grandparents for a couple years. Then I came down

and wenl to school in Boston for a year. I went to school in Washington for about llu-ee

years and in the early thirties my father was stationed in Newport, and I went lo liigh

school at Rodgers High School ui Newport with my fourth year at Severn School in I Severna Park, Mainland. Then I went into the Naval Academy. ) ) I * ) 1 J McMackin 28

TM: Great. How was your experience al the Naval Academy, on a whole?

VD: Good.

TM: Very Good (laughs)?

VD: 1 enjoyed it. It was fine and it was quite a different institution then it is today

because it was unlike other colleges and universities. Every midshipman took the same

courses; yes, we all look the same courses. The only difference was languages. Four

languages were taught at the Naval Academy and you had to pick one of four. French...

let's see what was il... French, Spanish, Italian and German.

TM: Did you feel it prepared you for World War II?

VD: I think so. I tliuik 1 fell prepared. I'm nol sure that I was prepared as well as I would

like lo have been. For example, on the battleship West Virginia where I was first

stationed, 1 was responsible for training lookouts at recognizing aii-craft. Since we were

on the Pacific, the kind of aircraft we thought we might see was Japanese, and the

Japanese planes that I had lo teach these people to recognize, I never saw one of those.

We were so far behmd them that we had no idea; my people had no idea they had

^ advanced that far in aviation.

» ) TM: So, there was some specific focus or mention of the possibility of war whh Japan? )

) I ) J McMackin 29

VD: Well, if you are in the Pacific that is about the only one you could have fought.

TM: At the Naval Academy?

VD: You had enough hard work to do lo get to the Naval Academy without deciding who

you were going to go to war with. The fii-st impact of the war that we had was when we

were firsl class men, or in other words a senior. The usual European cruise in the summer

was moved to a cruise m South America and the Caribbean.

TM: So, moving over now to your time Pearl Harbor, could you describe your

experiences in the months and days leading up lo the attack?

VD: Yes. I was the assistant plotting room officer on the West Vitginia, and I was the

range finder officer, the assistant radar officer, and those were my prmciple assignments.

As a plotting room officer I was responsible for the control of the two aft 16-inch turrets,

the plotting room was the most protected room on the ship. Il was at the bottom of the

ship, for ils protection, because the control ofthc 16-inch guns on the battleship was

' pretty important, and they were perfectly useless at Pearl Harbor.

^ TM: Right, I can miagine. Now, Pearl Harbor had supposedly been placed on alert

J, because of intelligence that the US goverimient had received about a possible Japanese

> > McMackin 30 attack in the Pacific, could you perceive a heightened sense of preparedness leading up to

December 7"'?

VD: Oh gradually, yes. You could sense that there was more preparedness as time went on. For instance when I fu'st arrived on my ship, which if I remember correctly was m

April of 1941, the readiness was pretty low, but as time wenl on il increased to the point where ammunition for guns became more readily available. There were more security patrols going on wilhin the harbor, and it was steadily increasing. But, there was no expectation, on my ship and at our pretty high level in the command structure, there was no expectation that we were going to get attacked at Pearl Harbor.

TM: OK. Moving inlo the attack itself, in your report ofthc day, you describe a Marine

Sergeant Williby coming down the ladder into the plotting room shouting, "Japanese aii- raid!" What was going tluough your mind as this was being said?

VD: Well, fu'st of all let me correct you. He didn't quite get to the plotting room. He came down one deck, he was up the top side deck and he came down the ladder right beside where I was walking along, and he said that we were being attacked, and I heard some other scuffling up on the top side that convmced me that something was going on, and that's why I went inmiediately to my battle station, which was the plotting room and involved going quite a ways below deck... Did you see one ofthc Ihmgs that I gave at

Mater Dei? McMackin 31

TM: I actually did not. I heard about it bul il wasn't lo my class.

VD: Let me get a diagram to show you. [goes to gel diagram]

These are the two forward turrets—this is a cross section of the ship, these are the two

forward turrets and tliis is the plotting room here, where my baltle station was. So, to get

to it, I started on this deck here and I had lo work my way down here, to this deck. Then

as you read in the account, I went fi*oni there lo the central station, and then 1 went fiom

central station up this conning tower tube, which was a tube carrying wiring, and these

are heavily armored plates, lo protect it. I wound up ui the comiing tower and got out on

the bridge.

TM; Thanks for that clarification. In Waller Lord's Dav of Infamy, he describes a

seaman when he is informed Pearl Harbor is under attack by the Japanese saying, "I

didn't even know they were sore at us." Were many servicemen at Pearl Harbor this

unaware of the growing tensions between the Japanese and the US?

VD: I would be willing to bet that no one was unaware, but the level of awareness varied

dramatically, and some of them were really sure that something was going to happen any

day, and others just thought that it was just a disagreement between us.

