The congressional inquiry ended as it had begun—to a fanfare of headlines, a chorus of editorials, and indignant rolls of revisionist kettledrums.1 Such gifted, convinced revisionist writers as Greaves and Flynn, and such an able lawyer as Rugg who was very properly devoted to Kimmel’s interests, had masterminded preparation of the minority report.2 Who could blame them if they believed they had the situation firmly under control? But the American lawmaker is unpredictable. Just when the coaches believe they have their men set up for an off-tackle thrust, some senator or congressman may seize the ball and carry it on a wide sweep around end. That is precisely what happened. Gearhart and Keefe signed the majority report, much to the disgust of the coaching staff.
Flynn’s venom knew no bounds. He could not credit Keefe and Gearhart with honesty. He was certain they had acted contrary to their convictions. For Gearhart’s defection he had a ready explanation. His district in California had “an overwhelming majority of Democratic votes. . . .” Gearhart had “voted a whitewash of Hull and Roosevelt and to blacken the names of Kimmel and Short whom he believes innocent—in order to get himself enough Democratic votes to come back to Congress.” But Keefe’s straying from the fold apparently puzzled Flynn. “For days he was fulminating against the plans of the Democrats. . . . Why did he change his mind?”3
One hesitates to join in guessing what made Keefe tick. However, the transcript of the investigation indicates that he was by no means devoid of independent judgment, and presumably he had not reached national level without a certain amount of political acumen. It was one thing to make partisan hay before and during congressional hearings; it would have been quite another to support publicly a verdict for which no solid evidence had been presented at those hearings. No proof had been forthcoming of malicious wrongdoing in the administration; Kimmel and Short had failed to clear themselves of all shadow of blame; the “winds” lead had expired with a whimper. So it was not astonishing that Keefe joined the mainstream, albeit with serious reservations.
The Chicago Tribune cast Gearhart as one of the villains of the piece. “Colleagues of Gearhart speculated that he succumbed to Democratic pressure . . . because of fears for his political future.” When a reporter asked Gearhart why he had signed the majority report, he “testily replied that ‘the report speaks for itself.’” On the subject of his letter to Kimmel upon completion of the admiral’s testimony,* Gearhart “asserted that Views change as additional evidence is presented.’”4 So one has the choice of seeing Gearhart as a traitor to his convictions who bowed to political pressure or as a man sufficiently open-minded to adjust his views to the weight of evidence. Morgan recalled that Gearhart became “progressively quite mellow” as the investigation proceeded.5 The congressman was a long way from being a fool, and it would not be surprising if he had come to recognize that his preconceived notions needed revising.
Had the critics of Keefe and Gearhart been able to lift their eyes to a wider horizon than one limited on the north, east, south, and west by Franklin D. Roosevelt, they might have appreciated that the two congressmen had done the Republican party a favor. They had presented it to the public as an organization sufficiently broad-minded to encompass honest differences of opinion on important issues. What is more, they had enhanced the credibility of the investigation and its conclusions. For the congressional committee to hand the American people two reports with signatures following strictly party lines would have been little short of tragic. Who could have blamed John and Jane Q. Public if they had shrugged off such a result as just another ego trip for lawmakers at the taxpayers’ expense, with every member of the committee voting exactly as he might have been expected to do before a word of testimony had been taken?
Kimmel had welcomed the congressional probe. But he did not comment upon the report at its release. He wanted to read it through before making a statement.6 The fact is, he was exceedingly surprised. “The findings of the Republican Minority of the Commission sic was a terrific shock to Rugg, and likewise to me,” he wrote his old friend and ardent supporter Admiral Harry E. Yarnell on September 13, 1946, “because Rugg had kept me informed of what they assured him would be the gist of the report.” However, it was all “water under the dam,” and Kimmel had “no regrets at having pursued the course of action” which he followed. He squeezed a few drops of comfort from the situation. “I was disappointed, of course, at the Minority findings, but a careful reading shows that the Minority did everything but clear me completely and did place the major part of the blame in Washington where it belongs.” The majority report “was about what we expected, but they labored so much to keep any blame away from Washington that I think it is quite apparent to any careful reader that was their object from the beginning.”7
Interviewed in Dallas, Short expressed displeasure. “The majority members of the investigation committee are entitled to their point of view,” he said, “but I am satisfied that the testimony presented at the hearings fully absolved me from any blame and I believe such will be the verdict of history. As I have stated before, my conscience is clear.”8
Nevertheless, the committee had not “fully absolved” either Kimmel or Short. Thus, the two commanders did not reach their goal—complete exoneration of themselves and the placing of all blame upon their superiors in Washington. But at least the investigation had publicly cleared them of the cruelly wounding charge of “dereliction of duty.”
