The hearings resumed with the first of the two witnesses so many had waited agog to hear. Kimmel took the oath on January 15. Now for the first time the committee and the nation could hear the testimony of the man who had commanded the U.S. Pacific Fleet on that terrible day. His appearance generated so much interest that a pause of almost five minutes ensued to permit photographers to snap him. As they did so, Kimmel presented the image of a man self-assured and confident. He faced the committee with no hint of apology; he came to accuse, not to excuse. Slowly and clearly he began to read a prepared statement of 108 typed pages.1
Kimmel figuratively declared war with almost his first words: “. . . I shall describe how the Pacific Fleet was deprived of a fighting chance to avert the disaster of December 7, 1941, because the Navy Department withheld information which indicated the probability of an attack at Pearl Harbor at the time it came.” After a review of his appointment as CinCUS and the basing of the Fleet in Hawaii, he launched upon his grievances. “The so-called ‘war warning’ dispatch of November 27 did not warn the Pacific Fleet of an attack in the Hawaiian area,” he asserted. And he declared tartly, “The phrase ‘war warning’ cannot be made a catch-all for all the contingencies hindsight may suggest.”2
Kimmel bore down hard upon the fact that Washington withheld from him much vital information concerning Japan. He was especially bitter, and with considerable justice, because he did not receive the “bomb plot” series. “Surely, I was entitled to know of the intercepted dispatches between Tokyo and Honolulu on and after September 24, 1941, which indicated that the Japanese move against Pearl Harbor was planned in Tokyo.”3 He was equally unhappy at being denied Japan’s final note and in particular the “one o’clock” message. He was sure that had Washington kept him fully informed, the course of history would have been changed. If on December 5 he had had “all the important information then available in the Navy Department,” he “would have gone to sea with the fleet, including the carrier Lexington and arranged a rendezvous at sea with Halsey’s carrier force, and been in a good position to intercept the Japanese attack.” As late as the morning of December 7, if the Navy had sent its information plus the 1300 deadline, Kimmel’s “light forces could have moved out of Pearl Harbor, all ships in the harbor would have been at general quarters, and all resources of the fleet in instant readiness to repel an attack.”4 He added from the depths of a heart full of pain and anger:
The Pacific Fleet deserved a fighting chance. It was entitled to receive from the Navy Department the best information available. Such information had been urgently requested. I had been assured that, it would be furnished me. We faced our problems in the Pacific confident that such assurance would be faithfully carried out.
He ended his statement on an upbeat note: “History, with the perspective of the long tomorrow, will enter the final directive in my case. I am confident of that verdict.” With that, the admiral rested his defense. Spectators applauded long and heartily.5
Kimmel’s statement was something of a tour de force of research, organization, and persuasive argument, propelled by a dynamic personality. It held no deliberate deceit, which Kimmel would have scorned. And because he believed implicitly every word he spoke, he conveyed the unmistakable stamp of sincerity.
But his statement evoked mixed reactions. Those of the committee members “divided somewhat along party lines.” To the press Gearhart declared that in his opinion Kimmel had made “a fine statement that ought to clear up a lot of things.” But Lucas thought the admiral had left “many questions unanswered.” Keefe demonstrated a burgeoning ambivalence. Apparently Kimmel had “made use of every opportunity to tell his story” in this, his first public appearance in his own defense. However, Keefe added, “The weakest part of his statement was where he attempted to prophesy what he would have done if he had been furnished all of the information that Washington had.”6
The Honolulu Star-Bulletin expressed strong criticism in a stinging editorial:
Three characteristics in the Kimmel statement stand out:
His readiness to shift full and complete responsibility for what happened to his superior, Admiral Harold R. Stark, and the navy department.
His meticulous, even slavish, resort to regulations to explain his own position. (Admiral Kimmel apparently does not believe in the saying that rules are for those who don’t know when to break them!)
His utter and amazing lack of imagination in estimating the possibility of a direct attack on Pearl Harbor when relations with Japan were so strained.