) TM: You said, a second ago that you came to the central— 1

\ \ I ) J J J McMackin 32

VD: I went fi-omth e plotting room to the central station when the plotting room began lo flood.

TM: Was this the same thing as the damage control center?

VD: That's the damage control center, it's called central station.

TM: Could you clarify your experience in the damage control center?

VD: Yeah, 1 stood there wilh my men. We had to light lo get into it because they thought that by opening the door between the two that they were going to let water in, so we had a hard lime getting in, bul we got in and all my men gol in there and we were just filling up space, there was nothing we could do. Finally, when this was recognized, we thought we could do some good elsewhere on the ship. We then climbed up that tube.

TM: Was that a real experience where that officer in charge had lo decide when to close these doors wilh people still below?

VD: The officer in charge. Lieutenant Conmiander Harper, was the ships damage control officer and the ships first lieutenant. Yes, he was responsible for making decisions of that type. But, they were pretty local. Telephones, we lost electrical power very early and there was no one he could talk to, except the tlii-ee ensigns he had down with him. He was McMackin 33 very sensible to get rid ofmy men, because we were contributing nothing there, but if we got topside we could have done some good there, bul that remauied to be seen.

TM: Once you gol topside, can you describe your experience with Captain Bemiion?

VD: Well, as soon as I got topside and got out on the bridge that surrounded the comiing tower I saw Captain Bennion, and he was badly, badly wounded. And so I went over to tiy and do something for him, bul there was nothing I could do, and I tried to gel some ether to do some good, because we had no morphine, then Lieutenant Rickets arrived on the bridge, and he was senior and he took charge of attempting to move Captain Bennion, but the Captain Reftised to leave.

TM: Wliat did you do after leaving Captain Bennion?

VD: Well, I was up on the bridge until the smoke fi"oin the fues on the ship so engulfed the bridge, that it was jusl untenable. Before that happened, there were two machine guns just forward of the conning tower, and I pul a black steward's mate on one of them and

Lieutenant Wliite, an enlisted man, on the other one, and the two of them were on these machine guns probably to keep them out of difficulty, because those guns were water cooled and as soon as they had been fired for a few rounds, they wouldn't fire anymore because we didn't have any water up there. The machine guns, they did some firing, bul the planes were so far away, out of the guns' range, they did no good except morale boostmg. McMackin 34

TM: When did you get the order to abandon ship?

VD: Well I didn't. I didn't get the word to abandon ship. There was no coimnunication.

After the machine gun episode, that's when the smoke began to envelop the bridge, and I had to do soinethmg because the smoke was extremely heavy. I couldn't see an}'tlimg, so

I worked my way off of the bridge and got on lop of turret two, and I slid down turret two lo turret one and then gol myself down to the focsal deck. We had sunk; il was now not far fiom the water. Then 1 ran into two other ensigns, after a discussion we decided there was nothing else to do but abandon ship. There was nol a thing we could do.

TM: In Day oflnfamv. you mention a fiiniiy slory with an old chief petty officer you saw in the water. Could you repeat that slory?

VD: Well, I was swimming from the West Virginia, toward Ford Island; I was swimming alone. I had to swim around oil spots and burning parts and things, so it was a little longer than the straight path. As I was going along, I heard this voice of an old chief petty officer. In those days he was old—he was probably some forty years old. He was old to me, and this voice was saymg, "Help save me! I can't swim! I can't swim!" I was too tii'ed to do him any good so I though the least I can do is turn around and encourage him, and as I turned my head to encourage him, he wenl flying past me m the water slill sayuig, "Help save me, I can't swim, I can't swim." He got to Ford Island a long time before I did (laughs)... unable to swmi too. McMackin 35

TM: Can you describe your emotions and thoughts when you realized the attack was

over?

VD: (pause)

TM: Or was tt a gradual process?

VD: It was an erratic and gradual process. After I had been on Ford Island for a while, I

wenl back and no more bombing had occurred. 1 gol back to the ship and helped in

fighting the fu'cs on the ship, as did many olher people. At some point in that episode, I

gol hit by a big falling timber, got put in a boat, and sent over lo a hospital. That night all

off a sudden the shooting started in again, and so you had the feel of, "My goodness, this

is still going on." It turned out that the planes that caused the shooting were our own

planes, flymg in. Many of them got shot down.

TM: Did you have any feelings of hatred toward the Japanese after any ofthis?

VD: I don'l particularly like them, bul I don'l hate them. On the other hand my parents

spent quite a bit of tune in Japan. When my father was m the Na\'y, he had very good

fi-iends in Japan. I met some of them after the war. One admu-al, who was killed at

Midway, was a good bridge playing fi-iend ofmy father. I've forgotten his name now, but 1 ^ he was an admii-al killed at Midway. ) ) )

J McMackin 36

TM; Wlien you look at this picture right here [See appendix A] what experiences or feelings does it bruig to mind?

VD; Well, that 1 was glad I wasn't in the Okalahoma. I had friends on the Okalahoma, but we were so much engaged with ourselves that we didn't think much about what was happening to the ships around us till laler days.