Short’s testimony before the congressional committee reveals that he was exceedingly bitter toward the War Department. But having said his say, he did not make self-justification a lifework. Instead, he and Mrs. Short retired to their Georgian-style residence in Dallas. No one could mistake their home for other than what it was—the retirement haven of a couple whose whole adult life had been involved in the Army. Pictures, maps, and reference books, a framed set of medals flanked by two certificates—all testified to where Short’s heart would always be. In this congenial atmosphere Short, like so many sensitive spirits, turned to flowers, tending roses and zinnias behind protective hedges. He lived such a “quiet, even secluded life” that when he died, a neighbor could say, “I’ve been here more than a year, and I have never seen the general that I know of.”
Perhaps Short realized that he had made enough mistakes to justify at least part of his punishment. Perhaps he disdained to explain his case or ask for sympathy any more than an eighteenth-century French aristocrat would have appealed to the knitting women around the guillotine. Perhaps he was simply tired. He passed from life quietly, keeping his secrets. “He never, as you might say, let down his hair—even to me,” his son, Major Walter Dean Short, told reporters. “He laid all the facts about Pearl Harbor before the congressional committee. . . . There was no book for him to write, nothing more that he could say.”9
Perhaps the general had nothing more to say, but what about the man? What of the Walter C. Short, independent of his uniform, who lived and moved, hoped and dreamed, who married a beautiful woman and fathered a fine son to carry on in his footsteps? What did he think, what did he feel, how did he react? Historians who wish to understand that Walter C. Short must work without the general’s help. And who can deny that there is something admirable about his dignified silence?
Members of Short’s command agree that his long ordeal, following the shock and grief of the attack, contributed to his untimely death at the age of sixty-nine.10 The pneumonia he suffered in December 1945 permanently weakened him. The general had been ill with heart disease for several months, seriously so for more than two weeks, when death claimed him on September 3, 1949, at his home in Dallas. Four days later he was buried at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors. Only his widow, son, daughter-in-law, a few close relatives, and former associates like his troubleshooter Fleming and his aide Truman attended the simple Episcopal rites. September is summer in Washington, but as the pallbearers carried Short’s casket to his final resting place on a wooded hill below the Lee mansion, a few autumn leaves spangled the green grass, as if winter were coming to the year prematurely, as it had to the general.11
Kimmel was made of sterner stuff. When the storm passed, the admiral had been destroyed, but the man stood like a rock, sustained by his own conviction that he had done his best and by the steadfast loyalty of the many officers and sailors who could not believe ill of him. He severed his connection with the Frederic R. Harris Company in 1947, and with his wife, Dorothy, moved to Groton, Connecticut, to be near his son Thomas Kinkaid Kimmel, then instructing at the Submarine School.12 Thus, the admiral kept in touch with the life of the service which had been Dorothy’s only rival for his heart. The Navy was in his blood. He could not live without the sight and sound of the sea and the bustle of the docks.
There he could have dwelt in placid contentment had he chosen to do so. But he allowed the memory of Pearl Harbor to consume his life. As CinCPAC he had never taken the will for the deed, but he could not understand why current history did not accord him that leniency. Justifying himself before the American people became a fixation.
Yet one cannot wonder that Kimmel turned almost morbid. He had grown to eminence in an atmosphere of clear-cut quid pro quo. If one obeyed the laws of God and man, studied diligently, denied oneself, worked hard, took one’s place in the community, discharged one’s duties, dealt justly with one’s fellowman, one would prosper and reach the end of the road full of years and honor.
Kimmel had done all these things. But after nine months, almost to the day, as CinCUS, fate had dealt him this crushing blow. It must have seemed to Kimmel that either the premise upon which he had built his life had been a delusion or he had done something wrong somewhere along the line. It is a question which of these choices would be the more intolerable to Kimmel’s straightforward mind and proud spirit.
Then, too, the human psyche has its own self-sealing properties. For Kimmel to acknowledge even to himself that he shared to the slightest measure in the guilt of Pearl Harbor would be to leave himself open to a hell of remorse and memory. He experienced his moment of truth on December 7, 1941, when he held a spent bullet in his fingers and murmured, “It would have been merciful had it killed me.”* Then the fire doors slammed shut. The fault must lie elsewhere.