The Star-Bulletin conceded that the authorities in Washington had much more information than they sent to either Kimmel or Short. And it found Stark’s “failure to pass along the contents of intercepted Japanese code messages . . . inexcusable.” But no one would “explain away the fact that Kimmel was the man on the ground. The fact that others shared his responsibility does not mitigate his own responsibility. . . .”7
Following Kimmel’s opening statement, counsel and committee members questioned him from the sixteenth through the twenty-first. Richardson started the ball rolling. He was impersonal, nonbelligerent, asking few, if any, judgmental questions. The admiral replied fluently, assertively, the very picture of someone who knew his business. He revealed himself as a man of iron with the rigid strength that can be weakness, never having learned how to bend. His very positiveness made his inconsistencies doubly noticeable.
He realized that the Navy’s strategy in the Pacific was defensive and that he had only enough ships for raids on the Marshalls. But in his opinion even the defense partook of the nature of the offense: “The most important part of any defensive attitude is the offensive action you take to carry it out.”8 This theme of offensive-mindedness recurred throughout his testimony.
With obvious sincerity he stressed his cooperation with Short and the undoubted fact that defense of Pearl Harbor was the Army’s business. And he was not obsessed with protecting only the ships; he wanted Pearl Harbor “to be able to defend itself even though the Pacific Fleet were wiped out.” But he never looked over the Army’s antiaircraft batteries, did not know that Short had three types of alert, and did not visit the Information Center to see for himself how the radar setup operated, although those were essential factors in the defense of his precious anchorage and of the Fleet at its moorings.9
Kimmel was aware of the vulnerability of the Fleet at Pearl Harbor. “We feared the worst, all right. We feared it all the time,” he stated. And he added later, “We considered . . . the probabilities and possibilities of an air attack on Pearl Harbor.” Yet he thought the danger of a Japanese aerial strike on December 7, 1941, “very slight.” However, he refused to admit that this was an error of judgment. He had never seen the expression “a war warning” in a message in all his naval experience, but he “did not consider it an extraordinary term.”10
Members of the committee took over the examination late in the morning of January 17. Having been absent until that day, Barkley deferred his turn until he could check over the testimony. Therefore, Cooper bȧtted first. He delivered crisp questions and probed until he got satisfactory answers. The committee excused Kimmel at 1530 to admit some documents. Evidently nothing loath to cut short his ordeal, Kimmel urged his four-man counsel team, “Let’s get the hell out of here.”11
Friday, January 18, found Kimmel back on the stand under examination by Clark. He asked very few questions, centering on the type of attack which might have been anticipated and what Kimmel thought he would have done had he been “reasonably sure . . . that a surprise air attack was going to be made there.”
Senator George had been perhaps the least vocal of all the members, and he did not spoil his record. “The wise old owl of the Senate,” as Morgan labeled him, asked Kimmel only a few questions dealing principally with WPL 46, the Navy’s basic war plan.12
Then Lucas took over. He went exhaustively into the circumstances of Kimmel’s appointment and his relationship with Roosevelt, the basing of the Fleet at Pearl Harbor, the war warnings, and air reconnaissance. More than one reporter noted that Kimmel’s temper was wearing thin.13 Indeed, one cannot wonder at his irritation. By this time the very words “war warning” must have assumed nightmarish qualities, producing an automatic reaction of angry defensiveness.
Of all the areas under discussion, Kimmel reacted most vigorously to anything pertaining to long-distance aerial reconnaissance. And well he might, for this was the “soft underbelly” of his defense. He strove mightily to convince the committee of two rather contradictory theses: First, that he could not have established an effective patrol; secondly, that he did have patrols aloft. He told Lucas that “on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of the week preceding the attack we did, in fact, send out patrol planes in the northwestern sector to a distance of about 400 miles.”14 Actually the patrols in effect on those days were related to the Halsey and Newton task forces to Wake and Midway respectively. By December 6 the only search in the Hawaiian area was limited to a segment with a 150-mile radius from Enterprise, headed home almost directly west of Oahu. And in the hours before the attack on December 7 aerial reconnaissance from Oahu consisted of a very short flight due south of Pearl Harbor—180 degrees off the sensitive area.15
In response to Lucas’s questions Kimmel stressed the critical shortage of long-range reconnaissance planes and “spare patrol plane crews. . . .” He stated firmly, “Now the Navy Department should have known, and did know beyond doubt, that I had no means to conduct a search over a considerable period.” Lucas interjected, “I agree with you.” Kimmel continued, “Now I might have made a token search and I might have been able to come here and say I made a token search. . . . I did not do that. I have never done that kind of thing, and I will not do it.”16
Perhaps unwittingly, Kimmel was laying a smoke screen. There was never any question of either a 360-degree search “over a considerable period” or of a “token search,” if by that expression Kimmel meant a few planes sent aloft on a random pattern. What he should have done—and what he had planes and crews to have done—was cover the critical northern sector.