TM: How would you describe this process, as illustrated by the previous photo, of trying to save the lives of your fellow seamen and control the damage to the ships after the attack ended?

VD: If you are speaking ofthc day of the damage, as I lold you, I went back to my ship to assist in fire fighting, as did others, and that's where I gol hurt when a compartment blew up and dislodged a beam that bounced off me. So I was put into a boat and sent to a hospital, 1 never went back to the ship after that. We were told, the survivors who were ashore, that we had to go live m an enclosed sports arena that had seats all around, and we could sleep on the benches. The next day when I got some clothes, I walked around the Navy yard and the Navy hospital. I went to go visit two ofmy classmates who were mjured, badly, and then I walked around to look at the ship's damage. There was nothing to do bul wander around, rather than jusl sil. And that is where the gunnery officer of the

USS Pennsylvania, who had known me since I was a boy, saw me walking along, and McMackin 37 next thing 1 knew he had em'oUed me on the Pennsylvania, so 1 was no longer on the

West Virginia.

TM: As a survivor of Pearl Harbor, how did you feel about the way in which the war ended wilh Hiroshima and Nagasaki being destroyed by nuclear weapons?

VD: It probably saved my life. I have no compunction about those. 1 think that was a fine decision President Truman made and a quite proper decision. Most Americans do not today realize how prepared the Japanese were lo fighl us when the inevitable invasion was going to take place. I was on a destroyer by then and we had already received our operation orders for the landing in Japan. We knew what we were going to do. We knew what the casualty rale was going to be, and we would have losl far more ships and men than we had lost m any other part ofthc war. The invasion hself would have been bigger than Normandy.

TM: Considering all the dealh and bloodshed, in your opinion was it fair for historian

Studs Turkel lo call World War II the "good war?"

VD: I don't know that any war is good, but several wars have been necessary. They may become necessary tor the wrong reason, but certainly World War II was brought on by the strange attitudes of France and England lo let Hitler get away wilh il.

TM: So, is that what you believe the cause of World War II was? McMackin 38

VD; I think that, well WWII, you can trace it back to WWI. The ending of WWI was very poorly done. The Treaty of Versailles was very poorly done, and it made it possible for a Hitler, by any name, to have gotten mto the German governmenl, to have taken over the German Government, and to have taken over the German people who were in pretty terrible shape—^inflalion was killing them. They were in terrible shape, and as soon as he found out that he could get away wilh lots of things, that the French and the British wouldn't do anything about, the sky was the limit for him so he wenl lo work and almost won. The war in the Pacific only occurred because the Japanese fi'ankly were dumb.

TM: Dumb in so much as attempt ing to...

VD: (interjects) They were dumb to stii- up America wot-se than we were stured up. They were dumb lo give President Roosevelt cause lo enter the war. If they had not attacked

Pearl Harbor, we didn'l have the resources, and we didn't have the motivation to interfere with theu' operations to lake over that part of the world.

TM; Do you think they could have taken the Philippines and other teiTilories in the

Pacific without inciting much ofa response fiom America?

VD: Well, the Philippines, as part of Pearl Harbor, they should have skipped the

Philippians. If they had gone past the Philippines, why would we bother them? Then the next dumb thmg came when Hitler declared war on the United Slates, and that gave the McMackin 39

United States full cause lo rearm and go to war; otherwise we wouldn't have done il. The people wouldn't have allowed it, and the books today, 1 doubt you will fmd the clear evidence about how divided the country was between England and Gerinany.

TM; Well, this actually segues nicely into my next question. Many historians such as

Harry S. Barns, Charles Beard, and Charles Turnsdale, have argued m what is known as the "back door theoiy," that Roosevelt purposely exposed the America Fleet in hopes of inciting a Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, which would have allowed America to enter the war whh the public's support. Wlial are your feelings about this theory?

VD: I completely disagree with that. He did not want to have to take on a war in the

Pacific, and the reason he didn'l wanl lo was because a war in the Pacific would keep us fiom being able lo provide aid lo Britain, because the American people would have not stood for il. The American people would have said, "You gol to beat the Japanese firsl," and under those circumstances Brhain might very well have fallen.

TM: Are you familiar with the story of the Larikial

VD: Of the whal?

TM: Larikia, right there (pomls lo the word on a piece of paper).

VD: Larikia... Larikia, no I don't thuik I am. McMackin 40

TM: As the story goes, al least in what I read in my research, Roosevelt, preceding Pearl

Harbor, sent out the Larikia, which was a wind jammer, a type of sliip...

VD: (interjects) Oh yes, but I didn't think that was the name of ft, but yes.

TM: I am not sure how it is pronounced exactly, and two other sister ships were sent along with it, so you might recognize the names of those. Anyways Rooseveh sent il into the Chinese sea.

VD: Yep. Soulh China Sea—out of the Philippines.

