SIMPLIFIED CHART OF HAWAIIAN DEPARTMENT AS OF DECEMBER 7, 1941
The seventh of February, 1941, is one of the dates on which the separate threads of fate mingled briefly. While Mrs. Short was pinning on her husband’s third star at Fort Shafter, Kimmel flourished a vigorous, pen in his shipshape office aboard Pennsylvania. In Washington, Stimson and Marshall were at their respective desks, signing significant letters on the subject of the U.S. Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor.
Henry L. Stimson joined Roosevelt’s Cabinet in June 1940, when the President decided that his official family needed an infusion of Republican blood. One can easily see why he turned to Stimson. They came from identical backgrounds and understood each other’s fundamentally aristocratic temperaments. Stimson had no political ax to grind, and his international views at this time coincided with Roosevelt’s in all essentials. Long an advocate of British-American friendship, he favored all possible aid to Britain and resistance to aggression on every front.
A lawyer by profession, he had served in some capacity under no fewer than five Presidents. He had been Taft’s secretary of war, Coolidge’s high commissioner of the Philippines, and Hoover’s secretary of state. Naturally Stimson had his detractors. Some termed him high-hat, hard to get along with, possessed of a one-track mind, short-fuse temper, and open-mesh memory. All that was true to a degree. Yet even his worst enemies conceded Stimson’s moral and physical courage and devotion to duty.
At seventy-three the oldest member of the Cabinet, Stimson remained physically fit and proud of it. Thoughtful and thought-provoking, he worked best behind the scenes. Equally free of personal ambition or dependence upon party patronage, Stimson responded again and again to his country’s summons. Yet he was basically a home and nature lover, relaxed and happy only at his own hearthside or out of doors. He adored his New York home, Highhold, and it was a real sacrifice for him to come to “this infernal hole they call Washington.”1
The letter under Stimson’s hand that February 7 was addressed to his colleague Frank Knox, who had joined the Cabinet as secretary of the navy at the same time Stimson came on board. Knox, too, voted Republican and had been a Teddy Roosevelt man, but there the resemblance ended. Whereas Stimson had been born to wealth and position, Knox had earned his way up delivering newspapers and working his way through college by waiting on tables and doing other chores. He responded promptly to the call for volunteers in the Spanish-American War and went to Cuba as one of the Rough Riders. Later he enthusiastically followed Teddy into the Bull Moose party. In this he differed from Stimson, who, despite his affection for TR, remained loyal to Taft.
Although overage, Knox volunteered as a private in World War I, saw action with the Seventy-eighth Division, and emerged wearing a major’s gold leaves. For some mysterious reason he was known thenceforth as Colonel. After the Armistice he returned to the newspaper field. In 1930 he took over the Chicago Daily News, and by 1936 he had attained sufficient national stature to rate the Republican Vice-Presidential nomination.
Less intellectually endowed than Stimson, Knox had much more going for him as a personality. He shared TR’s outgoing delight in the business of living and throve on public contacts. What he knew about the Navy would not have taxed a slender notebook, but he realized his limitations and was eager to fill the gaps. Not that he had any illusions about who really ran the Navy, but he accepted the situation with complete good nature.
Stimson’s missive replied to Knox’s memorandum of January. 24. Under the subject “Air Defense of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii,” Stimson expressed “complete concurrence as to the importance of this matter and the urgency of our making every possible preparation to meet such a hostile effort.” He declared definitely, “The Hawaiian Department is the best equipped of all our overseas departments, and continues to hold a high priority for the completion of its projected defenses because of the importance of giving full protection to the Fleet.”
When it came down to details, however, the picture he painted was not too bright. He could promise “thirty-one P-37 pursuit planes assembled at San Diego for shipment to Hawaii within the next ten days” and informed Knox that the total Hawaiian antiaircraft project called for “ninety-eight 3-inch AA guns, one hundred and twenty 37 mm AA guns, and three hundred and eight caliber .50 AA machine guns.” But he gave no indication of just when all this matériel would come Short’s way.
