Pearl Harbor Betrayed

by Michael Gannon

  * * *

  Although the Navy court recommended “that no further proceedings be had in the matter,” the United States Congress decided to intervene in September 1945, when it authorized a Joint Congressional Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack (JCC), its membership to be five senators and five representatives, six Democrats and four Republicans. Its proceedings, which consisted mostly of the taking of testimony, lasted from 15 November 1945 to 15 July 1946. Though the hearings amassed a huge amount of data, not much of what was new information was essential to understanding the Pearl Harbor event. At their weary conclusion, the committee announced findings that divided fairly closely along party lines. The majority (Democratic) report cited twelve “errors of judgment and not dereliction of duty” on the part of the Hawaiian commanders. It also concluded that Stark and Marshall should share in the blame. Roosevelt was completely exonerated. Two Republicans on the committee took a middle-of-the-road approach, finding fault with both the Hawaiian commanders and official Washington. A minority report was submitted by the two other Republicans. While not entirely exculpating Kimmel and Short, that report focused on failures it attributed to Roosevelt, Stimson, Knox, Marshall, Stark, and Gerow. It fell short, however, of charging Roosevelt with having foreknowledge of the Japanese attack that he did not share with his Hawaiian commanders—a favorite conspiracy theory that would soon become a cottage industry, one alive and well to this day.62

  General Short, who had not publicly struggled with the charges made against him beginning with the Roberts Commission, joined Kimmel in a friendly relationship during the hearings, and gave a scrappy performance at the witness chair, after which he retired again into desired obscurity. He died on 3 September 1949 in Dallas, Texas, and was buried with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery. (He was preceded in death by Japanese admirals Yamamoto and Nagumo. On 18 April 1943, acting on a decrypted Japanese itinerary for an inspection tour of the northern Solomon Islands by Yamamoto, U.S. fighters intercepted the admiral’s aircraft and shot it down. During the last stages of the U.S. Marine and Army conquest of Saipan Island [June–July 1944], Nagumo and all but one of his staff shot themselves rather than be taken alive.) Kimmel kept fighting to overcome the stain of “dereliction” dripped on him by King. In letters, articles, and a book he defended his performance and his honor, not ceasing in that labor until a heart attack claimed him in his eighty-sixth year, on 14 May 1968, in Groton, Connecticut. Sometime during the last year of his life he drafted, but never sent, a response to a letter received from his onetime friend Admiral “Betty” Stark. The language expressed his deep pain at recalling a professional association and a long friendship gone terribly wrong. As he vented his feelings, probably with no real intention of placing them in a mailbox, there was overt bitterness in every use of the word “betrayed”:

  You betrayed the officers and men of the Fleet by not giving them a fighting chance for their lives and you betrayed the Navy in not taking responsibility for your actions; you betrayed me by not giving me information you knew I was entitled to and by your acquiscence [sic] in the action taken on the request for my retirement; and you betrayed yourself by misleading the Roberts Commission as to what information had been sent to me and by your statements made under oath before the Court of Inquiry that you knew were false.

  I hope that you never communicate with me again and that I never see you or your name again that my memory may not be refreshed of one so despicable as you.63

  Looking back over the preceding chapters, I have resisted the temptation to summarize or to draw last conclusions. I leave that to the reader.

  “Truth is the daughter of time.”

  NOTES

  Pearl Harbor has become one of the most exhaustively examined and debated single events in United States history—more so than the assassination of President John F. Kennedy or the Watergate political scandal. The documents from eight official commissions, courts, boards, inquiries, or investigations conducted from December 1941 through May 1946 fill 23 volumes, 40 parts, and 25,000 closely printed pages. The personal archive of Admiral Husband E. Kimmel amounts to another 35,000 pages in typescript, some of it duplicative. More than 140 books and innumerable articles have been written on the subject.

  “Defeat cries out for explanation; whereas success, like charity, covers a multitude of sins.”

  Alfred Thayer Mahan

  Chapter One: Disaster

  1. Pearl Harbor Attack [hereafter PHA], U.S. Congress, Joint Congressional Committee [hereafter JCC] on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack, 79th Congress, 40 parts (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946), Pt. 32, p. 444.

  2. For precise details on these torpedo actions the writer has relied on the best recent study, by John F. De Virgilio, “Japanese Thunderfish,” Naval History (winter 1991), pp. 61–68.

  3. Ibid., p. 64 and n. 9, pp. 67–68 and n. 18.

  4. Ibid., p. 65.

  5. PHA, Pt. 23, p. 724.

  6. De Virgilio, “Thunderfish,” pp. 66–67.

  7. Interview with Mr. Howard Huseman, Gainesville, FL, 6 March 2001. PHA, Pt. 12, p. 354, “Damage to United States Naval Forces and Installations Resulting from the Japanese Attack on the Island of Oahu on 7 December 1941 [hereafter “Damage to United States Naval Forces].”

