I perceived diplomatic talks in Washington between Japan and USA is not progressing well after Adm. Thomas Hart USN Commander of Asiatic Fleet issued today an “Alert Warning” to all his surface units, copy furnished 1st Q-Boat Squadron and C,OSP which substantially stated “all surface units in port shall be at their assigned anchorage before sunset with no three ships in line.”
Immediately following this “Alert Warning,” Major Jose V. Andrada, Chief, OSP issued an order not only to implement Adm. Hart’s directive but also to place the 1st Q-Boat Sqdn. on “War Footing” by requiring all Q-Boats to be fully reprovisioned in fuel, food, armaments and ammunitions.
Today, I had my Q-112 fully refueled, and started checking on our food requirements, status of torpedoes, depth charge throwers and depth charges, AA Guns and ammo. Q-111 under Capt. Alberto Navarrete ’35, and Q-113 under Lt. Santiago Nuval ’38 also started putting their units under war footing.
Author’s note:
Above are what I knew then but what I know after WW II based on records, is that at 0600H Nov. 26,1941 Adm. Nagumo’s Hawaii Task Force secretly departed from their anchorage at Hotokappu Bay, headed east via the northern route under radio silence for Pearl Harbor. Provision was made that in case diplomacy succeeds in Washington, Adm. Nogumo’s mission would be aborted. Meanwhile, USN that broke the Japanese Code was reading their diplomatic messages and 1of the 8 decrypting machines was with a USN Intelligence Unit in Corregidor. It was strange Pearl Harbor did not have this machine.