Kimmel died of a heart attack on May 14, 1968, in his eighty-sixth year. No newspapers devoted more space to the story of his passing than the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and the Advertiser. What could be more fitting? With Hawaii, rather than with Kentucky, where he was born, or with Connecticut, where he died, his name would be forever linked—and no more so than in his own mind. The Advertiser and Star-Bulletin, which combined forces on Sundays, published an editorial on May 15, 1968, which contained neither vindictiveness nor sentimentality. It ended: “He [Kimmel] was caught in the net of the Navy dictum that the man on the bridge is responsible for his ship. It may not be fair but it is just. The buck stops there. . . .”13
Had U.S. forces discovered and beaten off Nagumo’s task force or made the attackers suffer unacceptable losses over the target, Kimmel and Short would have received the credit. By the same token, they cannot escape the onus of surprise and defeat. Short in particular must carry a large portion of blame.
According to Fleming, “. . . Short’s concept of defending the Hawaiian Islands was to defend them away from Hawaii” by means of “fleet action and also air action and bases which would not be subject to direct attack by the Japanese.”14 This theory has overtones of passing the buck. In the nature of geography, defending Hawaii from a distance would have to devolve upon the Navy. Short’s principal task at hand was to guard the Navy’s ships without which long-distance defense would be impossible.
As we have seen, Short took hold well, and those who served under him seem to have held him in considerable respect. But he became tremendously preoccupied with training for its own sake. “Short was a good scout,” said Bicknell, “but he got so wrapped up in the training business that he could not see the other issues at stake.”15 As a result, in Hawaii, to quote Representative Hamilton Fish of New York, “We were in a state of preparedness instead of a state of alertness.”16 Short was so busy honing his blade that he forgot its sharpness mattered little unless it was ready to hand.
Whatever his previous attitudes and programs, Short’s concentration upon training should not have survived receipt of the warning dispatch of November 27. The congressional majority report believed that message gave “ample notice to a general in the field that his training was now secondary—that his primary mission had become execution of the orders contained in the dispatch and the effecting of maximum defense security.”17
Instead, his other fixation sprang into full flower. He was so certain that he had nothing to worry about except sabotage that he did not even consult his field commanders to seek their interpretation of the warning of November 27. His fear of the local Japanese was one of his considerations in upholding his Ordnance Department’s refusal to issue ammunition to troops. General Burgin testified: “As long as the ammunition could be left locked up in the magazines, it was pretty safely guarded and could not be tampered with to any great extent.”18
So when the Japanese hit unexpectedly, the fixed batteries had some ammunition nearby at Burgin’s insistence, but it was boxed. The mobile guns and batteries had none. Their ammunition was stored in Aliamanu Crater, several miles away. And the mobile batteries were not in field position.19 More eloquently than any human testimony the silent guns of Oahu bear witness to just how seriously Short took the possibility of attack from without.
Short compounded the initial mistake by not working closely with the Navy in this situation, which obviously called for mutual understanding and joint action. Short “was sure from all of our talk that everybody understood just what was being done.”20 But Poco Smith erroneously told Kimmel that a full Army alert was in effect.* Bloch, too, thought that the Ármy was under “a complete alert” and did not find out that it had been for sabotage only until Short so informed him after the attack.21
Two other factors—both negative—entered into Short’s decision to initiate Alert No. 1. For one, to him the warning indicated that the War Department’s paramount idea was “that no international incident must take place in Hawaii that would provoke the Japanese or give them an excuse.”22 The second was Short’s concern lest total alert frighten the civilian population.
We cannot stress too strongly that all the American failures and shortcomings which contributed to the Japanese victory at Pearl Harbor stemmed from the root disbelief that the Japanese would undertake the risky venture. Had Short even halfway accepted the possibility, such intangibles as the attitude of the local populace and the Japanese government would have had to yield to the urgent necessity of preparing to perform the Hawaiian Department’s prime mission.
