Japan’s devastating air strike against Pearl Harbor aroused the people of the United States as no other event in their history ever had. From coast to coast, from north to south, the tragic words rasped over American tongues, burned into American minds. For most Pearl Harbor was a deep emotional experience, indeed, a traumatic shock.
Yet emotions churned deeper than shock. The American people reeled with a mind-staggering mixture of surprise, awe, mystification, grief, humiliation, and, above all, cataclysmic fury. The ingredients of this bone-deep anger and hatred were so emotional, so varied, and so tightly interwoven that it is difficult to sort them out in coherent and logical pattern. For one thing, Americans fairly gnashed their teeth at having been played for suckers. Certain observers, especially on the Pacific coast, watching cargoes of iron and other strategically valuable materials bound for Japan, had predicted that one day these items would make a round trip in the shape of Japanese bombs.1 Now the whole country tacitly acknowledged that they had prophesied truly. The Arkansas Gazette summed up this aspect of America’s wrath in a single, laconic comment: “It now turns out that Japan was one of our customers who wasn’t right.”2
Another fishbone that stuck in the national throat was Japan’s initiating the air strike without formally declaring war. But nothing infuriated the American people more than the attack’s having occurred while Japan was carrying on conversations with the United States, ostensibly in good faith, for a peaceful settlement of their mutual problems. All across the land editorial upon editorial denounced “the sly, cowardly attack executed at the very hour Japan’s Machiavellian envoys were conducting ‘peace’ negotiations with our government. . . .”3 Words failed the Atlanta Constitution “to express the utter duplicity of the Japanese. . . .” And the Augusta (Georgia) Chronicle figuratively wrung its hands and clasped its brow: “Oh, the dishonesty and trickery of it all!”4
Through all the conflicting emotions ran a thread of relief—relief that Japan had taken the United States off the hook and made the decision for it; relief that the onus of aggression rested upon the Axis; relief that the Americans could stop the talk and half measures and get on with the real job; relief that the isolationist-interventionist cleavage had fused into unity. “Since the clash now appears to have been inevitable, its occurrence brings with it a sense of relief,” philosophized the New York Herald Tribune. “The air is clearer. Americans can get down to their task with old controversies forgotten.”5
A thunderbolt of such unbelievable magnitude as Pearl Harbor generated a dense fog of confusion as to the purpose and nature of the attack. Just what did Japan hope to gain by its action? At first it appeared to bewildered Americans that “Japan’s powers of self-deception now rise to a state of sublime insanity.”6 And how could one make sense of the motives of madmen? But some experts made a valiant try.
Attempts to interpret the strike without knowing the full extent of the punishment it had inflicted produced some peculiar guesswork. “The Hawaiian attack was obviously a demonstration designed more for psychological effect than for military damage,” asserted newsman Paul Mallon.7
Some suggested that the operation may have been another “Manchurian Incident” with the Japanese armed forces acting independently of the Tokyo High Command.8 This was a reasonable guess. Yamamoto, however, was a cat of a very different breed from the warlords who had led Japan into the Manchurian adventure. This time around the civil government could not hold itself technically guiltless.
Many responsible newsmen assumed that Japan could never have pulled off such an astounding feat on its own; the Germans must have been back of it. Of this the Chicago Times had no doubts at all: “Had it not been for Adolf Hitler, Japan would never have ventured upon such a suicidal course.” The New York P.M. declared, “The Nazi Government is master minding the Japanese policy.”9
Not only did the press credit Hitler with presenting to Japan a readymade foreign policy, but it also saw his guiding hand in the strategy of the attack itself. The Tulsa Daily World pointed out that the surprise and daring of the strike indicated that “Japan had been carefully coached in such proceedings by the Germans.”10 A surprising number of newspapers shared that view. One receives the impression that to the gentlemen of the fourth estate, a thorough shellacking at the hands of the demon genius of Berlin would be less humiliating than one administered unaided by the hitherto-underrated Japanese. Some of these newshawks thought that Hitler might even have contributed planes and pilots to the attack.11
To be sure, many American newspapers did not fall victim to the myth of German responsibility. They emphasized that the Japanese were “perfectly capable of doing what they have done without any coaching from the Nazi Fuehrer.”12
But these analyses and speculations could not satisfy the American citizenry. They were less interested in why the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor than in how they had got away with it. Obviously, as in the Charge of the Light Brigade, “someone had blundered.” Equally obviously, that someone or those someones had to be American. So the people of the United States did not shoot all their flaming arrows at the Japanese; they aimed some at themselves and their leaders for having been caught short.13 There thus began a frantic, years-long search to find a villain—some American or Americans who had failed or some dastardly conspirator who had deliberately engineered the attack.
