Stark appeared before the Navy court as its first witness on July 31, calm but completely unprepared and in an understandable state of confusion. He had had no time to prepare for the Court of Inquiry, and the files and records of his service as CNO were not available to him during his brief time in Washington before the court convened. So he asked for time to check up and prepare himself.1 The court granted an extension until 1000 on Monday, August 7. Typically the feisty Kimmel had the last word: “I have been branded throughout this country as the one responsible for the Pearl Harbor disaster,” he declared. He urged that the court summon witnesses from the Army, the State Department, and “any other federal department” to establish all the necessary facts. He revealed the sense of urgency that drove him: “People may die who can make statements before this court sufficient to establish the facts and to refute the utterly false and misleading statements made throughout the Roberts Commission.”2
It must have been maddening for such a conscientious commander as Stark to be forced to devote his prime energies to defending past actions when the present cried for his full attention. Kimmel had no such official problems to distract his mind, but he was increasingly involved in the upcoming presidential election, not as a campaigner but as a symbol. If the Republicans could prove—or even plant a convincing suspicion—that Roosevelt and his administration had dragged the United States into the war, had had preknowledge of the Japanese attack which they failed to convey to Kimmel and Short, or were suppressing pertinent facts about Pearl Harbor, they would have found the perfect campaign issue.
As early as July 3, 1944, George H. E. Smith, secretary of the Senate Minority Steering Committee, sounded out Herbert Brownell, chairman of the Republican National Committee, about charging the New Deal with responsibility for the American entry into World War II. At this point Smith toyed with a “you-scratch-my-back-and-I’ll-scratch-yours” arrangement with the Democratic National Committee: If the Democrats would cease harping on the Depression, the Republicans would lay off the war.
Four days later Smith reported to Senator Robert A. Taft, chairman of the Minority Steering Committee, that he was preparing to visit Rugg in Boston to obtain some materials. Kimmel had expressed to Rugg his willingness “to take Mr. Taft into our confidence, trusting to his integrity and his judgment.” On August 4 Smith wrote to Taft that Pearl Harbor material which “would show that the Administration must share in the responsibility for that disaster” could be worked into a magazine article.3
Thus assured of powerful support for his cause, Kimmel opened the session on August 7 loaded for bear. He understood “that the judge advocate had requested access to certain secret files in the Navy Department, to which he also would like to have access, and that as yet the matter had not been acted upon.” The court’s judge advocate, Commander Harold Biesemeier, replied that he had written to the secretary of the navy setting forth Kimmel’s request. He added that “he did not consider the said documents immediately necessary to the proceedings of the court.”4
Following this exchange, Stark resumed the stand. His most interesting remarks concerned the critical warning message of November 27. * Mincing no words, he emphasized what he had expected from Kimmel and the Army in consequence. While Stark could not overlook Kimmel’s responsibilities, he made sure that the court remembered that the defense of Pearl Harbor and the ships at moorings was the Army’s mission.5
The next day, August 8, Kimmel again called for the documents from the Navy Department. One can appreciate why he and his counsels were most eager to place the Magic messages and other data in evidence before Stark returned to London. Stark was still bound to secrecy in that respect, both by oath and by his own strong security-consciousness. Unless the Navy released him by giving the documents to the court, of necessity his testimony would be incomplete.
Kimmel had another string to his bow. In the record of the Hart inquiry he learned that Ingersoll “knew of a special Japanese code by means of which, on or about December 4, 1941, he learned the Japanese were about to attack both Britain and the United States.” Obviously Kimmel meant the “winds” code. He explained that he made this statement “to show the reason why he had been endeavoring to obtain access to the secret messages in the Navy Department, and to appeal to the court for assistance in obtaining such access.”6
Back on the stand, although asked some questions about his sources, Stark never mentioned Magic. “I was relying primarily on information which I had from sources available to me, and which I considered responsible information.”7 Such security-inspired evasions probably are the main reason why Kimmel later accused Stark of perjury to the court.8 Stark’s oath to protect Magic constantly crossed his oath as a witness and left him, like other witnesses, in a most uncomfortable position.