TM: Wliich was a very dangerous thing, and people viewed this, at least in retrospect as him blatantly trying to incite a Japanese attack. In fact Admiral Kiinmel, who was the commander of the Pacific fleet, slated, "When that (talking about the Larikia, or however you pronounce il) failed lo involve the United States, the betrayal of the fleet al Pearl

Flarbor was decided upon." What do you think aboul this statement?

VD: Whatever the name was, I think h was conmianded by an individual named Kiiiip

Tally, and I believe that it was sent out for intelligence purposes, to find out what was going on. This was jusl as vital as anything else. Intelligence still is. McMackin 41

TM: So to you the facl that it was unarmed wasn'l an uncommon practice; you are saying

since we weren't at war whh Japan why would we send this ship with anything but

relatively little arinaments?

VD; Relatively lillle, none. All il did was sail around to see what was gomg on, and the

man who commanded the boat wrote quite a good book on the subject. What he was

doing and how he did il was very good. Wliat this does is one way in which those who

believe Rooseveh was trying lo get us into the war by various means... they tried all

kinds of things, and I jusl believe they are all wrong. This goes back to an early question

which reminds me of something. The night before Pearl Harbor, I spenl part of the

evening after dinner with an admiral and his wife at theii- home. Fie had conmiand of all

the battle ships. Admii-al Anderson had cominand of all the battleships. The West

Virginia had been his flagship and he had been a family fi-iend for my lifetime, and he

talked about how life was going as a new ensign and what was going on. I used to visit

them often. This particular night we got into the subject of that the battleships had been to

sea the week before, and there was the report ofa submarme, and we went lo a liigher

state of readiness then we had ever been before, while we were al sea, underway. We

talked about that briefly, and the thing that impressed me was that ahhough we got

prepared for submarines our anti aircraft armament on the West Virginia was pathetic,

absolutely pathetic. 1 told him I though that, we discussed that, and he said he certainly

hoped h would gel better. Then he did talk aboul the facl that, "the submarme problem,

that's increasmg and who knows you probably won't be an ensign too much longer,

because as soon as the war starts you'll gel promoted." This turned out to be jusl about

J McMackin 42 right. But, that was the closest, but he had been the dhector of Naval Intelligence before he came to the Pacific fleet, so he knew what we knew. Fle knew the intelligence; he was close to the president. But, there was no aggressive planning or thinking going on, because they knew that Roosevelt could not afford to have us go lo war in the Pacific, and the only thing that saved him when the Japanese did this, that helped, bul the German declaration meant that he then could come to an agreement wilh the Brits as lo which country we would fight first, and we would fight Hitler first. Did I answer the question?

TM: That's interesting loo, so that was the night before the attack that you said that our ah defenses on the battleship are weak?

VD: Oh il was lerrible. But that was not news that night we all knew that they were terrible. If there had been...let me pul it differently, give you a differenl angle. If we had known that an attack was iimninent, the ships in Pearl Harbor, according lo the war plan, would have gotten underway and left port and been at sea. If we had been at sea and been attacked the way we were in Pearl Harbor, those same ships would have sunk, but the difference is they would have taken the whole crew wilh them because they would have sunk in deep water and all those officers, and men would have sunk whh the ships. Al

Pearl Harbor there were more survivors than anytliing else. The Arizona was the only one that...we only lost a lillle over a hundred men and two officers.

TM: That is mteresting. I hadn't heard that before. So, kind of moving on to another historian, John Mueller argues that Pearl Flarbor was not truly as great ofa disaster for McMackin 43

America as most clami. He asserts that the story of Pearl Harbor was exaggerated al llie time in order lo build more suppori for the war. In your own experiences following Pearl

Harbor, were the facts of the event at all distorted or misrepresented in the media?

VD; Well, I didn't get much media to read so I really don't know what they described.

But, 1 think many of the facts were sunply unknown. My mother and father were living m

Washington at the time. They were at the football game the Redskins were playing. They were at a Redskms football game, and my father who was retired fi-om the Navy then heard during the game various admirals and generals being called on the amiouncing system and told to return to theii- offices or to do something. My father recognized the names of some of them and how they were uivolved so he knew that somelhing had happened. But ft wasn't for at least two days before they found out that my ship had been sunk. And they didn't find oul that I was alive except tluough a fi-iend,no l llu'ough the navy bul through a fiiend in Hawaii that I was a survivor, so people didn't know what ships had been sunk, damaged, anything. Certainly the Navy didn't publish h because there was no sense in doing that, so chances are the media wrote what they were lold, and they were told as lillle as possible, which was sensible, no sense m letting the Japanese know what Ihey had done.

TM: So, in general you didn'l thuik there was a big distortion ofthc facts at the time of the event, or immediately following il? McMackin 44

VD: To the best ofmy knowledge there wasn't distortion of the facts in the sense of

bemg deliberate. I think probably a lot of reporters guessed at stuff, and as they wrote theu- guessing you can call that distorted, some of that stuff wasn't factual, it was some

reporter guessing.