But Kimmel was absolutely fixed in his refusal to admit a fault. Lucas asked him, “Notwithstanding that humiliating and far-reaching sea disaster, you now contend that with the information you had available to you you did all that any prudent commander could do to prevent or to minimize the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7?” Kimmel shot back, “I think that is a fair statement.” With that exchange Lucas completed his interrogation.17
Murphy, who followed Lucas, was the most persistent of the majority members. His questioning lasted to the end of January 18 and into the afternoon of the next day. He prodded into a number of Kimmel’s weak areas, such as his failure to consult with Bellinger upon receipt of the “war warning.” Kimmel could not see why he should have done so. Bellinger “was not the only air man we had there. He was rear admiral in charge of this patrol wing. . . . I felt capable of giving him any orders that he required.”
Murphy was not interested in orders. He was talking about “a staff consultation . . . to discuss with your airman the necessity for taking any measures appropriate to the occasion.” But Kimmel did not appear to get the point. A little later he innocently underlined his failure to understand the importance of dealing with airmen in reaching a decision involving air operations. Murphy wanted to know if Kimmel had discussed “the question of a raid” with Soc McMorris in view of the “war warning.” Kimmel replied:
I discussed all phases of the situation with McMorris almost daily; not almost daily but daily, and we went over the whole situation and at no time did McMorris recommend to me that we put out these planes for reconnaissance purposes, and he would have done so had he considered it necessary. He is a very able, outspoken officer and a man in whom I had the highest confidence.18
Able, outspoken, and trustworthy McMorris undoubtedly was. But he was not an air officer, hence quite out of his element in the field of aerial reconnaissance.
Kimmel’s plight since Pearl Harbor had been a prime talking point with the anti-Roosevelt faction, so naturally the minority members made the most of their opportunity. Brewster took him around the track in a canter, along lines bringing out the admiral’s best qualities—his devotion to duty, his capacity for hard work, and his common sense. For example, Kimmel did not claim that he should have had a Purple machine. It seemed to him “that if all this was being done in Washington and they were supplying me with information, that that was a solution to the problem.”19
The committee adjourned at 1635 on Saturday, to resume on Monday, January 21. John T. Flynn, in Washington to cover the hearings, took advantage of the weekend break to dash off a few conclusions based less upon Kimmel’s testimony than upon his own invincible misconceptions. He claimed that the admiral had his ships in Pearl Harbor because “The very orders he received required them to be there.”20 This farfetched contention stubbed its toe upon Kimmel’s own integrity. During the afternoon of January 21, when the members were asking Kimmel some final miscellaneous questions, Murphy spoke up: “Admiral, I just want to spike what I think is another rumor. It is a false one. Was there anyone in Washington in any authority whatsoever who issued any orders to you which obliged you to have the fleet in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941?” Kimmel answered with one word: “No.”21
Gearhart took up when the session resumed on Monday. Then Ferguson had his innings. He went into a number of controversial topics obviously aimed at discrediting Roosevelt. Kimmel had no use for the late President, but he also had a native honesty which derailed some lines of inquiry. So Ferguson struck out when he suggested somewhat obliquely that the Japanese might have decided not to attack if Oahu had been alerted: “Suppose that they [the Japanese] had flashed to that fleet the fact that the Hawaiian Islands were fully alerted and knew that there was something going to happen and our ships would have gone out, how would that have interfered with the Japs other than probably to have stopped them coming in?” Here was an excellent opportunity for Kimmel to claim, or at least insinuate, that Washington had withheld information from him to ensure that the Japanese would strike. But once again he spoke with the voice of direct-minded honor: “I don’t understand how it would have interfered in the slightest degree.”22
As low man in seniority, Keefe was the last to tackle the witness. He told Kimmel, “So far as I am concerned, you have acquitted yourself magnificently.” This evoked vigorous applause from the audience. Gearhart must have agreed, for he wrote Kimmel on January 21, “As I told you when you left the hearing room, your appearance must be taken as a complete triumph. You entered the room with the confidence of a champion and came out with the bout. If any one under trying circumstances ever vindicated himself more completely, I have yet to hear about it.”23
Secure in his armor of self-assurance, Kimmel had not been in the least in awe of these high-powered lawmakers, either those trying to fence him in or those trying to lighten his path. When they made what he considered a mistake or showed misunderstanding, he contradicted them without fear or favor. With his strongly ingrained habit of command, he did not hesitate to take the conn or suggest a course of action if he believed his inquisitors needed straightening out. And he preferred to testify to nothing of which he did not have direct knowledge.