The session of August 9 opened with Stark’s counsel examining him,* mostly about war plans. Asked what action he expected the Hawaiian Department to take upon receipt of Marshall’s warning of November 27, Stark went for the Army foot, horse, and artillery:
I expected the Army to utilize its warning system to the utmost. . . . I expected them to make ready a maximum number of planes possible. I expected them . . . to man their batteries, both fixed and mobile. I expected them to implement arrangements which they had with the Navy in joint agreements. I expected them to take some sabotage measures. In other words, I expected them to assume a maximum state of readiness in defense of Pearl Harbor. . . . In particular, I would have expected the Army to have ready their pursuit planes, some of them certainly in instant readiness, and full alertedness with regard to others. . . . These were the principal or certainly the primary weapon of defense against the air attack coming in from the sea.9
Following the noon break another development roused Kimmel to further efforts. He had learned that day that “certain vital, pertinent data” would be denied the court on. orders of the acting secretary of the navy, although the secretary had approved their availability. Kimmel continued passionately: “Without a full and fair disclosure of all known and available evidence, this inquiry is futile. Against such evasion of the clear mandate of Congress and the demands of simple justice, I most solemnly protest.”10
The denial of data which Kimmel had anticipated came through the next day, August 11.11 He would not take this without a scrap. At the outset of the afternoon his counsel submitted a long statement again calling for the material and suggested that the proceedings of the court be classified “in the same degree of secrecy as that of the documents.” Sooner or later they would become public property. When that time came, the entire Navy would “feel the effects of the public disapprobation” which would arise if it developed that the Navy had not furnished the court with all available evidence.12
The court temporarily wound up its questioning of Stark in a brief session on Saturday, August 12. According to Lavender, “Murfin indicated that all the members of the Court were thoroughly disgusted with Stark.”13 Richmond doubted this applied to Kalbfus but stated that Murfin and Andrews were unfriendly toward Stark from the start of the proceedings.14 Wellborn, who was devoted to Stark, nevertheless could picture what might lay behind the harsh judgment: “Admiral Stark . . . liked to check documents rather than rely on memory alone. Nor was he able, as was General Marshall, to express himself extemporaneously in invariably clear concise grammatical sentences. He was more of the type of General Eisenhower, in this respect.”15
Yet the written record of Stark’s testimony shows little of Eisenhower’s fractured syntax. By the same token, the transcript of Marshall’s comments is not that much better than Stark’s. From the record of the Navy court one receives the impression that Stark was a solid, direct, cooperative witness, a man of quiet sincerity, doing his best under the severe handicap of protecting Magic. Of course, he stood up for himself and his staff officers, and that defense might have antagonized those who may have hoped for a solid pro-Kimmel front.
If the court wanted to absolve the Navy of all responsibility for Pearl Harbor, Short unwittingly helped the cause along. The transcript of his testimony of August 14 is not impressive. He was garrulous and obscure, and he provided damaging glimpses into his own mind. Realizing that he had a problem, he requested and received “interested party” status so that his counsel, Brigadier General T. H. Green, could be present.16
In a long statement Short complained about his shortages of guns, men, and equipment, especially in the Coast Artillery and the Hawaiian Air Force. He explained that in addition to radar, he had 100 lookout stations scattered “pretty much on the high ground around the whole island.” Their purpose was to spot ships or planes. They had a good communications tie-in. But they were not on station on the morning of December 7 “because they were not alerted for aircraft attack or for attack by a landing force, or an all-out attack.”
Here was a touch of sheer Alice in Wonderland—the stations supposed to warn of approaching ships or planes were not on duty because nobody expected the attack of which they were supposed to warn! Short did not improve matters by stating that while the Army had “some sound detectors” for use instead of radar in some places, they, too, were not in use on the morning of December 7 “because the command was not alerted that way.”
The general did not totally lack a sense of self-preservation. Asked if the commanding general of the Hawaiian Department was responsible for the defense of Pearl Harbor, he shot back: “Supported by the naval forces.”17
Short had not been at his best before the court. For one thing, he constantly invoked the vocabulary of complaint. For another, his testimony makes abundantly clear that he had little conception of the true crisis he faced in December 1941. Perhaps he felt ill at ease testifying to a group of Navy officers unfamiliar with the technical aspects of his job and with no particular reason to sympathize with him. He must have realized that this body had no authority either to condemn or to absolve him; however, his case was inextricably linked with that of Kimmel, and inevitably the fallout of the court’s findings would affect him for better or worse.