TM: Have you seen Pearl Harbor, h is the recent one with Ben Afleck. So, whal do you

think aboul the most recent portrayals of Pearl Harbor, like this movie?

VD; Not too much. It's too "moviefied."

TM;Itis?

VD; Yes.

TM: Just in the sense of..

VD: Some parts of it were worse than the movie could... were inexplicably worse than

the movie could show, and other parts jusl didn'l look that way. The latest one did have

the case of the black mess attendant who was pul on the machine gun.

TM: Wow! that was aclually you who set the black mess attendant played by Cuba

Gooding Jr. up on that machine gun as portrayed in the movie. Moving on to anolher McMackin 45 question, whal questions or question about Pearl Harbor, would you mosl like lo be answered in the ftiture?

VD: Question? 1 really don't know what you are askmg there.

TM: Well this question is really comuig fiom another historian who argues that the debate over Pearl Harbor has been significantly narrowed in range and that many good questions have been left unanswered because ofthc singular focus on the "backdoor theoiy. "

VD: U^iat's the backdoor theory?

TM: The backdoor theory is the one that Roosevelt purposely exposed...

VD: (interjects) Oh, purposely exposed.

TM: Yes that whole debate. This historian asserts that because we have been so focused on thai, we really have ignored other interesling aspects of Pearl Harbor. Are there any questions in your nund that you would like to see answered hi the fiiture?

VD: (pause) No not really, but first of all because I believe that h was nol m Roosevelt's mterest to have Pearl Harbor attacked the way il was. But on the other hand, if it hadn't been attacked that way—if it hadn't been attacked that way—the country wouldn't have McMackin 46 mobilized. They could have cared less about the Japanese roaming around out there, as long as they didn't shoot us, or do anj'thing lo us. They could have cared less. They couldn't even pronounce the names in the first place, and they couldn't pronounce the names of the places that the Japanese were headed lo. And you didn't see too much exciteineiit in the United States about the Rape of Nan king, so the Pacific was a problem for Roosevelt, and the problem was the prospect of mterference wilh liis support of Great

Britain.

TM: So, what you are saying is that you are pretty satisfied at least thai there is not one particular question that needs lo be answered? You are satisfied that all the differenl aspects of Pearl Harbor have been researched and explored?

VD: Yeah, I guess you could say I'm satisfied. I tliink that people have researched them.

I think some people have come up with the wrong answers, and that's about it.

TM; So recently...

VD; There is same kind of dilemma for the people who are ehher for or againsl the use of the two bombs in Japan. There are an awfiil lol of us who are daiim happy they dropped.

TM: It certainly saved a lot of American lives. McMackin 47

VD: And very few of these people who oppose their use, hiforni you that we killed a hell

ofa lot more elsewhere wilh perfectly ordinary means. Our fuebombing of Japan was far

worse than two big bangs.

TM: Interesting, recently many people have talked about tliis link belween Pearl Harbor

and the events of September 11"'. What hi your opinion is the relationship belween these

two events?

VD: There not one in the same. I think they are completely different. To me there is a

resemblance in both were unexpected. Both identified a mortal enemy, and both

presented long standing problems, and if il hadn't been for the bombs the war with Japan

would have gone on for another two or tliiee years at least.

TM; If you look at President Bush's speech following September 11"', h is very similar

to RooseveU's following Pearl Harbor. Is he fau- in inakuig this coimeclion?

VD; MImmi. Well, I guess he can do it, but I don't know, for some reason, I haven't

given it a great deal of thought, but for some reason 1 don't consider them the same other

than awakenmg people to a serious llu-eat. I tliuik that an awfiil lot of Americans, in the

case of September ll"', a lot of then don't think much beyond New York. Al Pearl

J Harbor, when Pearl Harbor got attacked, boy the West Coast was sure il was gomg to get

. bombed any minute. They were very serious. And I was in San Francisco a week, a McMackin 48 month after Pearl Harbor and boy they were having air raids. At least they thought they were, but they didn't have any.

TM: OK, your generation has often been called the "greatest generation." Do you think that is a fail- assessment?

VD; Oh absolutely, (laughs). No I think our generation had a struggle on its hand, but the nexl generation has a bigger one coming up.

TM; You mean my generation?

VD: Yes. You people are gomg to have to lake on tliis crowd that wants to kill us all, and they make no bones about it.

TM: So, if you were going to teach the attack of Pearl Harbor, to my Flistory class, what aspect ofil would you emphasize the most?

VD; Aspect of h...ll would be hard to single oul one llihig. The fact that it shows you that with determination a surprise can be made and undetected surprise can be made.