He further advised Knox that aircraft warning service equipment had been ordered and would be delivered to Hawaii in June. By that time arrangements for installation would have been made. Stimson then promised that he would direct Short to look into the barrage balloon and smoke screen situation; about neither did he offer encouragement, however. Barrage balloons would not be available before summer, and according to “qualified opinion,” the “atmosphere and geographic conditions in Oahu render the employment of smoke impracticable for large scale screening operations.”2
A copy of this letter went to Short as well as to Kimmel and Bloch. It would be interesting to know Short’s immediate reaction to the statement that his was “the best equipped of all our overseas departments. . . .” Nor did Short need Stimson’s instructions to cooperate with the Navy; he had no intention of doing anything else. And he had at hand another letter dated February 7, 1941—this one from Marshall—stressing that very subject.
General George C. Marshall became Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army at the age of fifty-nine only a few hours after Hitler’s legions slammed into Poland on September 1, 1939. This quiet, rangy six-footer with blue eyes and graying hair had a rugged face which bespoke a forceful character. Like all men of powerful personality, especially those in top positions, Marshall aroused strong feelings. He inspired either steadfast devotion or sharp aversion. Although he could be somewhat unapproachable, he was always open to reason, but once he made up his mind, the staff officer who continued to oppose him did so at his own risk.
Marshall had met with Stark on February 6, and the Chief of Staff gave Short the benefit of their discussion. Marshall began with a brief character sketch of Kimmel as given him by Stark:
He said Kimmel was very direct, even brusque and undiplomatic in his approach to problems; that he was at heart a very kindly man, though he appeared rather rough in his methods of doing business. I gather that he is entirely responsive to plain speaking on the part of the other fellow if there is frankness and logic in the presentation. Stark went so far as to say that he had, in the past, personally objected to Kimmel’s manner in dealing with officers, but that Kimmel was outstanding in his qualifications of command, and that this was the opinion of the entire Navy.
Stark had also told Marshall of Kimmel’s complaints about “deficiencies of Army matériel for the protection of Pearl Harbor.” Marshall admitted to Short that, in general, the facts were as the admiral indicated. He added, however, “What Kimmel does not realize is that we are tragically lacking in this matériel throughout the Army, and that Hawaii is on a far better basis than any other command in the Army.”3
Marshall then emphasized a most vital point: “The fullest protection for the Fleet is the rather than a [Marshall’s italics] major consideration for us . . . but the Navy itself makes demands on us for commands other than Hawaii, which makes it difficult for us to meet the requirements of Hawaii. . . .”4
For all “the pressures on the Department,” Marshall emphasized that “we are keeping clearly in mind that our first concern is to protect the Fleet.” He continued: “My impression of the Hawaiian problem has been that if no serious harm is done us during the first six hours of known hostilities, thereafter the existing defenses would discourage an enemy against the hazard of an attack. . . .” How could Marshall foresee that the first six minutes of war would break the back of the Pacific Fleet? “The risk of sabotage and the risk involved in a surprise raid by Air and by submarine constitutes sic the real perils of the situation. Frankly, I do not see any landing threat in the Hawaiian Islands so long as we have air superiority.”5
This fixation with sabotage both in Washington and in Hawaii was understandable. The Islands’ population included some 160,000 Japanese, about 37,500 of whom were foreign-born.6 The United States had seen to what good use Hitler had put the discontents and aspirations of minorities. Below the surface the Japanese on Hawaii presented an entirely different picture from the native European minorities, but Marshall and Short were soldiers, not sociologists. Once more Marshall iterated:
Please keep clearly in mind in all of your negotiations that our mission is to protect the base and the Naval concentrations, and that purpose should be made clearly apparent to Admiral Kimmel. I accentuate this because I found . . . that old Army and Navy feuds, engendered from fights over appropriations . . . still persist in confusing issues of national defense. . . . Fortunately, and happily I might say, Stark and I are on the most intimate personal basis, and that relationship has enabled us to avoid many serious difficulties.7
Short hastened to reply on the nineteenth, assuring Marshall that he had found both Kimmel and Bloch—his opposite number—“most approachable and cooperative in every way” and that “our relations should be extremely cordial.” He listed the conditions he believed of great importance and the steps he wished to take to effect the necessary changes. Of these, “Cooperation with the Navy” ranked as number one, and he advised Marshall that to bring this about, joint committees of Army and Navy officers would meet and report on March 1.8
Short also wrote that same day to The Adjutant General* concerning the dispersal and protection of fighters and bombers. “The concentration of these airplanes at Wheeler Field and at Hickam Field presents a very serious problem in their protection against hostile aviation,” he stressed. And he asked for bunker protection for “142 single engine pursuit ships and 121 double engine pursuit ships and for 25 two engine bombers and 70 four engine bombers” at a total cost of $1,565,600—reasonable enough considering the value of the aircraft.9 Nothing concrete came of these pleas. Of course, the War Department neither ignored Short nor put him in an impossible position deliberately. It had precisely the same problem as he on a larger scale—how to build a fortress with what was available, and quickly. Hawaii got what Washington could send, which was not enough.
Short’s official correspondence and his testimony reveal a thorough awareness of the danger to Hawaii; they also display a sound understanding of the day-to-day aspects of his command. In fact, one cannot escape the impression that he was surer of himself in the precise field of detailed operations than in the larger area of mission. He took hold efficiently and made good use of what he had available. Yet he was strictly a soldier, and although his primary mission had been spelled out for him in the plainest possible terms, he never really understood the nature of his responsibility to the Pacific Fleet. In exceedingly revealing testimony, Short observed, speaking of a potential attack on Pearl Harbor: “If the fleet had been ordered away from the Hawaiian waters I would have been extremely apprehensive. . . . I definitely would have expected it if the fleet had not been there.”10 In his heart, Short regarded the presence of the Pacific Fleet as a protection for his Hawaiian Department, rather than vice versa. Nor did he realize that any Japanese attack would be aimed at the very ships he was charged with protecting.
Short’s basic aim—to do his duty as best he could in the sphere to which God and the War Department had called him—paralleled Kimmel’s, but Short had very different ideas about how it should be accomplished. A firm believer in contacts, he set out to make himself agreeable. As Bloch, who knew Short well and liked him, reminisced, “Short was not too hard a worker. He was definitely not a busy beaver. He was the type who considered it his duty to know everyone in the area, to be good to them, and to swap lies with them from time to time.”11
Indeed, Short’s savoir-faire may well have been an important factor in his appointment. The Hawaiian Department’s commander absolutely had to get along with the civilian authorities if he was to obtain the cooperation necessary for smooth coordination. A certain gap had always existed between civilian and military Hawaii, and Short made it his business to bridge it. This he did with excellent results.
It is evident that defense of the Islands was the part of his mission which he understood best and in which he was most successful—at least to the degree to which he was called upon. We cannot know whether he could have held the archipelago against an all-out Japanese assault. It is a military axiom that any position can be taken by an attacking force which hits quickly enough, hits hard enough, and stays long enough. Geographically isolated, yet dependent on the mainland for food and fuel, Hawaii presented almost a classic case of vulnerability, and well Short knew it.