Kimmel came to bat the next day, August 15. Like Short, he suffered from misdirection. He did not seem to understand that in Japanese eyes his ships, a mobile and potentially dangerous force, would constitute the prime target. “I thought it was much more probable that the Japs would attempt a raid on Pearl Harbor if the Fleet were away than if it were there. However, at no time did I consider it more than a possibility, and one which ordinary prudence would make us guard against.”18 But on December 7, 1941, “ordinary prudence” had been lacking.
When Kimmel returned to the stand on August 16, Stark’s counsel asked about his decision to bomb any submarine found in the operating area. Kimmel replied revealingly, “I would say that the war warning dispatch gave me an excuse to do something that I had wanted to do for several months.”19 This answer makes clear that although the admiral scorned the message of November 27 in retrospect, at the time he seized upon its warning aspects when it suited his inclination and preoccupation to do so.
Under his counsel’s skillful guidance, Kimmel had considerable to say about the projects for reinforcing Wake and Midway. Counsel asked if this project did not “modify the war warning as connoting no prospect of an immediate attack on Pearl Harbor. . . .” Kimmel replied, “It tended to and did reduce, in my mind, the chances of an attack on Pearl Harbor insofar as the Navy Department had any idea that there was imminence of an attack on Pearl Harbor.”20 Yet the Wake-Midway message had been received and thrashed out before receipt of the “war warning.” So the latter should have “modified” the former, not vice versa.*
When Bloch’s counsel asked about responsibility for distant patrols, Kimmel came as close as he ever did to putting the finger on Bloch: “And when the Commandant of the 14th Naval District was charged with this duty by the Naval Frontier Coast Defense plan, it was his duty to keep himself informed, and in my opinion when he considered it necessary to request planes for the purpose of performing the duties” for which he was responsible.21
For some time the Republicans had been fairly quiescent in their plan to use Pearl Harbor as a campaign issue, but on August 24 Senator Sinclair Weeks of Massachusetts began to roll up the big guns. He placed in the Congressional Record an article by Bill Cunningham which had appeared in the Boston Herald on August 22. Cunningham called for the opportunity for Kimmel “to clear his name.” So far, he wrote, “writers and commentators tiptoe as delicately around the subject as if it were a nest of sleeping rattlesnakes. . . .” He urged action to prevent “an American Dreyfus case” before it was too late.22
One can understand why the loyal opposition was eager for an early start in the presidential race. Lawmakers on Capital Hill could read in their morning papers headlines that pealed forth like golden trumpets: JAP HOMELAND . . . BOMBED; PATTON’S TANKS 165 MILES FROM GERMAN BORDER; FRENCH, YANKS OCCUPY PARIS. . . .”23 Useless to oppose this sort of thing with coolly reasoned argument, with economics or traditional ideology! The man associated in the public mind with such an outpouring of good news could be elected if he had two heads. The GOP badly needed an emotional issue, something to create an instinctive revulsion.
But while the Republicans warmed up in the bull pen, the Navy Court of Inquiry continued its unreported efforts on the diamond—Navy Department Headquarters. Monday, August 28, was a memorable day for Kimmel. The court received the documents Kimmel had fought to obtain. Stark objected not to the contents, “but because their use here may compromise many years of hard work the results of which are most important to the Nation’s future interests.” The court, however, did not sustain his objections, and into the record went a large bloc of Magic and a few consular messages. This represented a tribute to Kimmel’s iron will and tenacity of purpose and to his legal team, especially Rugg, who directed the effort.24
According to Lavender, the dispatches which triggered the most response were some of the “bomb plot” series.25 Yet we have a peculiar twist at this point in the Pearl Harbor story. The original “bomb plot” message of September 24, 1941, does not appear in the Navy court’s exhibits. This was the dispatch which divided Pearl Harbor into areas for use in espionage reporting and which set forth specifics Tokyo wanted from the Honolulu consulate.* Whatever the reason for its omission, the fact that this key dispatch did not appear in the exhibits may help explain why a number of witnesses discounted the importance of the few “bomb plot” series messages under consideration.
