ABSTRACT
In standard American histories of the Second World War in the Pacific it has been the Japanese who are credited with the ability and the will to deceive their enemies, not the Americans. Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, which humiliated the US and catapulted the country into the war, became the popular archetype for Japanese treachery. When the investigations of the Pearl Harbor raid held during and after the war revealed that the attack itself had been supported by a clever deception campaign, this only reinforced the stereotype. The Japanese had simulated radio traffic from their invasion fleet which falsely placed it in the coastal waters south of Japan, not headed north-west toward Hawaii. They had planted false clues to their own unpreparedness, such as sending Japanese soldiers ashore on leave just hours before their ships sailed. They had reinforced garrisons in Manchuria to suggest a northern target for their obvious military preparations instead of the true southern one, and they had prolonged their show of diplomatic negotiations in Washington. 1