The general did not immediately gather around him a cohesive staff. His officers went through so many changes throughout the year that not until about a month before the Pearl Harbor attack did they settle down to fairly permanent status. Herron had left behind a first-rate chief of staff, Colonel Philip Hayes. But Hayes was due for rotation, and his successor lacked his background, presence, and grasp of the job. “In December 1940, after a very successful series of maneuvers in the first division” Short requested the assignment of Lieutenant Colonel Walter C. Phillips, the First Division’s operations officer, to Hawaii as chief of staff.12
With Marshall’s personal blessing, Phillips arrived in Hawaii on March 1. Phillips was well intentioned and exceedingly loyal to Short, but from all reports his raucous voice and blustering manner could rub people the wrong way. After training in various staff sections throughout the spring and summer, Phillips took over as chief of staff on November 1 and five days later became a full colonel. The Army Pearl Harbor Board remarked of his work: “Phillips was recognized by the staff as without force and far too weak for a position of such importance. Short’s selection of Phillips appears to have been a mistake. . . .” Mistake or not, Short stuck by his man, as his postwar testimony indicates: “Colonel Hayes was an excellent administrative man. He had had dealings with the Navy over considerable periods of time. Colonel Phillips was a far more competent man on field work and training.”13
Lieutenant Colonel Russell C. Throckmorton served Short successively as G-3 (Operations) and G-1 (Personnel). He was a good officer, obliging and cooperative, a fine person, and a holdover from Herron, whom he admired greatly. Although not close to Short, he got along with the general and respected him.
Lieutenant Colonel Kendall J. “Wooch” Fielder was intelligent and shrewd. Although he had never served under Short, they were good friends, and in July 1941 Fielder became his intelligence officer (G-2), replacing Lieutenant Colonel Morrill W. Marston. Although Fielder had no previous Intelligence background, he worked hard at his job and served the general faithfully.
Major William E. Donegan was first Herron’s, then Short’s deputy assistant chief of staff, Operations (G-3). In July he was placed on the General Staff and he received his promotion to lieutenant colonel on September 15, 1941. On November 5, when Throckmorton became G-1, Donegan moved to the top slot in G-3, one of the most important posts on the staff. He was a man of honest opinions, loyal to his superiors and fellow officers.
Lieutenant Colonel Marston, who had originally served under Herron and Short as G-2, became assistant G-4 (Supply) on July 21, 1941, when Fielder took over Intelligence. His colleagues knew this quiet, unassuming officer as one of the most conscientious and dutiful men on Oahu. Marston moved up the ladder to assistant chief of staff, G-4 on October 19, 1941.14
While Short shook down his staff, the War Department continued to give considerable thought to defense of the Pacific Fleet. At a meeting of key brass held on the morning of February 25 Marshall raised the main issue. “In view of the Japanese situation the Navy is concerned with the security of the fleet in Hawaii. . . . They are in the situation where they must guard against a surprise or trick attack. It is necessary for the fleet to be in anchorage part of the time and they are particularly vulnerable at that time. I do not feel,” he added, “that it is a possibility or even a probability but they must guard against everything.”15
Here again that old serpent dichotomy raised its snaky head. Marshall was aware of the danger to Hawaii and would do everything he could to provide protection to the outpost, yet deep down he did not believe the Japanese would attack. Then, on the very day (or exceedingly close to it) on which Genda submitted his draft plan to Onishi, Marshall continued: “We also have information regarding the possible use of torpedo planes. There is the possible sudden introduction of Japanese carrier-based planes of the Messerschmidt type. . . . The Navy viewpoint is that the whole fleet is involved and that the sea power of the United States might be jeopardized. . . .” With this conference fresh in his mind, on March 5 Marshall urged Short to send him an early review of “the situation in the Hawaiian Department with regard to defense from air attack” and stressed that the “establishment of a satisfactory system of coordinating all means available to this end is a matter of first priority.”16
Before receiving the Chief of Staffs letter, Short had dispatched a missive on the sixth which reveals him as a clear-thinking, courageous man who no more hesitated to speak his mind than did Richardson or Kimmel, although he walked with a lighter tread: “One of the first projects which I investigated in the Department was the Aircraft Warning Service which I believe is vital to the defense of these islands.” He asked that permission be obtained “from the Secretary of the Interior to construct the Haleakala* installation without the necessity of submitting detailed plans for consideration by the National Park Service.” And he ended flatly: “Defense of these Islands and adequate warning for the United States Fleet is so depending upon the early completion of this Aircraft Warning Service that I believe all quibbling over details should be stopped at once. . . .”17