Even before the verbal volcanoes erupted in the press and on the floor of Congress, Knox decided during the night of December 7 “to ask the President for permission to make a personal visit to Oahu,” to determine the extent of the damage and if possible to find out why the Japanese had caught U.S. forces unprepared.14 “That trip of mine to Hawaii was an inspiration that came to me just as I heard the President read his message,” he wrote to Paul Scott Mowrer of the Chicago Daily News on December 18. “Immediately, the air was filled with rumors. There was a prospect ahead of a nasty congressional investigation, and I made up my mind in a flash to go out there and get the actual facts, and if the facts warranted it, to initiate the investigation myself.”15
Knox had the reporter’s instinct to go directly to the scene of the crime. No doubt, too, when Senator Connally raked him over the coals in the White House, he realized that the Congress and perhaps some of the press soon would be throwing dead cats at him. For Knox had indulged in some fatuous boasting concerning the Navy of which he was so proud. A sense of responsibility toward the Navy’s officers, men, and ships also prompted him to make the dangerous trip to Oahu.
Thus, on Tuesday morning, December 9, Knox and a small party, including his aide, Captain Frank E. Beatty, departed Anacostia Naval Air Station. Two days later the plane landed safely at Kaneohe Bay. Beauty Martin met Knox at the seaplane ramp. He found the secretary friendly but intensely serious, eager to get to the bottom of the ugly business. Martin showed Knox and his party the devastated air station, the wrecked PBYs, the fire-blackened hangars, and the officers and men “trying to salvage something out of the wreckage.”16
In Honolulu Kimmel met Knox at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, whence they proceeded to the admiral’s quarters. Kimmel invited Knox to stay with him, but the secretary politely declined. In view “of the investigative nature of his visit,” he had given orders “that he would not be the guest of any senior officer on Oahu.”
The group from Washington found an atmosphere of apprehension on Oahu. Beatty described the Hawaiian command as “definitely security minded” with conversations “carried on in whispers” and “much glancing around lest their words be overheard.”17 Many still suffered from post attack shock, and everyone recognized the danger inherent in the island’s exposed position. Short deployed everything in the Hawaiian Department to stop a possible invasion. “We shot the works,” reminisced Donegan.18 But Fleming thought the attack had been a hit-and-run strike. In contrast, a certain top officer of the department engineers “became almost paranoid about the Japs’ return.” He “was really quite obnoxious with his prophecies of doom. This went on for several weeks, drove his subordinates to distraction and one into a nervous breakdown.”19
The Islands were far from alone with their anxieties. In Washington fear for Hawaii scrambled like frightened mice up and down the spines of Navy leaders. On December 9 OPNAV informed Kimmel:
. . . Because of the great success of the Japanese raid on the seventh it is expected to be promptly followed up by additional attacks in order [to] render Hawaii untenable as naval and air base in which eventuality it is believed Japanese have forces suitable for initial occupation of islands other than Oahu including Midway Maui and Hawaii. . . .
Until defenses are increased it is doubtful if Pearl should be used as a base for any except patrol craft naval aircraft submarines or for short periods when it is reasonably certain Japanese attacks will not be made. . . .