Nevertheless, Kimmel had won his point. At considerable risk to the security of Magic, the Navy Department had given the court all the documents for which Kimmel through Lavender had asked, excepting the ever-elusive “winds execute.”† Revelation of the Magic and consular documents clarified a number of ambiguities in the preceding testimony. Now the court faced what amounted to another investigation. The principal questions had become these: Was information available in Washington which one could reasonably argue had tipped off Japanese intentions? And if so, had someone in Washington deliberately withheld information from Kimmel?
If both questions could not be answered in the affirmative, then the admiral was no better off than before. Indeed, his situation would have worsened, for as long as he could claim the Navy Department was refusing to release pertinent evidence, doubts about the Navy’s motives must always remain. At this point that evidence was open to the scrutiny of the court. If Kimmel and his able counsel could not convince the court that the documents proved him the victim of at best stupidity and at worse conspiracy in Washington, the admiral might find that he had won the battle and lost the war.
On August 29 one of the most controversial of all the Pearl Harbor witnesses took the stand. In his usual confident manner, Safford told of the “winds” code and its alleged “execute.” Safford recounted a number of secondhand stories, some of which were stricken as hearsay.26 But he set wheels turning which would grind the gears of the Pearl Harbor machinery for years to come. To Richmond he seemed “sincere but a man with a mission—to prove the existence of a non-existent ‘winds execute.’”27
The court held no session on Friday, September 1, probably to accommodate the schedule of the next witness, General Marshall. The Army could use a witness of stature before the Navy court, and Marshall certainly filled the bill. At the same time, as he explained to the court on September 2, after Pearl Harbor his “whole attention was turned to other things from that instant, and I didn’t see a record or look at a thing until, as a matter of fact, the last day or two, trying to get something for this board—so I haven’t probed into the matter. I was busy with something else. That was water over the dam.”
Asked how he rated Short, Marshall replied laconically, “Very superior officer.” He considered Hawaii “far and away the most heavily provided installation of ours in or out of the country, for defense. It had had first priority in the Army for years. . . .”28
Marshall did not claim perfect memory. His testimony is laced with such replies as “I do not recall,” “I have no recollection,” “I don’t know about that.” He did not remember his whereabouts on the night of Saturday, December 6, and evidently considered the point of little interest. “I don’t know where I was. I never thought of it until this instant.” He had no memory one way or the other about seeing Short’s answer to the warning message of November 27.29 Such replies can be frustrating to a court or board trying to pin down specifics. But witnesses like Stark and Marshall who frankly admit that they do not know or remember everything can be more credible than those who testify in assured detail to matters of which they have no direct knowledge.
Following Marshall’s appearance, the court temporarily moved from Washington to the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard to take the testimony of several witnesses who could not come to Washington. While the court moved toward Honolulu, Republicans in Congress mounted an increasingly heavy offensive. Congressman Noble J. Johnson of Indiana declared on September 5 that in his opinion, Kimmel and Short had not been court martialed “because the administration is afraid to let the facts be known.” He asserted: “If action is not had now, there is no reason to believe that the facts will ever become known as long as President Roosevelt remains Commander in Chief.”
On September 6 Congressman Hugh D. Scott, Jr., of Pennsylvania posed some questions which he claimed were “being freely discussed in Washington and elsewhere.” After a long, highly colored summary of the diplomatic highlights of 1941, Scott demanded, “Let us have the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Only thus can the innocent be absolved, the guilty judged, the dead ultimately vindicated, and the public interest served.”30
Scott’s remarks and their attendant publicity worried George Smith of the Minority Steering Committee. He feared lest “piecemeal” leaking of “the facts” be in the administration’s interest. “This lets the steam out of the issue. . . .” So Smith urged haste upon Senator Taft: “Each day’s delay at this critical time decreases our chances of using the best methods of action. The leaks that are daily occurring and the rapid passage of time are frittering away the best issue we have.”31
Smith obviously believed his thesis that the Roosevelt administration was responsible for the United States’ entry into the war. On September 12 he wrote to Rugg, urging strongly that Kimmel take the initiative “with his story, written in the right way [Smith’s italics].” In fact, the story was already written and ready. “But it will need the help, advice and information that Admiral Kimmel alone can give.”