Pearl Harbor demonstrated that il did mobilize the American people. It mobilized them enough that when Roosevelt put all the Japanese mto internment camps, you sure didn't see much fuss aboul il then. Now-a-days we are accused of everythmg, just like we are about slavery, but anyhow. Il didn't bother people then. When the leadership is McMackin 49 determined to do something, it can gel away with almost anything, in this world. The

Japanese leadership wanted this attack to take place. And they picked the man to do il, and he warned them, Yamamoto warned them that he can contain the American Navy for

I tliink he said only six months. Even if he was successftil at this, which he was, and he proved righl because it was at Midway that the tide turned.

TM: Inleresling, Actually you mentioned another inlerestmg thing that I wasn't going lo talk about but, what is your opinion on the mtermnent camps?

VD: Well, I guess I don't, at the time I didn't object to them, and one of the reasons 1 didn't object to them is because I don't know how you look at Japanese and fmd out which ones are fi-iendly and which ones aren'l. Jusl like I think you have trouble in Iraq, you look al a Sumii and you look at a Shiite and you don't know which is which. And certainly in Vietnam this was a problem. In hmdsighl, yes I wish there was a better way of doing it, bul I don'l know what a better way would be.

TM: Oh, so you thmk tt was necessary?

VD: I don't know whether I thuik it was necessary or not. I just can't thuik of another way of separatmg the Japanese, and I do respect that fact that there were good ones and bad ones, mostly good, but how do you know which is which. How would we have known that these admirals who ran the Pearl Harbor show, and they commanded Midway McMackin 50 and elsewhere they use to play bridge with my father. They had good fi-iends in

Washington.

TM: So, you thuik it is ok, because there were some Japanese who obviously had malicious intent, to then for protection take all the Japanese and pul them in mternment camps?

VD: Say that again,

TM; So as you pointed out correctly, there was that one in a hundred Japanese who did pose a real threat lo America. So it was then ok to take all the Japanese and put Ihem in internment camps? Like for example if in America a few people fiom New York somehow posed a tlii-eat to the country, would you think il would be ok then to put everyone in New York in internment camps?

VD: In New York, absolulely, I'd stick them in there forever (laughs). The thing that, if I were doing il, I would have allempled to have done differently would be to perhaps use the internment camp biU preserve and defend the property of the internees because I have read many cases of people who lost all there properly by being pul in intermnent camps.

I'm saying this m hindsight because T didn't feel this way then, I would have started so called background checks and as they passed, you let them out. I think we didn't do that but I don'l know, and I don't know how long the mternment camps lasted. McMackin 51

TM: So that actually brings us to the end ofmy specific questions, but now 1 would like lo know, is there anything else that you think would help me better understand the attack at Pearl Harbor, so anything that you think you didn't gel a chance lo address in my questions that you think would really help me or help fulure students of the attack of

Pearl Harbor?

VD: 1 guess, when 1 give talks about it, the one thing that impresses me is that I jusl think that the Japanese were quite dumb, to have done il, and, because il brought on a war that they really would liked to iiave avoided. They thought that by doing Pearl Harbor and removing oul ahcraft carriers, wliich they didn't do, that we as a people we would have been so upset that we would have wanted to make peace wilh them. It didn't turn out that way.

TM: So, you tlfiiik that was a great blunder.

VD: I think il was a great, yes.

TM: Great blunder, great miscalculation.

VD: Now they had to have the oil and had to have the resources. The Japanese had to have the oil and rubber and all the resources they needed for theu- industry, and they had started in on getluig h. We complained and wrote letters, and the Sectary of State wi'ote the foreign minister and that sort of thing went on—didn't stop them. And I think that McMackin 52 was the biggest mistake they made. Even, this is fillle on the offside, bul they might have just declared war and we would have innocently gone to war wilh them, they would have done a lot more damage to our fieel then, and chances are that then we would have been, people very apt to have said oh let's get out ofthis war, lets get out ofthis thing, like they want to get oul of Iraq.

TM; So you tliink, sort of without Pearl Harbor we would nol have been committed lo the war and we possibly would not have done as well in the war?

VD: Jusl About.

TM: That's another mteresting point. Is there anything else you would like to add?

VD: I guess the one thhig you didn't ask about what was going on with the fleet before

Pearl Harbor. The fleet was generally running on a schedule that called us to be at sea for a week and then at port for two weeks. At sea we did all sorts of Irainmg exercises. One training exercise was, that I remember, to defend against an attack from the north. So our own carriers were hiied up againsl the battle ships that had one carrier and that was I thought that was pretty much a fiasco. 1 was at a lower level, and I didn't have aii)'thing lo do down in the plotting room, worrying about 16-inch guns, nothing to worry about there. That was just a normal fleet exercise that could have happened again, oh, in anolher few months they'd do it again. But il was a curious Irainmg exercise. I did mention that we had a submaruie scare on our last week at sea and some of the training McMackin 53 changed, and we began lo pul ammunition in the ready boxes so there was no question that the tension fi'oni our point of view with Japan was building up, but I am willmg to bet there isn't a soul who was alive then at Pearl Harbor or in Washington who knew about a fbrthcommg attack on Pearl Harbor.