Safford tells us that he informed Noyes that Turner was “all wet” in this evaluation. Safford “insisted that the PH attack was a hit-and-run affair and surely would not be repeated for several months at the earliest; that the Japanese had accomplished their objective by immobilizing our Pacific fleet; and that they would now proceed with the conquest of the Southeast area. . . .” Rather tactlessly Safford “also emphasized to Noyes that it was necessary at a time like this for somebody to keep his head.”20
There was something to be said for both attitudes. Safford’s estimate of the situation was absolutely correct. But Washington had just received the most graphic possible illustration that the so-called impossible could happen. The Navy’s top brass would have been irresponsible had it not accepted the fact that as long as the Japanese possessed an air fleet capable of such feats, a return engagement could not be ruled out. Genda was urging that very thing upon Nagumo even as the task force steamed homeward.
To Stimson’s disgust, the Navy’s new obsession with Hawaii interfered with his attempts to work out a means to aid the Philippines:
We have met with many obstacles, particularly because the Navy has been rather shaken and panic-stricken after the catastrophe at Hawaii and the complete upset of their naval strategy which depended upon that fortress. They have been willing to think of nothing except Hawaii and the restoration of the defense of that Island. They have opposed all our efforts for a counter-attack, taking the defeatest attitude that it was impossible before we even tried.21
To Knox and his group Pearl Harbor presented a grisly picture—“the shambles of the Battle Line of the world’s mightiest fleet.” Foremost in their minds, however, “was the human loss and suffering.” Even as they watched, men removed bodies from the oil-covered waters while others worked briskly, “clearing up wreckage and preparing for another attack.”22
Later Short appeared at Kimmel’s quarters and talked with Knox “for probably an hour and a half to two hours.” He briefed the secretary concerning the status on Oahu before the attack and on the air strike itself. He harped heavily upon the fifth-column string. Knox needed no great persuading to cast a bleak eye upon Hawaii’s Japanese. At the end of his trip he reported to Roosevelt: “The activities of Japanese fifth columnists immediately following the attack, took the form of spreading on the air by radio dozens of confusing and contradictory rumors concerning the direction in which the attacking planes had departed, as well as the presence in every direction of enemy ships.”23 In fact, the Army and Navy on Oahu required no Japanese assistance in generating confusing messages on December 7.
In contrast with the misapprehension about the local Japanese, Oahu already had a good idea of the composition of the attacking force. “Papers discovered on a Japanese plane which crashed indicate a striking force of six carriers, three heavy cruisers, and numerous auxiliary craft including destroyers and other vessels.”24
During Knox’s visit there arose a question concerning a message which the secretary thought the Navy had sent to Kimmel and Hart and which they never received.25 Certain revisionists insinuate that this means a warning must have been prepared on the sixth but was suppressed in Washington.26 Of all people, Kimmel had the most to gain by sowing seeds of doubt on Washington’s bona fides on the eve of Pearl Harbor. But like the sensible, honorable man he was, he gave the congressional committee a clear account of his conversation with Knox, with no “whodunit” embellishments:
“Did you get Saturday night [December 6, 1941] the dispatch the Navy Department sent out?” I said, “No, I received no such dispatch.” “Well,” he said, “we sent you one.” “Well,” I said, “I am quite certain I did not receive it. However, there is always a possibility that my communication outfit might slip up and I will check.”
Thereupon Kimmel did investigate and upon negative results, dropped the matter.27 But the clearest testimony, the one which enables us to stand on solid historical ground, is that of Poco Smith, who was present at this conversation and, as he told the congressional committee, remembered it almost “word for word” because it impressed him at the time. This is how he recalled the phrasing of Knox’s question to Kimmel: “But did you not receive on the Saturday preceding Pearl Harbor a warning message that we had learned surreptitiously that Kurusu and Nomura had been directed by their home government to deliver their final message to Mr. Hull at one o’clock on Sunday, December 7th?” When everyone answered no, Knox added, “That is strange. I know that such a message was sent to Hart and I thought it was sent to you.”28
Obviously these men were discussing no previously unknown dispatch which satanic forces withheld from its addressees. They were talking about the famous warning which Marshall sent in association with Stark not on the night of December 6, but shortly after noon on December 7. Such a warning could not have been prepared on December 6 for one very good reason: The message from Tokyo upon which it was based was not received, decoded, and translated by the U.S. Army until the morning of December 7.
