Pearl Harbor Christmas by Stanley Weintraub Read Free Book Online

and he also offered other mixed libations, including one with dark Haitian rum. Gin concoctions were long associated with Britain and, indeed, the empire, but Churchill’s tastes ran to sherry, whiskey, brandy, and champagne, beginning on awakening, and none adulterated by flavored, nonalcoholic ingredients. As additional guests arrived, the President had a trolley rolled in with caviar, smoked turkey, smoked clams, and assorted cheeses, all now rarities in London.
    Dinner was served in the long dining room. Ambassador Lord Halifax had arrived, joining Secretary of State Cordell Hull and Mrs. Hull, Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles and Mrs. Welles, Harry Hopkins, Lord Beaverbrook and several close Roosevelt friends, such as Mrs. “Bertie” Hamlin. Henrietta Nesbitt, whose bland cuisine often caused presidential invitees to pass up a White House dinner, furnished broiled chicken and vegetables, with a dessert of strawberry shortcake and vanilla ice cream. (As the war wore on, because chicken did not require soon-to-be issued meat-ration coupons, she would serve fowl in some form almost daily.) Closing the light banter over dinner, the President raised a goblet of champagne. “I have a toast to offer,” he began, “—it has been in my head and on my heart now for a long time—now it is on the tip of my tongue—‘To the common cause.’ ”
    It was already ten o’clock. As the waiters and maids began collecting plates and glasses, the President wheeled his chair about and was propelled toward the green-carpeted Oval Office, with Churchill, Beaverbrook, Halifax, Hopkins, Welles, and Hull following and taking seats on the brown and green leather chairs once salvaged from Theodore Roosevelt’s yacht Mayflower. A general discussion began, as prologue to meetings scheduled for the morning of December 23. Churchill knew the answer before he asked his initial question: Would the President concede to public desire to go directly after Japan? The PM knew that distances, and resources, made that impractical. The priority, he was assured, was “Europe first.” Both agreed that Americans had to get into some action that was not wholly defensive as soon as possible, and that meant across the Atlantic—probably French North Africa, whether or not the puppet Pétain regime in Vichy resisted. Georges Mandel, Minister of the Interior until the armistice with Germany, described the aged Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain ironically as “ le conquistador, ” playing on “ le con qui se dort ”—the fool who is asleep.
    As the Oval Office emptied at about midnight, Churchill recalled, “I wheeled [the President] in his chair from the drawing room to the lift as a mark of respect and thinking also of Sir Walter Raleigh spreading his cloak before Queen Elizabeth.”

    EARLY EDITIONS OF the morning newspapers had been delivered, and those in the White House knew much more than the press was permitted to print. One problem that would plague American war industry could not be concealed and had already made the front pages. Welders and other laborers in San Francisco Bay–area shipyards were striking. The army had to be called in to “prevent molestation” of those willing to work. The Japanese already in Luzon were moving, more rapidly than reported, south from Lingayen Gulf and north from Lamon Bay, closing in on undefended Manila. Handouts from MacArthur about the capital contended otherwise.
    Outnumbered but feisty marines on Wake Island were close to surrender. Commander Winfield Scott Cunningham radioed Admiral Pye and Admiral Fletcher tersely: “ENEMY ON ISLAND. ISSUE IN DOUBT.” Pearl Harbor ordered Task Force 14 to reverse course and return. Marine pilots on the flight deck of the Saratoga banged their fists against their planes and wept openly. Major James Devereux on Wake sent orders where he could: “Cease firing and destroy all weapons. The island is being surrendered.” On its Wilkes outcrop, unaware of the grim