In many respects Kimmel was an impressive witness. He was articulate without being voluble and obviously had at his fingertips every detail of the operations of the Pacific Fleet. If he felt any qualms of embarrassment or discomfort at thus being on the public grill, he concealed them admirably. At times he seemed to consider himself less a witness being questioned then an instructor conducting a seminar.
He projected an innocent arrogance which could be both irritating and oddly touching. He did not seem to understand why, having dealt with a subject to his satisfaction, anyone should wish to replow the same ground. Then, too, he made damaging admissions without in the least realizing that they were damaging. The following comment provides an example in point: “Well, if anybody will define for me what a war warning message is I would be better able to tell you whether I construed it as such.”24 The obvious answer was that “a war warning message” might be defined as a message containing the words “This dispatch is to be considered a war warning.” But Kimmel’s absolute self-confidence acted as a mental and moral anesthesia against the tiny alerts which the nerve endings might signal to a man less sure of himself.
In presenting his case, Kimmel made two psychological errors. First he placed so much stress upon his belief that the Navy Department had shortchanged him that he laid himself open to the impression of being overly dependent upon his superiors and of lacking initiative and imagination. And his determined effort to pass the buck was curiously at variance with the service tradition of accepting responsibility.
Kimmel’s second error was his obstinate refusal to concede that he might possibly have made a mistake, even one of judgment. Such self-righteousness is always irritating, whereas the American people usually react sympathetically to anyone who frankly admits to being less than divinely inspired. Marshall and Gerow had reaped a harvest of goodwill by publicly admitting they had erred and regretted doing so.
That Washington possessed data which it should have shared with Kimmel is undeniable. But his assurances that had this information been in his hands, he would have interpreted it correctly and been prepared to meet the Japanese assault are open to question. Such second-guessing, known to mystery story aficionados as the “had-I-but-known” syndrome, must always be speculative.
Certain facts, however, are matters of record. The military establishment in the Hawaiian Islands, of which Kimmel was an important part, existed to protect that territory against one possible enemy and only one—Japan. For years before 1940 Fleet exercises and war games in the area had concentrated upon one major problem—defense against a Japanese attack. During 1940 and 1941 the rapidly deteriorating relations between Washington and Tokyo were common knowledge. With this background in mind, one must wonder just how much effect any additional information from his superiors would have had upon Kimmel’s thinking.
After Kimmel’s 16-inch-gun attack on Washington, people eagerly awaited Short’s testimony. On Tuesday, January 22, he arrived at the hearings with Mrs. Short in a car which the War Department had furnished him along with a WAC driver. Since his hospitalization Short had been able to walk around for some time, but he had not attended recent sessions and still appeared gaunt. His neat blue-striped suit hung loosely from his stooped shoulders. But he was just as forceful in his own defense as Kimmel and rejected Barkley’s offer to have someone read his typed statement. This was his long-awaited opportunity, and he did not propose to sit by passively while the unemotional voice of a substitute spoke for him.
He had to rest frequently as he read his sixty-one-page statement, pausing often to sip a glass of water. This process took up most of the day.25 In its salient features, Short’s statement markedly resembled Kimmel’s. He had scarcely begun to speak before he asserted, “There was in the War Department an abundance of information which was vital to me but which was not furnished to me. This information was absolutely essential to a correct estimate of the situation and correct decision. . . . Had this information been furnished to me, I am sure that I would have gone on an all-out alert.”