From the vantage of hindsight, the War Department’s reply, dated March 15, gives one the sensation of having wandered into the Mad Hatter’s tea party:
. . . The National Park Service officials are willing to give us the temporary use of their lands when other lands are not suitable for the purpose, but they will not waive the requirements as to the submission of preliminary building plans showing the architecture and general appearance. They are also very definitely opposed to permitting structures of any type to be erected at such places as will be open to view and materially alter the natural appearance of the reservation. . . .18
It was just as well for Short’s blood pressure that he did not wait to receive this letter before he responded to Marshall’s of March 5 on the air defense situation. In fact, Short replied to that letter on the fifteenth also. He began uncompromisingly: “The most serious situation with reference to an air attack is the vulnerability of both Army and Navy air fields to the attack.” This shows excellent perception because the Japanese planners knew that for maximum success they had to pin American air power to the ground before and during the strike on the ships. After spelling out his numerous shortages, the general emphasized:
The coordination of Antiaircraft defense presents quite a different picture at Hawaii from that existing in most places on the mainland. The island is so small there there would not be the same degree of warning that would exist on the mainland. After the installation of our new detectors we shall have some warning from the different islands and almost continuous service in the most dangerous direction for approximately 75 miles. The pursuit aviation, however, will have to be prepared to take the air in the minimum amount of time. . . .19
One cannot help sympathizing with Short. On the one hand, he was constantly occupied with correspondence in the most serious tone to and from Washington concerning the air defense of Hawaii and the Fleet. On the other, he was being told, in official language, that all things considered, the view from the top of a mountain was much more important than the establishment of an efficient radar screen for the detection of an approaching enemy.
This attitude was all the more disquieting because Pearl Harbor was the only place within thousands of miles where the U.S. Pacific Fleet could refuel, refit, and revictual. Shaped roughly like a shamrock, with its petals respectively the West, Middle, and East lochs, it was accessible only by the slender stem, a long channel so narrow that capital ships had to use it one at a time. No wonder Richardson called Pearl Harbor a “God-damn mousetrap.”20
Kimmel knew of the disadvantages to the Fleet at Pearl Harbor as well as did Richardson, but he wasted no time flogging a dead horse. He shared the fighting man’s traditional belief that any decision was better than none, and he itched to get on with the job of preparing his forces. On that busy February 7 he wrote to Stark one of the first of a series of long, persistent but fruitless letters begging for personnel.21
Nimitz received it for reply. His answer to Kimmel’s request for increased complements, contained in a lengthy missive of March 3, gives an interesting hint of the curious factors involved in naval decisions. Roosevelt had received from the families of sailors a number of complaints that the men were packed into their ships like sardines. For this reason, “The President now feels so strongly that we will make our ships unhappy by overcrowding that Stark and I will need every bit of assistance and assurance that you can give in order to obtain his consent to carrying more than the present 100% complement on board. . . .”22 Perhaps it is just as well that Kimmel’s immediate reaction to this did not go on record.
Stark was having his own troubles with the President, who wished to send a naval detachment to the Philippines via the Phoenix, Gilbert, or Fiji islands as a warning gesture to Japan. Wanting no part of a two-front war, on February 11 Stark sent Roosevelt a memorandum in an attempt to squelch such presidential exuberance. “There is a chance that further moves against Japan will precipitate hostilities rather than prevent them. We want to give Japan no excuse for coming in in case we are forced into hostilities with Germany who we all consider our major problem.”23
Here, in brief, was the bedrock of American naval policy at this time. Stark had no illusions about the Japanese tiger, but he was not about to poke it into action while Hitler’s killer sharks infested the Atlantic. Keep Great Britain above water—that was the prime objective.
Without waiting for a reply to his request for personnel, on February 15 Kimmel issued to his command Pacific Fleet Confidential Letter 2 CL 41, concerned with possible attack on the Fleet. It outlined every conceivable contingency, with provisions to cover each insofar as his resources permitted.
