Traitor peer aided raid on Pearl Harbour
London – A British peer and a wartime hero supplied secret intelligence to the Japanese that helped them to plan and execute their attack on Pearl Harbour and the seizure of Singapore.
The extent of the treachery of William Forbes-sempill, who became the 19th Lord Sempill in 1934, and Frederick Rutland, whose exploits as a naval pilot during World War I won him the nickname ‘‘Rutland of Jutland’’, has been pieced together for a television documentary, drawing on material recently made available in the British National Archives.
It details how, despite learning of Sempill’s espionage and his role in furnishing the Japanese with information that aided the devastating raid on Hawaii and the American fleet, British prime minister Winston Churchill decided not to have him arrested.
While researching The Fall of Singapore: The Great Betrayal, film-maker Paul Elston, assisted by leading historians Richard Aldrich and Anthony Best, uncovered the treachery. They found that the Japanese were supplied with details of conversations between United States president Franklin Roosevelt and Churchill in August 1941. Crucially, this included information that a large part of the US fleet would be unable to respond quickly to a strike on Pearl Harbour.
Churchill later admitted to Anthony Eden, his foreign secretary, that he had unwittingly allowed Sempill to see classified information but had decided only to demote him.
During World War I, Sempill earned a reputation as a daring pilot. In 1920, he moved to Japan – then an ally of Britain – where he advised engineers on how to build aircraft carriers. He also established a military base. Despite the collapse of the Anglo-japanese alliance in 1921, Sempill continued to advise the Japanese, providing details of new planes, flying boats, bombs and engine developments.
Before the collapse of the AngloJapanese treaty, Rutland had also helped Japan to develop its aircraft carrier fleet. He later moved to Hawaii, where he worked for US military companies whose secrets he sent to Tokyo. Concerns over Rutland’s activities were brushed aside and he was able to send photographs from Pearl Harbour to his Japanese handlers shortly before the attack.
By the time war was declared in 1939, Sempill was working at the Admiralty where Churchill had just been appointed first lord. In October 1941, two months before the Pearl Harbour attack and with suspicions swirling around Sempill, Churchill wrote in a memo: ‘‘Clear him out while time remains.’’ When Churchill was told that Sempill had objected to calls for him to resign, the prime minister replied: ‘‘I had not contemplated Lord Sempill being required to resign his commission, but only to be employed elsewhere in the Admiralty.’’ Sempill was demoted.
When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour, they did so with pilots who had been trained by Rutland to take off and land from aircraft carriers. The raid resulted in the sinking or damaging of eight US battleships, three cruisers and three destroyers. Almost 3700 Americans were killed or injured and the attack brought about America’s entry into World War II.
Although security services bugged Sempill’s phone for a period, the lord went on to advise foreign governments on military matters in the 1950s. He died in 1965, 11 months after Churchill.
Rutland was arrested in 1942, but was never prosecuted. He killed himself in 1949.