Congress Declares War on Japan; 3,000 Casualties in Hawaii Air Raid

Senate votes 82 to 0, House 388 to 1 within 33 minutes after President's address | Two U. S. warships sunk, others damaged | Washington reports destruction of Tokyo planes and subs.

By Roscoe Drummond | Staff Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON, Dec. 8

By declaration of Congress the United States of America is today at war – directly against the Japanese Empire in the Pacific because of its unprovoked attack, and indirectly against the Axis everywhere in the world.

Only 33 minutes after President Roosevelt stood before a joint session of both houses this afternoon to announce that hostilities exist and to proclaim that “America… will win through to absolute victory, so help us God,” Congress voted to proclaim the existence of a state of war.

America’s war operations against the attacking Japanese force in the Pacific, now in the first stages of the second day, have destroyed “a number of Japanese planes and submarines,” the White House announced today.

But the damage wrought by Japan’s sudden blow at United States defenses in Hawaii, the Philippines, Guam and Wake Islands is more serious than at first known and casualties at the Hawaiian air and naval base of Oahu alone have mounted to 3,000 including 1,500 fatalities.

Large-scale retaliatory attacks against Japanese air and sea power in the neighborhood of the Hawaiian Islands are continuing, the White House disclosed, and the outcome of the first battle of the Pacific awaits clarification.

Losses in Pearl Harbor

The Government confirmed the loss in Pearl Harbor of “one old battleship” and a destroyer, which was blown up.

Several other small ships were seriously damaged, several hangars were destroyed and a large number of Army and Navy planes were put out of commission.

Numerous bombers arrived safely from San Francisco while the Hawaiian air attack was in progress and more reinforcements of aircraft are being rushed today. Repair work on ships, planes and ground facilities is under way.

Striking out in all directions, invading Thailand, assaulting British Malaya, thrusting at Singapore and bombing American defenses, Japanese air and sea power is being immediately confronted by a powerful coalition of Pacific nations.

As the American and Japanese fleets were reported to be battling near Honolulu, Britain declared war, Canada declared war, the Netherlands declared war, Australia declared war.

World War in Fact

Thus the struggle for world conquest which Adolf Hitler started on Sept. 1, 1939, became today a World War in fact as well as in name. The pattern of conquest of the Axis partners has now met in the Pacific and as the United States of America stood in its way, the Axis attacked.

It was a severe and surprise attack. It was an attack which Cordell Hull, Secretary of State, branded as “treacherous and utterly unprovoked.”

But it is an attack which finds the United States prepared and united as never before. Congress is ready to support President Roosevelt, who promptly ordered the Navy and Army into action, with any declaration of war he recommends. Hardly a dissenting voice is being raised in the capital or is audible in the nation. Isolationist leaders, Republican and Democratic, are withdrawing all opposition, are prepared to support every measure needed to prosecute the war.

“American soil has been treacherously attacked by Japan,” said former President Hoover. “Our decision is clear.”

And Senator Burton K. Wheeler (D) of Montana echoed the same sentiment.

But the most significant fact is that the reply which the United States is making to Japan’s act of frantic desperation is not merely war against Japan, it is war to the end against the Axis.

In Tokyo today Premier Gen. Hideke Tojo said: “I am happy that the alliance with Germany and Italy is growing closer.”

The United States accepts Japan’s alliance with Germany and Italy as one of the forces which precipitated its attack on American outposts at the very time its diplomats were in Washington ostensibly negotiating for peace.

But now the dishonesty of those negotiations is revealed. They were negotiations not for peace but for time – time to transport Japanese troops to Thailand – as denied and denied – time to move Japanese warships and aircraft carriers within battle distance of Hawaii, time to spread Japanese submarines out into the Pacific.

Asked how he deemed it possible for the Japanese aircraft to pierce the outer defenses of United States strongholds in the Pacific, Stephen Early, presidential Secretary, gave this explanation as representing “expert consensus”:

“Probably most, if not all, of the planes that attacked came from Japanese carriers. These planes were the dive-bomber type. The attack came at dawn and the carriers naturally would have had all night, under cover of darkness, to approach.