The second paragraph postulated that “no responsible foreign power will provoke war, under present existing conditions, by attack on the Fleet or Base, but that irresponsible and misguided nationals of such powers” might try it.24 The letter further assumed that “a declaration of war might be preceded by:
(1) a surprise attack on ships in Pearl Harbor.
(2) a surprise submarine attack on ships in operating area.
(3) a combination of these two.”25
Thus, Kimmel shared the general belief that Japan would never deliberately initiate war with the United States. The idea was almost laughable—a mouse kicking a cat! But individuals were less predictable. And he knew from Japanese history that they might hit first and go through the formalities later.
His orders on “defense against air attack” were clear and comprehensive. The Army, with Marine assistance, would man the antiaircraft shore guns. Furthermore, “any part of the Fleet in Pearl Harbor, plus all Fleet aviation shore-based on Oahu, will augment the local air defense.”26 Kimmel designated the commandant of the Fourteenth Naval District (Bloch) as naval base defense officer and spelled out his responsibilities, which included this caution: “It must be remembered too that a single submarine attack may indicate the presence of a considerable surface force probably composed of fast ships accompanied by a carrier. . . .”27 On the contrary, the Japanese plan would call for “fast ships” to accompany the carriers. Later, Japanese airmen would worry lest one of their own submarines should tip off the Americans to the forthcoming air attack.
Kimmel’s Fleet Letter makes no mention of long-distance reconnaissance, the magic key to the protection of Oahu. This was an Army function at the time, although the Navy would soon take over the responsibility.
On February 15 Stark dispatched to Kimmel a letter which could only have reinforced his belief that the principal danger to his ships when in port came from beneath the sea. Stark’s letter opened:
1. Consideration has been given to the installation of A/T baffles within Pearl Harbor for protection against torpedo plane attacks. It is considered that the relatively shallow depth of water limits the need for anti-torpedo nets in Pearl Harbor. In addition the congestion and the necessity for maneuvering room limit the practicability of the present style of baffles. . . .
(a) A minimum depth of water of seventy-five feet may be assumed necessary to successfully drop torpedoes from planes. One hundred and fifty feet of water is desired. The maximum height planes at present experimentally drop torpedoes is 250 feet. Launching speeds are between 120 and 150 knots. Desirable height for dropping is sixty feet or less. About two hundred yards of torpedo run is necessary before the exploding device is armed, but this may be altered. . . . 28
Such assumptions could have drastic consequences. Sparked by the indefatigable Genda, the Japanese took nothing for granted. With a dynamic faith that what had to be accomplished could be, they planned, tested, and trained until they made hay of Stark’s figures.
On the eighteenth Kimmel reemphasized his own concern over his ships’ safety, stressing to Stark, “I feel that a surprise attack (submarine, air, or combined) on Pearl Harbor is a possibility. We are taking immediate practical steps to minimize the damage inflicted and to ensure that the attacking force will pay. We need antisubmarine forces—DDs and patrol craft. . . .”29
Kimmel did not write of preventing such an attack, only of making the attackers pay for it. But like Short and others, he thought that an attack would be more likely if his ships were not in Pearl Harbor. “I felt, as the situation developed, the Fleet might move away from Pearl Harbor, and in such a contingency the possibility of a quick raid on the installations at Pearl Harbor might be attempted,” he later testified.30
Actually Kimmel had no direct responsibility for protection of his vessels when they moored in Pearl Harbor. He was “responsible” only insofar as the armed forces consider the commander answerable for everything under his jurisdiction. As the Navy Court of Inquiry* stated after its investigation of the Pearl Harbor attack, “The defense of a permanent naval base is the direct responsibility of the Army. The Navy is expected to assist with the means provided the naval district within whose limits the permanent naval base is located.”31
The Pacific Fleet considered itself geared for the offensive. Once war had been declared, Kimmel’s vessels would race to the Mandates and range through the western Pacific to make Japan rue the day it had decided to try conclusions with the United States Navy. Once the war started, the Fleet’s own offensive operations would be the best possible defense of Pearl Harbor.