In pressing his case, Smith revealed his belief that, militarily speaking, Kimmel was on the spot. “. . . the Administration will put strong emphasis on the fact that enough warnings should have put the Pearl Harbor Army and Navy on the extreme alert despite the failure of Washington to keep them informed,” he wrote. “It will play up the technical situation to the utmost; and it will be very, very difficult for Admiral Kimmel to explain away that case.” Smith was absolutely correct. Then he added, “The diplomacy leading up to Pearl Harbor is the bulwark of Admiral Kimmel’s defense—not the technical situation at Pearl Harbor.”32
At this time the fortunes of war had plunged Kimmel and his family to the depths of personal tragedy. The very day, September 6, that Scott addressed the House, evening papers announced the loss of the submarine Robalo, under command of the admiral’s thirty-one-year-old son, Lieutenant Commander Manning M. Kimmel. The submarine had failed to return from patrol duty. All hands had been “officially listed as missing,” and the next of kin notified.33
Small wonder that Kimmel did not accompany the court to Oahu. Even if he could have steeled himself to look upon Pearl Harbor once more, something had happened to push self-vindication into second place, for perhaps the first time since December 7, 1941. He had to share his sorrow with his wife, Dorothy, in the dignity of privacy.
But Bloch made the trip to Hawaii. Acutely conscious of the implications of being an “interested party,” he attended all the sessions, which began on September 9. The first witness was Rear Admiral Soc McMorris, now Nimitz’s chief of staff. Homely as a meat cleaver and just as sharp, McMorris demonstrated in some ways a broader gauge of thinking than Kimmel and his counsels could have wished. Like Stark and Ingersoll, he considered the Fleet to have been “on a war footing.” Unlike Kimmel, he had recognized the seriousness of Japan’s ordering the destruction of codes. He “felt that that message, more definitely than anything that had gone before, indicated the probability of a war with Japan that would involve the United States.”34
Richmond believed McMorris’s testimony damaged Kimmel’s cause. Certainly McMorris did not agree with his former chief in all respects. In particular, the fact that McMorris grasped the significance of the code destruction message, which Kimmel did not, reflected unfavorably upon the latter. Even so, Richmond had come to believe Kimmel’s shortcomings far less than those of the Army.35
The court held no session on Tuesday, September 12. The next day it heard the testimony of one destined to become a center of controversy—Commander Kramer. He both helped and hindered Kimmel’s cause. Seemingly he confirmed receipt of some sort of “winds execute” message. On the other hand, he pooh-poohed the “bomb plot” series.36 Safford had claimed that when Kramer showed Knox the “one o’clock” message,* he had pointed out the time, saying that “it undoubtedly meant a surprise air raid on Pearl Harbor in a few hours.”37 This story Kramer contradicted. That session ended the court’s visit to Oahu, and it soon returned to the West Coast.38
On Friday, September 15, the day hearings began in San Francisco, the Washington Post called for an end to the secrecy shrouding Pearl Harbor, over which a “first-class political row” seemed to be brewing. “Wholly apart from the guilt or innocence of Kimmel and Short, the American people have a right to know the background of the Pearl Harbor catastrophe. And there is no reason that we know of for keeping them in the dark.” That was the problem. The press and public did not know the government’s reason—Magic—for keeping the entire background under wraps.