TM: So there was actually a military exercise that revealed the vuhierability of tlie fleet lo a surprise air attack, and we still failed to recognize the risk?

VD: No, no not really. We didn'l fail anything. Fleet exercises are designed to do various things. One was lo simulale an attack on the Hawaiian Islands by ah in order to do two things: give attacking aircraft an opportunity to practice theu* attack procedures in getting past the anti-ail-craft defenses of the cruisers and the few fighter planes and give the fighter planes the opportunity to defend as much as it was to give the battleships the opportunity to defend against this sort of thing. And il just so happened that il was up

North of the Islands. Il wasn't done, definitely not done because they thought there was going to be an attack on the island. Tension was building up, and 1 think that people al my level figure that some time in the next couple years there would be a war. But I still believe that President Roosevelt did not want a war in the Pacific messing up his effort lo protect the Brhs.

[Break m the Recording and Begimimg of Disk 2]

TM: So, this is an addendum to the earlier discussion of the Japanese interment camps. McMackin 54

VD: Oh, I tliuik that if you had asked me that question whhhi a year or two after Pearl

Harbor, 1 would have said then as I say now that I saw no alternative to interment. If we could have kept them in theii* homes and communities and kept an eye on them that would have been fme, except we didn'l have enough people to do that. 1 have learned since then that it would have been far better if we had done a better job of proleclmg the property of the internees, and I learned that we didn't do a very good job ofil. I think we should have done a better job at il.

TM; This certainly is a very sensitive issue. Thank you very much for your time McMackin 55

Interview Analysis

Author Margaret Atwood once wrote in The Robber Bride, "Historians are the quintessential voyeurs, noses pressed lo Time's glass window. They can never actually be there on the battlefield, they can never jom m those moments of supreme exahation, or of supreme grief ehher. Theii" re-creations are at best just patchy waxworks." Atwood reveals a great truth in this passage; absent historians influenced by then own experiences, beliefs, and idiosyncrasies will never be able to produce a recreation ofthc past that could convey its full realhy and complexities. Fortunately, there are other historical methods to supplement the work of professional historians, methods by which today's researchers can actually be taken one step closer to the "supreme exaltations" and

"supreme grief of the battlefields. In doing oral history, that is preserving spoken memories through recorded interviews, one is able lo experience from first-hand accounts a more intimate, less manufactured representation of the past. This was certainly the case in the interview of Capt. Victor Delano, a retii-ed naval officer who was aboard the U.S.S.

West Virginia on the morning of Japan's surprise attack againsl Pearl Harbor on Dec 7,

1941. His perspective on the attack and the various aspects composing and surrounding it provides important insight into the event especially hi relationship to the current historical scholarship about Pearl Harbor. The mterview with Capt. Delano, ultimately, reinforces the view of Pearl Harbor as a Japanese disaster rather than an American one and adamantly discredits the widely asserted "back door theory."

The mterview starts with Capt. Delano relaying a brief history of his childhood: his father was an officer in the Navy, and he spent much of his childhood moving fi-om place to place mcluding the Mediterranean, Kansas, Massachusetts, Rliode Island, and McMackin 56

Maryland. After completing high-school, Capt. Delano attended the Naval Academy where he describes his education as enjoyable and useftil, but he notes one shortcoming in his schooling concerning the knowledge of Japan's mililatary strength: "We were so far behind them that we had no idea; my people had no idea they had advanced that far in aviation" (Delano 2).

The interview continues with Capt. Delano discussing his experiences during the attack on Pearl Harbor. After he arrived at Pearl Harbor, Capt. Delano "gradually"

(Delano 4) noticed a heighlenmg sense of preparedness for an attack but realized the battleships' vulnerability to an au* attack. Capt. Delano was awake as first bombs fell. He was able to make it to the damage control center ofthc ship. After realizmg he and his men were "just filling up space" (Delano 6), Capt. Delano left the damage control center and climbed his way lo the bridge where he encountered the dying captain of the ship who would laler receive the Medal of Honor. Capt. Delano then crawled down the main batteries onto the deck, fi'om which he soon abandoned the severely damaged vessel.

Later, he returned to the ship to fight the raging fii-es and was mjured by a falling limber.

In liis responses to the questions aboul the analysis of the different aspects of

Pearl Harbor and subsequent events, Capt. Delano gave logically sound responses usually cohiciding with the more traditional military retelling of the event. He has no regret about the dropping of the atomic bombs to end the war. He eonmients, "It probably saved my life," (Delano 11) as well as the lives of many others. He emphasizes the stupidhy ofthc

Japanese in disturbing America which otherwise was likely to indefinitely ignore

Japanese expansion. Capt. Delano strongly repudiates the "back door theory" and other claims that information about the attack was purposefitlly exaggerated to unify the McMackin 57 country againsl Japan. He also downplays the luik belween the attack on Pearl Harbor and the events of September 11"', as well as asserting that America was justified to put

Japanese in inlerninenl camps because of the very real tlireat they posed, though, he beilieves America should have protected theii- property rights.

