Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, November 27, 1993 TAG: 9311270037
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LONDON LENGTH: Medium
"None of the intercepts obviously indicate that British sources were aware in advance of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, although it was clear that Japan was about to enter the war," Britain's Public Records Office said when it released several dozen of the documents Thursday.
The rest of Churchill's 1,273 files from 1941 and 1942 went on view Friday.
But, the office added, "historians making a detailed examination of all the relevant material might draw a different conclusion."
The files include a "Most Secret" message from Japan intercepted by British intelligence Dec. 4, 1941, three days before the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The message included orders from the Japanese foreign minister to Japan's ambassador in Washington to burn secret documents.
The secret files of British intelligence are being opened under Prime Minister John Major's policy of lessening official secrecy. Historians hope they will shed new light on the war.
One document showed that Churchill knew of mass deaths in Nazi concentration camps in 1942. Jewish groups have long claimed that Britain knew more than it said about the death camps operated by the Nazis during the war.
The report on German police activity, dated Sept. 26, 1942, included a breakdown of deaths in the Nazi camps for August.
Another report, from the Japanese ambassador to Berlin, dated Nov. 29, 1941, quoted Hitler's foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, as saying Hitler believed Britain could be defeated without invading.
"The Fuehrer believed that conditions in Britain were bad and thought that as a result of Germany's future operations, it might be, without an invasion, Britain would be beaten," the report said.
None of the documents referred directly to Japan's carrier-borne aircraft attack on Pearl Harbor, the main U.S. base in Hawaii, in the early hours of Dec. 7, 1941. About 2,400 Americans died in the attack. Nineteen ships and 120 aircraft were lost.
Two authors this year revived speculation that Churchill knew the attack was coming and kept quiet in order to pitch America into the war.
In a recent book, "Betrayal at Pearl Harbor," authors James Rusbridger and Eric Nave claimed that Britain had cracked vital Japanese codes and was able to intercept naval signals which alerted them to an imminent attack on Pearl Harbor.
by CNB