  8. National Archives and Records Administration, Archives II, College Park, Maryland, Modern Military Branch [hereafter NARA], Record Group [hereafter RG] 80, Pearl Harbor Liaison Office [hereafter PHLO], Box 14, Commanding Officer USS Arizona to Chief of Naval Operations, January 28, 1942, “Information on Damage Control.” Admiral Husband E. Kimmel Collection [hereafter KC], University of Wyoming, on microfilm, Roll 4, Memorandum Prepared for Vice Admiral [William S.] Pye, Commander, Battle Force, Pacific Fleet, Air Raid, December 7, 1941 [hereafter Memorandum for Pye], p. 19.

  9. Michael Slackman, Target: Pearl Harbor (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press and Arizona Memorial Museum Association, 1990) contains an excellent account of the attack on Arizona with special focus on human interest details. The author times a bomb at “between 8:12 and 8:13” based on a Marine private’s stopped watch; p. 113. However, the Navy’s “Analysis of Loss of Arizona,” dated 31 October 1944, states: “All the references agree that the bombs which struck Arizona fell between 0815 and 0820”; NARA, RG 80, PHLO, Box 14, p. 3.

  10. Ibid., “Analysis of Loss of Arizona,” pp. 3–7.

  11. Captain Joseph K. Taussig, Jr., U.S. Navy (Ret.), “A Tactical View of Pearl Harbor,” Paul Stillwell, ed., Air Raid: Pearl Harbor! (Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1981), p. 138.

  12. De Virgilio, “Thunderfish,” p. 65; Morison, Rising Sun, p. 112.

  13. NARA, RG 80, PHLO, Box 14, “Condition of Water-Tight Integrity of Major Vessels”; 11 December 1945.

  14. De Virgilio, “Thunderfish,” p. 68; PHA, Pt. 12, p. 355, “Damage to United States Naval Forces,” p. 355.

  15. KC, Roll 4, Memorandum for Pye, pp. 19–20.

  16. Rear Admiral Edwin T. Layton, USN (Ret.), with Captain Roger Pineau, USNR (Ret.), and John Costello, “And I Was There”: Pearl Harbor and Midway—Breaking the Secrets (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1985), p. 315.

  Chapter Two: Too Thin a Shield

  1. Stimson to Secretary of the Navy Knox, quoted in “Statement of Admiral Harold R. Stark, U.S. Navy, Before the Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack, 31 December 1945 [hereafter “Statement of Stark”],” p. 65; KC, Roll 1.

  2. Collier’s, The National Weekly, vol. 107, no. 24 (14 June 1941), pp. 11–12, 75–78. Time magazine, too, stated, “Except for the Japanese spies that teemed in Honolulu, the Navy felt safe in its base”; 15 December 1941.

  3. PHA, Pt. 33, Exhibit No. 6, Joint Action of the Army and the Navy, Chapters I–V, pp. 1018–1047.

  4. PHA, Pt. 15, Exhibits, p. 1601. A short Army-originated history in typescript of the “Hawaiian Department and Successor Commands,” co
mposed in 1945 or shortly afterward, enumerates the Army’s responsibilities on Oahu but makes no mention of its primary mission to protect the fleet. The document is found in the “Pearl Harbor Retainer File,” Modern Military Branch NARA.

  5. KC, Roll 3, Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet to Chief of Naval Operations, Pearl Harbor, T.H., 25 January 1941.

  6. Ibid., Roll 4, Extracts from Secret Letters Exchanged Between the Commander in Chief and the Chief of Naval Operations [hereafter Extracts from Secret Letters], p. 1; Kimmel to Stark, 27 January 1941.

  7. Ibid., Roll 4, The Pacific Fleet in the Command Organization of the Navy as of December 7, 1941, p. 3.

  8. Ibid., Roll 1, Statement of Stark, p. 60.

  9. PHA, Pt. 15, Exhibits, p. 1601. In a conference held in his office the day before, Marshall acknowledged that “the planes in Honolulu were, in general, obsolescent, and that we should have a reasonable number of top flight planes which would out-perform any the Japanese could bring on their carriers.” KC, Roll 3, Conference in the Office of the Chief of Staff, Thursday Morning, February 6, 1941; Subject: Defense of Pearl Harbor.

  10. Ibid., Roll 1, Statement of Stark; letter, Secretary Stimson to Secretary Knox, 7 February 1941, pp. 65–67. At that date there were only thirty-six pursuit (fighter) planes of which nineteen were outmoded Curtiss P-36A Hawks and seventeen were even more obsolescent. Under the title Hawaiian Project, Stimson promised to have thirty-one more P-36As assembled at San Diego for shipment to Hawaii within the next ten days. He also pledged to have assembled and shipped by carrier “about March 15” fifty of the new Curtiss P-40B Warhawk pursuit planes, with liquid-cooled Allison engines, self-sealing tanks, and pilot-protecting armor. (Though no match for the Japanese Zero in maneuverability, the P-40B could fight the Zero on otherwise almost equal terms. The P-36A would be at a distinct disadvantage.)