Instead, he prepared for sabotage and reported to that effect. “The War Department had 9 days in which to tell me that my action was not what they wanted,” he declared. “I accepted their silence as a full agreement with the action taken.”26
Short stated that he had not known “that the Japanese were under orders to destroy their codes and code machines.” Like Kimmel, he particularly stressed the “one o’clock” message. To him it “indicated a definite break of relations at 1 P.M. and pointed directly to an attack on Hawaii at dawn. Had this vital information been communicated to Hawaii by the fastest possible means, we would have had more than 4 hours to make preparations to meet the attack which was more than enough for completing Army preparations.”27
Short obliquely criticized his naval colleagues for failing to advise the Army of the submarine action early on December 7, 1941. He also pointed out that from November 27 to December 6 the Navy “made no request for Army planes to participate in distant reconnaissance.” He interpreted this to mean that the Navy “had definite information of the locations of the Japanese carriers or that the number unaccounted for was such that naval ships and planes could make the necessary reconnaissance” without the Army’s help.28
Thus, Short’s self-defense rested upon the assumption that he and his advisers would have accomplished what Marshall and a much larger staff of experts had failed to do—correctly interpret all the bits and pieces of information and fit them into a perfect pattern—and then the Hawaiian Department would have taken prompt, effective action against the Japanese.
As Short neared the end of his presentation, he summed up his frustrations: “I do not feel that I have been treated fairly or with justice by the War Department. I was singled out as an example, as the scapegoat for the disaster.” He continued with this surprising statement: “My relatively small part in the transaction was not explained to the American people until this joint congressional committee forced the revelation of the facts.”29 It seems incredible that Short honestly believed he could sell the idea that the commanding general of the Hawaiian Department, directly responsible for the protection of the Pacific Fleet in harbor, had played only a “relatively small part” in the Pearl Harbor drama.
Spectators in the half-filled room applauded heartily as the general finished. Throughout his statement Mrs. Short listened carefully, apparently worried lest the heat and glare from the klieg lights prove harmful to her husband. The committee, too, was concerned about Short’s health and excused him for the day without further questioning. Then the members went into executive session.30
The hearings resumed the next morning, January 23. Among the audience was Short’s son, a fine-looking young man just returned from overseas.31 Under brief, businesslike questioning by Assistant Counsel Samuel H. Kaufman, Short outlined his previous service, the circumstances of his appointment to the Hawaiian Department, and some of his early problems on the job. The lack of information from Washington was his ark of refuge, and he ran up its gangplank at any hint of danger. One factor in Short’s insistence upon Washington’s culpability was his impression that his superiors knew more than they did. “I believe the War Department actually had the information 4 hours before the attack,” he stated, “so they could have told me the exact place.”32
Like Kimmel, Short patently believed every word he spoke, so not surprisingly his generalized blame of his superiors culminated in explicit hostility toward Marshall. Again Short stressed that if events necessitated “a general alert” of the Hawaiian Department, he expected Marshall “to do one of two things: Either to order the general alert or to give me sufficient information to justify me in ordering it.”33
Short’s 360-degree arc of animosity also took in his naval opposites. Kaufman wanted to know how Short accounted for Kimmel’s testimony that he did not know the Hawaiian Department had been only on antisabotage alert and, in fact, did not know that the Army “had anything else but an all-out alert.” Short answered, “The only way I can account for that would be poor staff work on the part of the staff of the Fourteenth Naval District. . . . We had furnished them with 10 copies of our staff operating procedure, which somebody in that naval staff certainly must have dug into and known what it meant.”34
When Barkley took over, he mentioned that “all the high officers in Washington” who had appeared before the committee had testified that notwithstanding the “bomb plot” series, “they did not really expect an attack at Pearl Harbor and were surprised when it came.” So if Short and Kimmel had received those messages, would they “have reached any different conclusion from that reached by everybody in Washington?” Short’s reply made sense: “I think there was a possibility because Pearl Harbor meant a little more to us. We were a little closer to the situation, and I believe we would have been inclined to look at that Pearl Harbor information a little more closely.”35
Much less rational was his reply when Barkley asked if anything outside of the “bomb plot” series pointed to an attack on Pearl Harbor. Short cited Japan’s changing the diplomatic deadline from November 25 to November 29, 1941. He thought anyone familiar with weather conditions in Alaska and the Aleutians who “happened to think along that line . . . would have drawn a direct conclusion. . . . And to a Navy man that might well mean that the condition was getting to the point where the fueling of ships at sea would be hazardous.” Barkley suggested that the weather in Alaska would not necessarily indicate where the Japanese intended to strike. But Short declared, “If they went by the northern route, they would be probably going to either Seattle or Hawaii.”36 All this demonstrated hindsight at its hindmost.
