That afternoon, about the time Tom was playing on the piano and Jerry, unusually by his side, singing, President Roosevelt made an appeal directly to the Japanese emperor to continue negotiations, which had stalled since the 25th of November. Down the street from the White House, US code breakers were furiously decoding the first thirteen parts of a “14 Part Message” detailing Japanese grievances against the US and Western nations. They had cracked the Japanese “Purple” code months before but this message was to be delivered to President Roosevelt promptly at one pm the next day by the Japanese ambassador, Kichisaburō Nomura. They had to get the text to Secretary of State Cordell Hull before that happened.

Meanwhile, across the world, five Japanese I-boats launched five midget submarines off of Oahu who then began the painstaking process of infiltrating the mouth of Pearl Harbor. Further north, another I-boat, I-72, reported no American ships at Lahaina Roads which removed the last possibility of the Americans detecting the Kido Butai before it launched, as it sailed behind a rain squall. Below decks of the six Japanese aircraft carriers, crewmen rolled the large specially modified torpedoes and armored piecing bombs toward their planes, while pilots continued with ship identification games and route rehearsals for the upcoming attack.