  Where antiaircraft guns were concerned, there were 82 3-inch AA guns then present on Oahu, 109 50-caliber AA machine guns, and 20 37-mm AA guns “en route.” Stimson pledged to provide a total force of 98 3-inch, 120 37-mm, and 308 .50-caliber machine guns.

  It was expected, he said, that land-based radar sets, called at that date the Aircraft Warning Service (AWS), might be available for delivery in June. Barrage balloons might be available sometime in the summer. The value of smoke for screening the fleet had, he said, been judged “impractical.” (Neither balloons nor smoke was in place by 7 December. And twelve days before the seventh, both the War and Navy Departments authorized the transfer of 50 percent of Oahu’s P-40Bs to Wake and Midway Islands; PHA, Pt. 6, p. 2519.)

  11. NARA, Record Group [hereafter RG] 38, Strategic Plans Division Records, Box 147J: Plans, Strategic Studies, and Related Correspondence (Series IX), Part III: OP 123 War Plans and Related Correspondence, WPL-46—WPL-46-PC. Folder: WPL-46 Letters.

  12. KC, Roll 4, Extracts from Secret Letters, Kimmel to Stark, 18 February 1941, p. 2; Roll 1, Statement of Stark, p. 65.

  13. KC, Roll 4, Kimmel, Outline of Testimony Before the Navy Court, August 1944, p. 1.

  14. PHA, Pt. 22, p. 32. KC, Roll 1, Statement by Major General Walter C. Short, U.S. Army, Retired, Before the Joint Congressional Committee, January 1946, p. 1.

  15. Ibid., Pt. 32, p. 283.

  16. NARA, RG 80, General Records of the Secretary of the Navy, Pearl Harbor Liaison Office [hereafter PHLO], Boxes 68–69; Original Transcript [hereafter OT], Proceedings of the Naval Court of Inquiry [hereafter NCI]. The quotation from Senator Truman comes from Colliers, also from the United Press, The New York Times, and the New York Herald Tribune, all 21 August 1944. Kimmel’s letter to Truman, written from Bronxville, NY, on 20 August 1944, is found in KC, Roll 26. Kimmel struck back hard at this canard one month later, on 25 September, when responding to a question raised during the NCI Was he aware of rumors that he and Short were not cordial, did not cooperate, and held few conferences? Kimmel answered: “I believe every man, woman, and child in the United States who can read has read such statements. I wish to state that all such statements are malicious lies.… There was absolutely no basis for the rumors, and I am forced to the conclusion that this was part of a deliberate campaign to smear me and General Short.” NARA, RG 80, PHLO, NCI, OT, Boxes 68–69, Thirty-second day, 25 September 1944.

  Kimmel’s brother Manning M., a colonel commanding the 6th Replacement Regiment (A.A.) at Fort George Meade, MD, wrote Kimmel on 2 May 1944 reporting on a conversation he had there with Colonel Walter C. Phillips, who had been General Short’s chief of staff from 1 March 1941 forward. Phillips had identified Short’s other principal staff officers: Lieutenant Colonel (Lt. Col.) Russell C. Throckmorton, G-1 (Personnel); Lt. Col. Kendall J. Fielder, G-2 (Intelligence); Major William E. Donegan, G-3 (Operations and Training); Lt. Col. Morrill W. Marston, G-4 (Supply); and assistants: Lt. Col. George W. Bicknell, G-2, Major Robert J. Fleming, Jr., G-4, and Lt. Col. William S. Lawton, G-3.

  Manning reported to his brother Colonel Phillips’s statement that “Each of these officers could, and no doubt would, give favorable statements, particularly on the close cooperation and frequent consultation of the staff officers in your headquarters and General Short’s headquarters. He said that they will no doubt testify and be able to produce documents to prove that all information received in one headquarters was immediately transmitted to the other, also that all plans formulated in one headquarters was done so [sic] with the full cooperation and assistance from the other. Also that copies of all orders issued relating to operations were interchanged between the two headquarters,” KC, Roll 26. Kimmel’s chief of staff, Captain William W. Smith, testified in 1944 that “They [Kimmel and Short] were together, I should say, at least twice a week, very frequently with their staffs, and sometimes more frequently than that”; PHA, Pt. 26, p. 44.

  17. KC, Roll 3, Joint Coastal Frontier Defense Plan, Hawaiian Department and Fourteenth Naval District, 28 March 1941, signed 2 April 1941.