Kimmel was equally honest with Knox in other departments, and so was Short. Both admitted that they had not expected an air attack and that the Japanese had caught them unprepared and unawares. Kimmel had regarded a submarine attack as “the principal danger from a Japanese stroke without warning. . . .”29
Knox’s findings in this regard seriously disturbed him. “It is simply incredible that both the Army and Navy could have been caught so far off first base,” he told Mowrer in his letter of December 18. “They evidently had convinced themselves that an air attack by carrier born sic planes was beyond the realm of possibility, because they made no preparation whatever for such an attack.” Believing implicitly in an American repulse of a nonexistent third wave at “about eleven o’clock” on December 7, Knox was sure that had the defenders been ready, they would have beaten off the initial assault.30
Kimmel was still Commander in Chief and still concerned with the war situation. He could see some positive aspects to his situation. His precious oil tanks had escaped destruction; so had his machine shops, his “Navy behind the Navy,” and, above all, his invaluable carriers. On December 10 he had sent to Stark’s office a message evidently in reply to OPNAV’s of the previous day. He emphasized that he and his command were ready for action:
Since the appearance of the enemy in this area all tactical efforts with all available forces have been vigorously prosecuted toward locating and destroying enemy forces primarily carriers. Our heavy losses have not seriously depleted our fast striking forces nor sic reduced morale and determination. Pearl must be used for essential supply and overhaul facilities and must be provided with additional aircraft both army and navy also relief pilots and maintenance personnel. Pearl channels clear. Industrial establishment intact and doing excellent work. . . .31
But a gargantuan cleanup and repair task remained. At Ford Island Knox and his party saw further devastation. Most painful sight of all were the hundreds of wounded at Hospital Point, some “so terribly burned and charred as to be beyond recognition.” That evening, Thursday, December 11, Governor Poindexter joined the group at dinner in the blacked-out hotel. They sat up most of the night discussing what they had seen and “planning for the morrow.”32 The next morning Knox visited the Hawaiian Department’s command post for an extensive briefing. On this occasion the secretary did not “indicate in any way that he was not satisfied” with what Short had done. All told, he spent about two hours at the command post.33 After picking up casualty lists, photographs of the damage, and various Japanese souvenirs, Knox and his colleagues left for Kaneohe that afternoon and shortly thereafter took off for the mainland.
As soon as his plane touched down at Washington, Knox hurried to the White House. The original copy of his report carries the notation in Roosevelt’s handwriting, “1941—given me by F. K. 10 P.M. Dec. 14 when he landed here from Hawaii. FDR.”34
How long the two men conferred and what passed between them we do not know. But the next day Roosevelt was so low in spirit that Pa Watson could not persuade him to leave the White House “for a drive or something.” An aristocrat by birth and education, an actor by instinct, and a politician by choice, Roosevelt usually had a firm grip on his public image. Knox’s briefing must have disturbed him very much indeed. Watson told Morgenthau that afternoon that Knox had been with the President “all night and day . . .” and he considered that “enough to make anybody feel bad” under the circumstances. No doubt Watson exaggerated the time, but Knox had given Roosevelt a large helping of unpalatable material to chew which had put him “off his feed.”35
That morning, December 15, Knox met at the White House with the President, Hull, Stimson, and several others. Roosevelt gave Knox penciled notes covering all the information about the attack which he thought “could then, with the security of the nation at stake, be released to the public.” Shortly after returning to the Navy Department from this meeting, Knox set up a press conference, stating that he and Stimson had been ordered to do so immediately “and that the services were to assume equal responsibility and blame for the damage caused by the Japanese attack—and for the failure to be prepared for such an attack.”36
The secretary released his report on December 15. Despite Roosevelt’s abridgments, Knox had a dramatic, graphic story to tell, and he told it well. He submitted a highly readable and surprisingly accurate account, considering the times, the data available, and the demands of security. He announced the loss of Arizona, Utah, Cassin, Downes, Shaw, and Oglala and the damaging of several other ships, including Oklahoma. This was not entirely candid but, in view of later salvage operations, not too far off the mark. He also listed casualty totals which exceeded the number of dead but underestimated the wounded.