“Then the planes would take off and come in at high altitude to launch their attack, coming in from the darkness.”

Mr. Early said that beyond this “consensus,” he had no further explanation.

Counterattack Starts

Naval officials, meanwhile, said that the counter-offensive against Japan began the moment the first Japanese bomb exploded on the islands.

Mr. Early told reporters that President Roosevelt was particularly gratified at the nation’s response in the new emergency. Mr. Early said a tremendous volume of messages – telegrams and telephone calls – had been received and “all express horror at this attack and pledge full loyalty to the President and the Government.”

The messages came from Governors, Mayors, religious leaders, heads of civic movements, newspaper editors and radiocasters, many offering their personal services, including a Washington taxicab driver named Smith who telephoned the White House late last night saying he had just finished paying for his cab but that he offered it to the Government and offered further to drive free of charge any Governmental official needing transportation.

Landon Pledges Support

Alf Landon wired the White House:

“The Japanese attack leaves no choice. Nothing must be permitted to interfere with our victory over a foreign foe.”

Two main reasons are given here to explain Japan’s almost unexplicable decision to challenge the combined power of the ABCD countries notwithstanding the fact that in more than four years of war it had not been able to defeat China.

One is that the United States refused to negotiate a Japanese military victory over China and knowing that its determination to spread its aggression in Asia would sometime bring a clash with America, Japan sought to reduce and delay the effectiveness of the American fleet.

The other is that Germany urgently wanted to engage the United States in the Pacific in the hope that by so doing it could divert and dissipate direct American aid to the European theater of the fighting. Japan, whether persuaded or high-pressured or decoyed, obliged.

War Against the Axis

In consequence this war of defense against Japan is in fact a war of defense against Axis aggression and Axis strategy, and while it may be days or weeks before all-out war is declared against Germany, there is no doubt in Washington that now the United States is potentially engaged in war against the Axis on every front with every power and resource at its command.

Hitler asked Japan to bring the United States into war. Germany, under the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo pact, is obligated to go to the assistance of its ally if Japan is attacked. Berlin already refers to “clashes” between the United States and Japan, not to Japan’s attack on the United States.

There is no evidence that the United States is embarking upon a limited war against Japan. There is every evidence that the United States is embarking upon an unlimited war against the Axis – it is a war to the end.

The trend of the actual fighting in the Pacific is not yet clear and authenticated reports on the exact extent of damage wrought by the dawn attack by Japanese planes have not been received.

The present position is roughly this:

Attack on Hawaii

Early Sunday morning – Honolulu time – An unidentified number of Japanese bombers roared over American Naval and air bases at Hawaii.

At the same time the Japanese struck at Thailand whose resistance quickly yielded, bombed Singapore, and attacked American fortifications at Guam and the Philippines.

Reports indicate that at least 100 American soldiers were killed in the raid at Hawaii and that more than 300 were injured. Some American planes were damaged.

Grave damage to the United States fleet at Pearl Harbor, alleging the sinking of two battleships, the Oklahoma and the West Virginia, and several destroyers, is reported from Tokyo and Berlin, but these claims have not yet been confirmed.

The Senate vote of 82 to 0 and the House vote of 388 to 1 bespoke more powerfully than words the support, the unity, and the determination with which the country and the Congress took the inevitable decision.

Describing the Japanese attack on American defenses throughout the Far East as “deliberate and dastardly,” the President spoke accurately when he said that “the people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation.”

In the face of the rain of Japanese bombs on Hawaii, Guam, Wake and the Philippines, Congress had already formed its opinions, and Mr. Roosevelt’s request for a declaration of war was but to request what was ready to be granted – and overwhelmingly, unanimously but for one vote in the House of an unswerving pacifist woman leader, Miss. Jeanette Rankin (R) of Montana, whose vote was similarly cast in the World War.

