n Japans trade and economy. The main subject area of the eight-action memo was the sign of United States military preparedness and threat of attack. McCollum called for the United States to make arrangements with both Britain (Action A) and Holland (Action B), for the use of military facilities and acquisition of supplies in both Singapore and Indonesia. He also suggested for the deployment of a division of long-range heavy cruisers (Action D) and two divisions of submarines (Action E) to the Orient. The last key factor McCollum called for was to keep the United States Fleet in the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands (Action F). Roosevelt personally took charge of Action’s D and E; these actions were called “pop up” cruises. Roosevelt had this to say about the cruises, “’I just want them to keep popping up here and there and keep the Japs guessing (Stinnett 9).’” With the fleet located around Hawaii and particularly in Pearl Harbor a double-sided sword was created; it allowed for quicker deployment times into South Pacific Water, but more importantly it lacked many fundamental military needs, and was vulnerable due to its geographic location. To understand the true vulnerability of Pearl Harbor one must look at Oahu, the Hawaiian Island that the military base is located. The North part of the island is all mountains, these mountains hinder the vision of military look out points, making an attack from the North virtually a surprise until the sound of fighter planes are over head. There were many key military needs that were missing from Pearl Harbor, and they were; a lack of training facilities, lack of large-scale ammunition and fuel supplies, lack of support craft such as tugs and repair ships, and a lack of overhaul facilities such as dry-docking and machine shops. Commander in Chief, United States Fleet - Admiral James O. Richardson, was outraged when he was told by President Roosevelt of his pl...