  18. NARA, RG 38, Joint Coastal Frontier Defense Plan, Hawaiian Coastal Frontier, 11 April 1941, Basic Joint, Combined, and Navy War Plans and Related Documents, 1905–1941, Box 1.

  19. NARA, RG 80, PHLO, Box 1, PHA, Pt.4, p-1896. The Martin-Bellinger estimate is reproduced in PHA, Pt. 1, pp. 349–54; Pt. 33, pp. 1182–86.

  20. Ibid.

  21. Ibid.

  22. Admiral Nimitz to Commander in Chief, United States Fleet [Admiral Ernest J. King], 7 January 1942, quoted in PHA, Pt. 6, p. 2533; the entire Nimitz report, “Airplane Situation, Hawaiian Area,” is found in NARA, RG 80, PHLO, Box 25.

  23. Conference in the Office of the Chief of Staff, 25 February 1941; NARA, RG 80, PHLO, Box 2. In a General Council meeting on 19 February, Marshall stated: “Out in Hawaii the Fleet is anchored but they have to be prepared against any surprise attack. I don’t say any probable attack but they have to be prepared against a surprise attack from a trick ship or torpedo planes. Our whole Navy power in general is concentrated there; they can’t cruise for [the] next six months.” Ibid., Box 3.

  24. Marshall to Short, 5 March 1941; ibid., Box 2. This box includes additional correspondence between the two men during 1941.

  25. Short to Marshall, 19 February and 15 March 1941; ibid., Box 2. Short said that so many planes were based at Hickam that they could not be sufficiently dispersed on the field itself to prevent losses by that means alone in an air raid.

  26. Marshall to Short, 28 March 1941; ibid., Box 2.

  27. Harry J. Malony, “Dispersion and Protection of Aircraft, Hawaiian Department,” ibid., Box 3.

  28. KC, Roll 1, Statement of Major General Walter C. Short, U.S. Army, Retired, January 1946 [hereafter Short Statement], pp. 3–4.

  29. KC, Roll 1, Short Statement, p. 6; see also the more detailed Statement of Major General Walter C. Short of Events and Conditions Leading Up to the Japanese Attack, December 7, 1941 [hereafter Events and Conditions], in PHA, Pt. 24, pp. 1769–1933, particularly pp. 1785–89.

  30. NARA, RG 80, PHLO, Box 2: Short to Marshall, 6 March 1941; Wi
lliam Bryden to Short, 15 March 1941.

  31. KC, Roll 1, Short Statement, pp. 4–8; Events and Conditions, PHA, Pt. 24, pp. 1769–1933, 1842–44.

  32. PHA, Pt. 24, pp. 1842–44, Short to Adjutant General, War Department, 28 October 1941.

  33. PHA, Pt. 6, p. 2519; NARA, RG 80, PHLO, Box 29, Stark to Kimmel, 19 August 1941.

  34. NARA, RG 80, PHLO, Box 2, Short to Marshall, 14 April 1941.

  35. See, for example, NARA, RG 80, PHLO, Box 2, Short to Marshall, 29 May 1941.

  36. General Short was outspoken on this point in his answers to the Roberts Commission: “I think that the Navy has been perfectly conscious in the last two or three years that this was too restricted an area for the fleet; that a bay like Manila Bay, extending from Cavite to Manila Bay probably 60 miles long would be an immensely safer place to put a fleet in view of an air attack, because you could disperse them and you wouldn’t have such an enormous target. All you had to do was to drive by down here when the fleet was all in; you can see that they just couldn’t be missed if they had a serious air attack. There were too many—there was too little water for the number of ships.… I am implying that it would be practically impossible to protect the ships in such a restricted area against a serious attack, no matter how much you tried.…” PHA, Pt. 22, p. 104. (For every thirty-one operating days at sea a navy task force required fifty-five days of upkeep in port.)

  37. KC, Roll 3, OT of Admiral Husband E. Kimmel’s Statement Before the NCI [hereafter Kimmel Statement], pp. 1–3.

  38. NARA, RG 80, PHLO, Box 29, Stark to Kimmel, 13 January and 29 January 1941.

  39. Ibid., Boxes 2 and 18, Pacific Fleet Confidential Letter No. 2 CL-41, 15 February, revised 14 October 1941. Captain Willard A. Kitts, fleet gunnery officer, testified that “The letter [2CL-41] was issued again by Admiral Nimitz, with Admiral Kimmel’s name on it, in middle of summer 1942. He used this letter as an enclosure to be sent to Fleet and merely stated in the letter that the former letter was to remain in effect.… Plans that Kimmel made prior to Pearl Harbor were to be used after Pearl Harbor. Instructions as to watches and states of conditions of readiness did not change.” KC, Roll 4; PHA, Pt. 32, p. 400.