September 16 saw the entrance of a new actor on the Pearl Harbor stage. Representative Bertrand W. Gearhart, Republican from California, called for total publication of the Roberts report and its related material. He claimed to believe that the report “was doctored in the White House.” He stressed: “The election is less than two months away. Clever maneuvering has made it impossible to tell the truth of Pearl Harbor by courts martial or congressional investigation before the balloting.”39
Representative Forest A. Harness of Indiana offered a resolution calling for a special five-man committee to investigate Pearl Harbor, declaring, “The public is demanding and should be told before the November election, all the facts connected with the Japanese attack.” If Roosevelt were not responsible, “he should be cleared promptly. . . .” But if the President had been culpable “in directing our military activities in Hawaii, the American people should have the true facts before they are called upon to pass judgment on his fitness for reelection. . . .”40
Undeterred by this tacit vote of no confidence, the Navy court convened in Washington on September 21, when Admiral Richardson made a brief appearance. Exuding confidence as he usually did, he discussed mainly the air patrol system he had employed as CinCUS. Strangely enough, the witness, the court, the judge advocate, and the counsel did not so much as mention Richardson’s conference with Roosevelt in 1940. Richardson further stated that he “unofficially, orally, and in writing” had made specific recommendations about basing the Fleet, and he summarized his objections to Pearl Harbor as a base.41
The session of Friday, September 22, occupied only two hours, but it made up in interest what it lacked in length. Rear Admiral Thomas Withers, who had been Kimmel’s commander of submarines in 1941, proved a thought-provoking witness. He knew of the “war warning,” having been present at the conference held in consequence:
Admiral Kimmel handed me this dispatch to read. I read it, and he said, “What do you think that means?” I said, “I think it means war.” Then I think Admiral Bloch, who was present, sort of made fun of me; I had that impression—asked me what I would do, would I sink ships? And I said I would sink ships if they came within 500 miles of Hawaii and didn’t turn back.42
Actually Bloch did not attend the conference on November 27. But it speaks ill for the atmosphere in that gathering that at least one senior officer present sneered at a colleague who believed that a “war warning” was precisely that.
With the court entering the home stretch, Senator Ferguson called for the findings of the Army and Navy boards to be “made public as soon as their reports were completed.” This could be in “about two weeks.” There was nothing political about these investigations, and the boards should release their reports “well ahead of the election.”43
Monday, September 25, saw the final questioning of the two present “interested parties.” Typically Kimmel had much to say; Bloch, little. After the introduction of a number of letters from Stark, Kimmel described the reorganization of the Fleet which he made upon becoming CinCPAC.
“I felt that before hostilities came that there would be additional information, that we would get something more definite, and when the attack came without this information, of course I was inclined to blame myself for not having been much smarter than I was,” he testified. But when he later found “that information was, in fact, available in the Navy Department” which would have changed his attitude, “I ceased to blame myself so much.” He proclaimed, “without looking into the exact wording,” that the Hull Note “was a veritable ultimatum . . . and they [the Japanese] were forced to do something.”44
He was equally sure the “bomb plot” series indicated an air attack on Pearl Harbor. He also insisted upon the significance of the “winds execute.” However, he conceded that it was difficult to say what he would have done had he received it.45 At times the transcript gives the impression that the court was coaxing Kimmel into a favorable position, in effect leading the witness, as in this exchange:
Q. Had you sighted that force at the outer rim of a distant patrol and, in accordance with your directive, let them make the first war move, could you have done anything other than to alert your command?
A. Admiral, I could not have done anything under the orders which I had at the time, and had I attacked the Japanese naval force 700 miles from Oahu, I would have violated my orders. . . .
Possibly Kimmel’s attorneys had suggested a strategy of presenting the admiral as the helpless pawn of the Navy Department, but such a position was foreign to his nature. No one who knew Kimmel could picture him standing by immobile while a Japanese armada bore down upon him. Evidently his honest heart rebelled, for a little later he continued: “. . . if we had sighted anything 700 miles from Oahu, I think I would have found some means to handle the situation, insofar as the forces I had available would have permitted me.”46 That sounds much more like Kimmel. After all, he had had no inhibitions about ordering his Fleet to sink any unidentified submarine in the operating area—orders which might well have placed him in the technical position of having fired the first shot.