In reply to questions, Knox expressed his belief that “between 150 and 300 planes took part in the attack, too many to have come from a single aircraft carrier”; that “apparently none was land-based”; and that so far as known, “none was flown by Germans.” He also declared that “a rumor that the Navy had been forewarned” was untrue. Above all, he stressed the record of personal heroism. “In the Navy’s gravest hour of peril, the officers and men of the fleet exhibited magnificent courage and resourcefulness. . . .” But Knox had to acknowledge the dominant, brutal truth:
The United States services were not on the alert against the surprise air attack on Hawaii. This fact calls for a formal investigation which will be initiated immediately by the President. Further action is, of course, dependent on the facts and recommendations made by this investigating board. We are all entitled to know it if (A) there was any error of judgment which contributed to the surprise, (B) if there was any dereliction of duty prior to the attack.
Along with his truthful contributions, Knox’s report helped foster and perpetuate some of the Pearl Harbor legends. He seems to have either started or boosted the yarn that a bomb had “literally passed down through the smokestack” of Arizona. He also contributed heavily to Pearl Harbor mythology and added unfairly to the woes of all Japanese-Americans by remarking, “I think the most effective ‘fifth column’ work of the entire war was done in Hawaii, with the possible exception of Norway.”37
The nation’s press gave Knox’s report heavy coverage. Naturally enough under the circumstances, many newspapers dwelt upon the aspects which were either directly or obliquely favorable to the United States.38 But no amount of sugarcoating could disguise the bitter taste of the pill the Japanese had administered on December 7. The stark phrase “not on the alert” stood like an angel with a flaming sword between the United States and self-congratulations.
No one showed any tendency to disbelieve the more unpleasant of the secretary’s findings. Coming from Knox, they struck with the impact of a battle-ax. Ever since he took office, his love for and pride in the Navy had colored virtually his every word and action. If any man would have bent over backward to excuse the Navy and let those concerned down softly, that man was Knox. A report derogatory to the Navy signed “Frank Knox” carried much more conviction than one signed by a detached observer. It was like Romeo taking Juliet to task. General agreement prevailed that an official inquiry was desirable, the sooner the better.39 Knox’s effort was magnificent journalism, but not a satisfactory investigation.
In one respect the Knox report did the Navy a disservice. It focused the spotlight of popular attention upon the Navy. To this day, discussion of the Pearl Harbor attack is likely to center on naval action and inaction, responsibilities, and failures, notwithstanding the fact that the Army had the prime mission of protecting the Fleet in harbor and also of guarding the Islands.
No Army report similar to Knox’s emerged. Marshall had dispatched to Oahu Colonel Bundy of the War Plans Division to report on conditions and requirements, but unfortunately the colonel lost his life in an air crash en route. So the War Department relied upon Knox’s information.40
Stimson knew that the Army no less than the Navy would have to take its medicine. “Knox agrees with me that there had been remissness in both branches of the service . . .”, he confided to his diary on December 15. The two secretaries were “very anxious not to get into any inter-department scrap, but to keep the thing on a basis of no recrimination but inflexible responsibility and punishment.”41
The Army and Navy relieved Short, Martin, and Kimmel of their commands on December 16. Stimson made the Army announcement the next day, taking his position “side by side with Knox as to the absence of preparedness on December 7th.” He explained that this action “avoids a situation where officials charged with the responsibility for the future security of the vital naval base would otherwise in this critical hour also be involved in the searching investigation ordered yesterday by the President.”42
The War Department had planned to send to Hawaii as Short’s replacement Major General Herbert A. Dargue, a pioneer in aviation who commanded the First Air Force. But Dargue was killed in the same crash in California which took the life of Colonel Bundy.43 Marshall wanted an airman to replace Short, so in Dargue’s stead he selected Air Corps Lieutenant General Delos C. Emmons, who was in San Francisco at the time, and recommended Colonel J. Lawton Collins as Emmons’s chief of staff. Emmons relieved Short on December 17. The change of command was quiet, unpublicized, without ceremony and without hard feelings between the two officers.44