Kimmel added a significant postscript to his letter of February 18:
I have recently been told by an officer fresh from Washington that ONI [Office of Naval Intelligence] considers it is the function of Operations to furnish the Commander in Chief with information of a secret nature. I have heard also that Operations considers the responsibility for furnishing the same type of information to be that of ONI. I do not know that we have missed anything, but if there is any doubt as to whose responsibility it is to keep the Commander in Chief fully informed with pertinent reports on subjects that should be of interest to the Fleet, will you kindly fix that responsibility so that there will be no misunderstanding?32
Stark’s absence from Washington delayed his reply, but he answered on March 22 that “ONI is fully aware of its responsibility in keeping you adequately informed concerning foreign nations, activities of those nations and disloyal elements within the United States. . . .”33
Richardson’s operating schedule had called for half the Fleet to be at sea and the other half in port in an alternating pattern. After about a month on the job Kimmel revised the scheme to allow for three task forces. He kept at least one at sea at all times, sometimes two, so that any one ship spent 40 percent of its time at sea and 60 percent in port. Although acutely aware that the unit plowing the waters might run into hostile submarines, he took this chance. As he later testified, “We had to accept it, because if you keep a fleet in port you might just as well disband them, quit: they are no good to you.”34
Task Force One came under the command of Vice Admiral William Satterlee Pye, second in rank to Kimmel and thus expected to act as CinCPAC in Kimmel’s absence. Pye had the reputation of being a brilliant strategist; during a tour in the War Plans Division he had drafted the Navy’s basic war plan for the Pacific.
Task Force Two fell to the redoubtable Vice Admiral William F. Halsey. Swashbuckling, crinkle-faced Bill Halsey had been an Annapolis classmate of Kimmel’s; by 1934, at the age of fifty-one, when already a captain and a grandfather, he had won his wings at Pensacola. He loved and understood naval aviation as few men of his age could do. Kimmel set great store by him.
Task Force Three received as its commander Vice Admiral Wilson Brown, the “officer fresh from Washington” whom Kimmel had mentioned to Stark. Brown’s distinguished career included command of the New London submarine base and the battleship California. He had also been superintendent of the Naval Academy.
This setup was operational. Pye’s official title was Commander, Battle Force, while Brown was Commander, Scouting Force. Halsey answered to Commander, Aircraft, Battle Force. Under them were a number of type commanders—rear admirals in charge of every major type of vessel.35
Kimmel would have preferred to keep two task forces at sea at all times, but the critical fuel shortage prohibited this. The Pacific Fleet had only eleven tankers, a mere four of which were capable of fueling other ships at sea. Keeping in mind that a single destroyer steaming at full power would use up its entire fuel supply in thirty to forty hours, one gets some idea of the staggering needs of an entire fleet.36 Yet Hawaii produced no oil. Every teaspoonful had to be transported over 2,000 miles from the mainland. The entire oil supply had to be stored in plain sight aboveground, and one of the Fleet’s recurring nightmares was the possibility of the vast tank farm’s catching fire, either accidentally or by enemy action.
Kimmel’s reorganization gave Bloch a second post: commander, Task Force Four. In this capacity he was base defense officer, responsible for the Hawaiian Sea Frontier, including the outlying islands of Johnston, Midway, Wake, and Palmyra. Technically Bloch had two bosses. As commandant, Fourteenth Naval District, he was under Stark; as a task force commander he came under Kimmel. Actually the channels did not cross because Bloch answered to Stark for administrative matters and to Kimmel in the operational field.37
SIMPLIFIED CHART OF U.S. PACIFIC FLEET AS OF DECEMBER 7, 1941
To assist him in carrying out his multitudinous duties, Kimmel handpicked a staff of unusually clever officers, many of whom he had known for years. For his chief of staff he took popular Captain William Ward “Poco” Smith from Brooklyn’s bridge. Smith stood slightly under six feet and kept in condition by playing golf like a pro. An unusually retentive memory reinforced his mental agility, and an irrepressible sense of humor leavened the whole. As a chief of staff he was a natural, fielding everything belted his way with dispatch. Sometimes he formed judgments quickly, shooting from the hip.