For the balance of January 23 and part of the next morning, Cooper had some searching questions about the Army’s dispatch of November 27. He tried to determine “with this message of the Chief of Staff before you, without the word ‘sabotage’ mentioned in it at all, I am just wondering how you got the impression that your reply of ‘an alert against sabotage’ was responsive to this message.” Short’s answer gushed from the fountain of his conviction: “Because there was no information that indicated anything in Hawaii other than internal disorders.”37
George had not been present during most of Short’s testimony, so he asked only a few questions, all in the area of air reconnaissance. One of his queries was very penetrating: How could Short construe the warning of November 27 “to mean an alert against sabotage when the use of the word ‘reconnaissance’ here certainly would indicate something beyond an alert against sabotage . . .?” Short’s reply was less than pellucid: “Since I was not . . . since the Army was not taking any reconnaissance I did not report it because it was a naval function. . . .”38
Clark’s questioning filled out the morning of January 24. Once more Short met a running fire of queries about his reaction to the message of November 27. Clark wanted specifics: “Could you give the committee an illustration of any internal disorder, you had had before that?” Short’s answer was a masterpiece of its kind: “I had tried to state that we had tightened the ring so that there would not be any. We had succeeded; there never was.”39 As one reads Short’s evidence, it becomes more and more clear that where sabotage is concerned, one is not dealing with a coolly considered estimate of the situation—one is dealing with obsession. Short’s reply to Clark reminds one of a man terrified of drowning who builds a dam in the Sahara, then proudly claims that his dam was the reason the Sahara did not flood while he was in the vicinity.
During Lucas’s questioning following the noon recess, Short came as close as he ever did to criticizing Kimmel personally: “I do not intend to give the impression that I am making an out and out statement of what defensive deployment meant, but I couldn’t conceive of any defense not including reconnaissance.”40
The formidable Murphy followed Lucas for the rest of January 24 and continued past the next day’s noon recess. He queried Short closely concerning his utilization of his staff and subordinate commanders. Murphy told a representative of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin that the point “he was driving at” was that “nobody knew what anyone else was doing” on Short’s staff.41 One hesitates to go quite that far, but there seems little doubt that Short could have used his staff more efficiently.
The inquiry got under way again on January 26 with Ferguson at the conn. Short could scarcely have found a more sympathetic interrogator, nor Ferguson a more willing interrogee. Under the senator’s deft guidance the general accepted a fanciful thesis already becoming popular with the burgeoning revisionist school. He thought that in the event of full mobilization, “if that had been reported to the Japanese, they would have turned back the attacking force . . . because they would have felt, or they would be sure that they would take heavy losses. Surprise was the only opportunity that they had to succeed.”42 Of course, Short had no way of knowing that Yamamoto had warned the First Air Fleet that it might have to fight its way into the target and that the Japanese fully anticipated “heavy losses.”
Ferguson carefully made it clear that Short did not include the congressional committee in his litany of resentment. To his inquiry Short stated, “I consider that this hearing has been extremely fair, very thorough, and that I have been accorded very great courtesy by the chairman and by every member of the committee.”43
In contrast Ferguson made every possible attempt to place Washington in a bad light. His efforts to establish Short as a put-upon victim of Washington’s alleged stupidities and plottings had a few negative side effects. Short revealed himself as having been fully as much as Kimmel a prey to the “had-I-but-known” syndrome, and as having been overly dependent upon his superiors. He also gave the impression of indulging in that most unlovely quality, self-pity.
After one has threaded one’s way carefully through the thickets of Short’s testimony, an uneasy sense persists that he lacked breadth of vision and a grasp of reality. Nor does he appear to have understood that a military commander’s duty is to prepare for the worst and be ready for it at a moment’s notice. Granted that Short did not receive from Washington all the information he should have, the picture nevertheless emerges of a man with a narrow-gauge mind, a person lacking the flair for his mission.