Wednesday, September 27, wrapped up the inquiry except for preparing the report. To clarify their positions, the three “interested parties” submitted final statements. Stark’s was brief and forceful, written in the third person, the work of Hart and Richmond. Stark having returned to London, one of his counsels must have read it for him.* His statement bore down heavily upon the Army’s responsibility. “The Naval Base was and still is the seat of our power over the Pacific and in the last analysis the Army forces, Oahu, were stationed there for its defense—and for that alone.” The Navy’s sole responsibility in that respect was “to support the Army’s effort. . . .” But the Navy “had no authority over the main defensive agency—the aircraft warning system, the fighter planes and their direction in combat.” The document closed with a real sock to the jaws of Short and Martin: “. . . whatever may have been Navy failures, on or before 7 December 1941, failures in judgment, of commission, or of omission, all of these failures combined constitute something quite minor as compared with the failure of the Army Interceptor Command on Oahu.”47
Kimmel’s statement is much longer and in the first person. No doubt the admiral played a large part in its preparation. Richmond thought that Kimmel read it to the court himself, although the record does not show one way or the other. He began by denying the rumor that he had been given command of the Fleet because he was a crony of Roosevelt’s, and he went into the circumstances of his retirement. He summarized the weaknesses of Pearl Harbor, local plans for defense, his manpower problem, and other aspects of command.
He conceded “deficiencies in the equipment which the Army needed to exercise its proper function” to defend Pearl Harbor. But he declared forcefully: “. . . the Army was charged with and made responsible for the defense of the fleet base at Pearl Harbor.” For emphasis he added, “No orders or instructions issued at any time lessened or mitigated the Army’s responsibility for such defense.”
He tore into the Roberts report with its accusation of dereliction of duty. “I solemnly deny the truth of these charges,” declared Kimmel. “I am satisfied that the evidence before this Court establishes beyond doubt the inaccuracy of these charges.” The substance of his plea was this: “In brief, in the light of the information I had, and the means at hand, I adopted the measures I did, not lightly, but in the exercise of my most considered judgment, supported and sustained by a group of distinguished and experienced officers who represented a cross-section of the best naval brains in the world.”48
In many respects Bloch’s statement is the most remarkable of the three. His attorneys had done their homework well. The statement is formidably footnoted, giving the source of each point made, either from the testimony or the appropriate document. Bloch was present but, his statement being couched in the third person, one cannot be sure whether he or one of his counsels read it.
Bloch’s statement was a public relations masterpiece of self-justification and self-presentation. His attitude toward the admirals on the court blended flattery and a subtle assumption of fellowship with a delicate stressing of their responsibilities. “Hindsight . . . cannot be permitted to influence the factual reconstruction. Speculation . . . as to what any one believes he would have done at the time, should not distort our perspective.” His next words reminded his hearers that they were all old sailors together: “It is quite certain that there is not a man in this room who, granted the choice, would not have cheerfully traded his life to have prevented—indeed, even to have minimized—the tragic events of that forenoon.” Again he reminded the court of its awesome responsibilities:
It goes without saying that the findings must be supported by clear and convincing evidence, which leads exclusively to and is consistent with but one single conclusion. . . . Your report will be public opinion; public opinion can strip an individual of his reputation and honor.
Hence, the preparation of your report is a serious duty and when completed and approved the Service, and ultimately the public, will recognize that “the moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on; nor all our piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all our tears wash out a word of it.”
Just what the admirals made of being lectured on their duties by an officer who as an “interested party” was more or less in the dock, they kept to themselves.
Like Stark and Kimmel, Bloch stressed “the undiluted primary responsibility of the Army to defend and protect Pearl Harbor. . . . It was never more than a limited responsibility of the Navy to support the Army with what it happened to have present at the base in case of attack.” Having no information independent of that of Kimmel, “he had no basis from dissenting from the decisions of the Commander in Chief in regard to distant reconnaissance.” His statement ended:
During the period in question Rear Admiral Bloch did not seek to avoid responsibilities which were his. He does not do so now. With what he had at the time, Rear Admiral Bloch did all that anyone could do. Of the courses of action open to him, he took those prompted by good judgment—and he fully and conscientiously performed his every duty.49
In short, Bloch’s position was a sort of hurt surprise that anyone could blame him for anything or even consider him an “interested party.”
The court’s judge advocate, Biesemeier, did not believe “it would serve any useful purpose for him, at this time, to make any argument” based on the “very voluminous” evidence.50 Inasmuch as none of the “interested parties” wanted any argument either—in any sense of the word—the investigation ended on this, its thirty-third day.