A number of Short’s staff officers believe the dismissal came as a most unpleasant surprise. “Short never thought that he was responsible or had been negligent,” explained Donegan, “so he did not think he would be relieved.”45 On the other hand, Fleming thought that Short’s dismissal hurt the general but did not genuinely shock him. On the afternoon of the attack Short told him “he was going to get relieved, he knew that.” Nevertheless, Fleming emphasized: “I don’t think Short ever expected that the United States Government and the United States Army would turn on him the way it did.”46
Whether the fact of his relief or the manner of it most distressed Short, there is little doubt that the official ax delivered a punishing blow to his self-esteem. “Short took his relief extremely hard,” said Fielder. “In fact, it crushed him and contributed to his ill health.”47
Soon after the attack Mrs. Short returned to the mainland. Members of the general’s former staff felt sorry for him but generally left him to himself. He had to come to terms with his painful situation in his own way, they reasoned. Meanwhile, the less said about his predicament, the better.48
On December 17 at about 1500 Kimmel officially turned over his command to Pye, his temporary successor. Facing each other straight and correct, the two men read their respective orders and shook hands, and Kimmel walked out of his office.49 His relief left Kimmel downhearted and alone. Usually a fluent talker, thenceforth he said little, and his morale sank accordingly.50 He understood the reason for his dismissal, but he fully expected to be reassigned.51 Apparently Stark shared his belief, for he wrote to Kimmel on December 29: “Don’t worry about our finding duty for you. I value your services just as much as I ever did and more and I say this straight from the heart as well as the head.”52
At that stage a number of officers then in Hawaii agreed that under the circumstances Kimmel and Short had to go.53 To Kimmel’s loyal intelligence officer, Layton, the admiral’s dismissal came as less of a shock than the appointment to succeed him of Pye—the same officer who on December 6 had assured Layton that the Japanese would not attack the United States.54 Of course, Pye served as CinCPAC only in the fourteen-day interval between Kimmel’s relief and Nimitz’s assumption of command.
Kimmel remained in Hawaii pending the forthcoming investigation. In the evenings he often talked with Captain and Mrs. Earle. “We loved having him,” Mrs. Earle wrote, “and I remember him saying, ‘You know, not for three days after the attack did I realize what this would mean to me personally.’”55
What it meant was increasingly clear as Kimmel and Short became the lightning rods of public attention and censure. In general, the stateside press responded favorably when the Navy and War departments relieved them. Newsmen saw the step as logical and necessary. The Chicago Tribune, destined to carry many a figurative torch for Kimmel and Short, wasted little sympathy on them, observing on December 18, 1941:
It is a military maxim that there is no excuse for surprise. The service regulations of both the army and navy require every officer to take adequate precautions for the security of his own forces, regardless of orders or lack of orders from his superiors. The officers who have been removed evidently failed to obey the first military commandment. . . .
If commanders prove themselves unequal to their tasks they must be replaced at once lest greater harm befall the nation. . . .
The fate of Martin and Bellinger was much less harsh than that of their superiors. Bellinger remained in position on Oahu. Although relieved from command of the Hawaiian Air Force and replaced by Brigadier General Clarence L. Tinker, Martin received command of the Second Air Force, which defended “the vital northwest sector of the United States.”56
At this point one must ask: What had happened to the principle of consistency? Shoemaker observed: “It was very strange that Kimmel and Short were investigated and then kicked out, but General MacArthur with his preattack information also got clobbered by the Japanese and yet remained free from investigation and ultimate dismissal.”57 MacArthur knew that Pearl Harbor had been attacked, knew the enemy was coming in his direction, and still, the first Japanese bombings and strafings found his planes parked helplessly on the ground and left his air force badly shattered.
Despite the undeniable irony of the circumstances which made a hero of one surprised and defeated commander and drove two others off active duty, few Americans with the interests of their country at heart can regret that MacArthur remained on the job or that Nimitz took early command in the Pacific. In the latter instance it was not a case of a good commander replacing a bad one, but of a good commander yielding place to a great one. The conditions were rough on Kimmel and Short, but life is seldom gentle, and war never.