Recently, a wave of historians includmg John Mueller have emphasized that the attack at Pearl harbor was a greater blunder and disaster for Japan than America. Japan failed to destroy the American carrier fleet, oil reserves, or submarines, yet provoked an industrial superpower mto war. Mueller m Pearl Harbor: Military Inconvenience,

Political Disaster, writes, "Militarily the attack on Pearl Harbor was more an mconvenience than a catastrophe or disaster tor the United states...It clearly was one [a disaster] for the attackers, because it triggered a conflict that eventually destroyed

Imperial Japan" (Mueller 171-172). In liis own analysis of the situation, Capt. Delano reinforces this assertion. Recalling his experience wilh the nation's attitude towards Japan at that time, he states:

If it [Pearl Harbor] hadn't been attacked that way, the country wouldn't have

mobilized. They could have cared less aboul the Japanese roaming around out

there, as long as they didn'l shoot us, or do anything to us. They could have cared

less. They couldn't even pronounce the names in the fii'st place, and they couldn't

pronounce the names of the places that the Japanese were headed to (Delano 20-

21).

Capt. Delano clahns that if Japan had just taken possession ofthc various resource-rich islands in the South Pacific avoiding the Pliilippines, that America would not have significantly resisted since America was more focused on Europe than Asia. In facl, when McMackin 58 asked the one aspect of the attack on Pearl Harbor he would emphasize if he were to teach it, he responded, "...that the Japanese were quite dumb lo have done it" (Delano

25). In this instance Capt. Delano's opinion strengthens and coincides with the mterpretations of modern historians.

Yet, Capt. Delano's opinion about another historical theory, the "back door theory," is drastically different; he adamantly discredits the theory which suggests that

President Roosevelt played a more direct, underhanded role in provoking a Japanese attack. This issue has to a large degree dominated the historical discussion about Pearl

Harbor, and various authors including Charles Beard, Kemp Tolley, Harry Barnes, and

John Toland have written books supporting the "back door theory." Jolm Toland in his book Infamy: Pearl Harbor and its Aftermath writes, "President Roosevelt undoubtedly exposed the American fleet at Pearl Harbor in hopes of inching a Japanese attack" (qtd. in Coox 29-30). Capt. Delano refiites this theory with a logical counter-argument:

Roosevelt would not have exposed the American fleet hi the Pacific because a war wilh

Japan would only have gotten m the way of his real desire, lo help Britain hi ils fight againsl Germany. He states, "I completely disagree whh that. He did not want lo have lo take on a war in the Pacific, and the reason he didn't want to was because a war in the

Pacific would keep us fiom being able to provide aid to Britain...Under those ch-cumstances Brhain might very well have fallen" (Delano 13). From his own experience Capt. Delano casts serious doubt upon the popular "back door theory."

Though many of these historical questions may never be satisfactorily solved, il is important to consider not only the opinions of professional historians bul also those of eyewitnesses; each has its own value. In participating in this project, I have learned a McMackin 59 great deal. Every person has a slory, and these stories are certainly worth hearing because, al the risk of soundmg trite, "sometimes you just had lo be there." McMackin 60

Appendix A

J Audio/Video Time Indexing Log

1. Interviewer: I r,/^ f ' '"''*' • f js -

2. Interviewee; \j , f T o T fj <:• I ^^ - '^

3. Date of interview; I .' M ' L^-'-^L

4. Location of interview; c^^^ j <.i--\' /^ .•f,'-^^c-.i o^ Vj.f-r Qclt-'^o

5. Recording formal:

Audio Type; Video Type: Cassette Cassette Micro-cassette Micro-cassette CD X CD Digital (DAT) Digital (DAT)

6. In roughly 5-minute intervals, summarize interview topics in the order they appear in the recording. Also note the tape # and tape side beginning with Tape I, Side A.

Minute Mark Topics presented in order of discussion in recording

El /-.^M i^..^-' u . 1 .-. L^ fJL C^pl W(\,--'. '•> C-\pf! .'•.<:' i L ±ZL TU Sc^ K- iki \ V( ] ^-i'} i^'•• i S r ^1 ! j.; '/•--^^f'- >- -• r_ V:. t^. W .-.', .0- f>^ h ck Ooo^ H. ru /-..i : • 'Uc --'r.'. 1 :. ; / . ±a [A;s< .-. '; S I' - Cj f' wU. f f.^iif ..S •>-!... f /"'r..: -. ; -.i...-:'r 7 i-.M. Ul l-'fC- Pc..r\ Ii ^ . r ...J^ Sr-r. ll .p t^ f- as n Ul. c^.i I _/V 9^ L jLA,.f...-^-l

37 McMackin 62

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