Keefe followed Ferguson. His brief interrogation was sympathetic, but he did pin Short down with some “flat, plain, square” questions, among them this one in the form of a statement: “Well, you could have done a pretty good job with the stuff you had out there if you had been on the alert and had been expecting an attack.” To which Short answered, “Yes, sir.”
Keefe’s questioning ended with a painful crack at G-2: “Now, your position in this case is that Intelligence, so far as Washington was concerned, failed?” Short agreed uncompromisingly, “A hundred percent.” Keefe added, “And thus Pearl Harbor occurred. Is that your defense?” And Short answered, “Yes, sir.”44
A final round of tying up loose ends followed. Soon thereafter Short’s appearance ended on a civilized note with a final statement of thanks and appreciation from the witness and a few gracious words from Barkley thanking him for his “courtesy and patience” and the hope that he would soon recover his health. A patter of applause followed Short out of the room.45
Even across the years there is something appealing about this pale, slender figure in the suit too big for him, his voice periodically fading to a whisper, fighting for his reputation like the soldier he was. At times one glimpses the crisp, positive officer the War Department deemed worthy of three stars and one of the nation’s most important commands.
One of the Pearl Harbor story’s most bewildering puzzles is this: Why were the Pacific Fleet and the Hawaiian Department caught unawares when all concerned claimed to have been alive to danger? Nowhere does one sense this dichotomy more sharply than in the testimony of Kimmel and Short. We hear over and over of Fleet exercises and war games, SOPs, estimates, plans, studies, staff consultations—all aimed at protecting the Fleet and the territory from a potential Japanese attack. Yet the reality caught them napping.
As we have seen, Short insisted repeatedly, persistently, and waspishly that Washington had denied him essential information. In a way he had little choice of tactics. His only hope for public vindication lay in convincing the congressional committee that everything would have ended much differently on Oahu on December 7, 1941, had his superiors not deprived him of information essential to an accurate estimate of the situation. On the other hand, that weapon was a double-edged sword. By stressing his dependence upon the upper echelon, inevitably Short diminished his own stature. At times his testimony, like Kimmel’s, leaves one with the uncomfortable feeling that if some natural disaster or enemy action had cut off Hawaii from Washington, he would have been at a total loss. In conveying this atmosphere, the two witnesses surely did themselves less than justice, for initiative is one of the principal components of command, and it is scarcely likely that each had reached his pre-Pearl Harbor eminence without displaying that quality.
Certainly as CinCPAC Kimmel had never demonstrated any hesitancy in running the Fleet the way he wished. He had reorganized the task force structure and chosen a top-notch staff, which he led in a masterly fashion. In his dealings with Washington he had not asked what his superiors wanted; he had told them what he wanted. And when the occasion demanded, he had gone to Washington in person, clear to the White House to present his views.
Short had handled his department less forcefully, but of course, he had operated at a lower command level than Kimmel. However, he, too, had been no Uriah Heep in his dealings with Washington. He knew what the Hawaiian Department needed, and he bombarded headquarters with stern, well-argued demands for materials to do the job.
Yet for all of Kimmel’s and Short’s efforts, the Japanese caught their commands by surprise. Perhaps it was only human that these two conscientious officers, secure in their belief that they had done their best with the means at hand, should seek someone else to blame.
For a good four years Kimmel and Short had hoped, waited, and fought for a public hearing. It would not be surprising if in that time they had come to regard such an open session as a sort of Promised Land where cheering crowds would proclaim their innocence, where their records would be restored to pre-Pearl Harbor stainlessness, where the miscreants in Washington would suffer just punishment for their sins. Now the two men had had their day in the limelight, had said everything they wanted to say before the congressional committee with all the publicity such a hearing entailed. Yet their evidence had not produced the definitive revelations many had hoped for, nor did it solve the Pearl Harbor mystery.
Of course, Kimmel and Short would have to wait for the final report before they could know the committee’s verdict. Yet these two intelligent men must have read as many newspapers as they could lay their hands on to find out what impression they had made. The result could not have been completely reassuring. In the main, reaction had been reserved. The open hearing had not provided public apologies and restoration of honors. It looked very much as if that Promised Land had turned into a fata morgana which faded at the approach.