Debate was not wanted. Debate was not needed. Cries of “Vote, vote” came after Representative Joseph W. Martin (R) of Massachusetts applied for a unanimous decision.

“There can only be one answer and that is war and final victory, cost what it may,” said Representative Hamilton Fish (R) of New York, long and bitter opponent of the Government’s defense measures.

“When war comes to us… I stand with my commander in chief, notwithstanding past differences on foreign policy,” said Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg.

And so stood Congress.

“Hostilities exist,” the President said. “Our territory and our interests are in grave danger.”

As Mr. Roosevelt was speaking – speaking the word which brings the United States into war ultimately against the Axis everywhere in the world, America’s war operations were proceeding in the Pacific.

“No matter how long it will take us to overcome this premeditated invasion,” he predicted to Congress and to the country, “the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.”

Congress – those who used to be called isolationists and those who used to be called interventionists; those who used to be called Republicans and those who used to be called Democrats; those who used to be opponents and those who have ever been supporters of the Government’s foreign policy – today greeted the President’s war message with acclaim.

Mr. Roosevelt did not mention Germany nor Italy, the Axis allies of Japan, but leaders of Congress made it plain earlier this morning that the war would extend to any nation which sought in any way to assist Tokyo.

First applause came when the President declared that “our whole nation will remember the character of the onslaught against us.”

Unstinted cheers roared up from the floor of this momentous joint session of Congress when in the last sentence of his constantly cheered message President Roosevelt asked the legislators to record that war now exists between the United States and Japan.

More Aid for President

Immediately upon the voting of the declaration of war this afternoon further legislation will be put forward to strengthen the President’s equipment to prosecute the war without stint.

The first legislation to this end will be introduced by the House Military Affairs Committee to sweep aside all restrictions on use of American armed forces outside the Western Hemisphere.

It was Sam Rayburn (D) of Texas, Speaker of the House, who announced that Congress would stand ready to declare war on all nations “that may declare war on us.”

The war resolution itself, introduced by Representative John W. McCormack (D) of Massachusetts, House Majority Leader, is a virtual duplicate of the resolution which brought the United States into the World War April 6, 1917.

This resolution was designed to put the United States fully and irrevocably into a war which President Roosevelt characterized as having begun on a date “which will live in infamy.”

He said that the United States was “suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.”

While the President was addressing Congress Justice Department agents throughout the United States were seizing more than 700 Japanese nationals.

As Congress acted to pledge “all the resources of the country” to win the war against the Axis wherever it can be fought Vice-President Henry A. Wallace, Chairman of the Supply Priorities and Allocations Board, called an emergency meeting of the Board to draft new plans for “all-out production.”

Defense officials declared that an immediate speed-up in the letting of contracts is certain and they foresaw that the program to double the whole defense effort will now go ahead without opposition.

Aid to Britain and Russia, it was asserted, is not to be reduced but instead war production will commandeer an increasing proportion of industrial capacity. They believed that defense spending would reach $5,000,000,000 a month and that total appropriations would mount to $150,000,000,000.

The Office of Production Management forecast a drastic tightening up in priorities and allocations with civilian industries receiving only what is left after “victory” needs are met.

Connally’s Resolution

Senator Tom Connally (D), of Texas, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, drafted the following joint resolution declaring that a state of war exists between Japan and the United States:

Declaring that a state of war exists between the Imperial Government of Japan and the Government of the United States and making provision to prosecute the same.

Whereas, the Imperial Government of Japan has committed unprovoked acts of war against the Government and the people of the United States of America;

Therefore, be it resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled;

That the state of war between the United States and the Imperial Government of Japan which has thus been thrust upon the United States is hereby formally declared; and the President hereby authorized and directed to employ the entire naval and military forces of the United States and the resources of the Government to carry on war against the Japanese Government; and, to bring the conflict to a successful termination, all of the resources of the country are hereby pledged by the Congress of the United States.