In many ways the closest to Kimmel of all his official family was his assistant chief of staff and operations officer, Captain Walter S. DeLany. Down-to-earth and intelligent, DeLany had much in common with Kimmel, including a passion for hard work and professional integrity of a very high order. He did not hesitate to disagree with Kimmel when he thought the occasion demanded it.
For war plans officer, Kimmel tapped Captain Charles E. “Soc” McMorris, whose angular, pockmarked features resembled a medieval woodcut. He was a delightful person who could put across his ideas without table thumping. For many Navy officers, Soc’s initials on a plan of action sufficed to guarantee it; others believed that at times he let his imagination and enthusiasm carry him out to sea.
Kimmel kept several members of Richardson’s staff, including McMorris’s assistant, Commander Vincent Murphy, whom Richardson considered “the finest officer in the United States Navy.”38 Another holdover was sharp-minded Commander Arthur C. Davis, the Fleet aviation officer, a pilot and the only member of Kimmel’s official family who knew naval aviation from the deck up. Kimmel also retained Richardson’s intelligence officer, Lieutenant Commander Edwin T. Layton. Confident and alert, Layton had been assistant naval attaché in Japan from April 1937 to March 1939 and thus had firsthand knowledge of the Japanese scene and particularly the Imperial Navy. He also spoke the language fluently.
With Richardson’s relief from duty, Commander Maurice “Germany” Curts hoped he could leave his job in Communications and return to the sea he loved. When Kimmel summoned him to the flagship and asked him, “Young man, would you like to be on my staff?” Curts countered this flattering query with a firm “Hell, no!” The prompt negative took Kimmel by surprise, and the blood surged up into the admiral’s face. “You’ve got to,” he answered quickly. “There’s no getting out of it.” Curts then muttered, “Oh, hell!” in tones of such disgusted resignation that everyone present, including Kimmel, burst out laughing. Thus, he drew Curts into the charmed circle.39
These then were some of the representative officers on Kimmel’s staff, embodying a remarkable combination of mental power, professional knowledge, ability, and personality. They enjoyed excellent relationships among themselves, complemented one another, and shared a deep loyalty to their chief and to each other.
No man can assume supreme command and remain exactly as before, but the changes his officers noted in Kimmel were of degree rather than kind. Always a hard worker, he now became almost obsessed with devotion to duty to a point which at least touched, if it did not cross, the boundary between dedication and fanaticism. He spent much time on details and exhibited undue concern over appearances.
Kimmel left his wife on the mainland when he came to Hawaii. In answer to a question from Poco Smith as to why he had not brought her out, Kimmel replied, “Well, to tell you the truth, Smith, I feel that I could not do my job with my family present.”40 This lack of confidence in his ability to function in the normal double harness of home and work is difficult to understand because Mrs. Kimmel had spent her entire life in the Navy and well appreciated the claims of her husband’s position.
Kimmel’s preoccupation with his work did not escape the notice of the Fleet medical officer, who suggested to several members of the CinCUS’s staff that they induce him to play as much golf as possible. Accordingly, DeLany and others lured Kimmel out on the green whenever they could. But he obviously begrudged the time away from his desk.41
The admiral demanded much from his men and more from himself. He expected his people to produce and did not acknowledge good intentions as an acceptable substitute for concrete results. But no more conscientious, hardworking, patriotic, and honest man ever wore the Navy blue, and he well merited the loyalty which his officers gave him in abundance to the end of his life and beyond.