In his testimony Short seemed confident that because long-range air patrols came under the Navy, he could safely ignore Washington’s order to undertake reconnaissance. Yet he had a means of reconnaissance in hand which the War Department had expected him to utilize when it sent that directive. This was radar, a function which Short mishandled throughout 1941. As usual, he attempted to dump the blame on Washington because some stateside systems had been installed before Hawaii received any equipment.23
But that cannot excuse the chaotic conditions which existed in the Hawaiian Department in regard to the aircraft warning system (AWS). The testimony of radar expert Lieutenant Commander William E. Taylor was devastating. “At no time before December 7, 1941, did this Command furnish either the authority or impetus badly needed to get the work or organization properly started.”24
No attitude on the part of Washington, no lack of equipment or funds can explain or excuse the failure to establish at least approach lanes or a reporting system to account for planes in Hawaiian skies. All that such procedures required was an appreciation of the value of incoming aircraft identification and fighter direction—abundantly demonstrated in the Battle of Britain—plus a little initiative and cooperation. But unfortunately those qualities, equally costless and priceless, appear to have been missing.
Short did run his radar for a brief time daily as we have seen and, in so doing, displayed inconsistency. Radar was of no use against his bugaboo, sabotage, and if he admitted the possibility of an air attack, as his use of radar implied, why did he not institute Alert No. 2 or No. 3? Perhaps the key lies in Short’s words about his radar operation—that he was “doing it for training more than any idea that it would be real.”25 All that goes far toward explaining the situation at the Opana Station and the Information Center on the morning of December 7.
Of all the mistakes, oversights, and blunders on the American side of the Pearl Harbor story, none contributed more to Japan’s success than did Short’s. Not only did he fail to perform his mission, but he also did not truly understand it. And in the crisis of November 27 he narrowed his vision to the point where the whole military power at his command—and it was considerable—stalked a mouse while the tiger jumped through the window.
Short’s opposite number, Bloch, held what Captain Paul B. Ryan, USN, described to Fleming as “a retirement job . . . nice quarters, not too much work. . . .”26 Yet Navy regulations and existing war plans assigned to the commandant, Fourteenth Naval District, important duties that called for an alert individual at the peak of physical and mental powers. In addition, as naval base defense officer Bloch was responsible for sharing with the Army “joint supervisory control over the defense against air attack,” working with the Army “to have their anti-aircraft guns emplaced,” exercising “supervisory control over Naval shore-based aircraft, arranging through Commander Patrol Wing Two for coordination of the joint air effort between the Army and Navy.”27
Like Short, Bloch had his problems and shortages. But, again like Short, he was psychologically unprepared to use the means at his disposal. To have performed one of his primary functions required nothing but a telephone, a staff car, and a little get-up-and-go. Direct, professional liaison with Short was Bloch’s, not Kimmel’s, responsibility. Unfortunately some of Bloch’s actions lead one to wonder how much thought he gave to his duty to cooperate with the Army. He sent the Hawaiian Department as liaison officer a young lieutenant who, although bright and willing, lacked the experience and the clout necessary to represent the Navy effectively. This Bloch did because Lieutenant Burr was the man he could spare, not because he was best qualified. As of December 1, Bloch “had no knowledge as to whether or not they were standing regular watches” on the AWS. Nor did he “make any inquiries about it.”28 Thus, Bloch took a cavalier attitude toward one of the best means of alerting Hawaii to the approach of a hostile force.
In matters not directly connected with the Army Bloch also showed lack of judgment. He was at least partially responsible for the Fleet’s being placed on so rigid an operating program that its movements were readily predictable. Largely at Bloch’s request, Richardson had established a fixed schedule. “The reason being that I desired to economize on the tug hire,” Bloch explained. “. . . I desired to have as little interruption with the dredging operations in the channel as possible.”29 Bloch rated business as usual above security of ship movements.
Later one of the Fleet commanders wrote to Kimmel that surprise drills “were interfering with certain other exercises. . . .” So he asked that surprise drills “should be laid out ahead of time.” Kimmel directed Bloch to comply. Short and Bloch arranged a schedule and “always let them know, ahead of time, when we would have a drill.”30 Apparently neither Bloch nor Short pointed out that this procedure was fine for practicing techniques, but an obvious washout in teaching how to cope with surprise.
Relations between the district and the naval air arm were little short of surrealistic. Take, for instance, the Joint Air Agreement of March 21, 1941, and its implementing operating plans. The aircraft had other tasks assigned them, “but when we sounded an air-raid alarm, they all got together” and became the Base Defense Air Force. Oahu’s defenders “had drill after drill . . . in order that the acts and operations of this Air Force would be automatic. . . .” But this arrangement did not go into effect until M-Day had been declared. And while the plan called for “air search for enemy ships,” this was “only in the event of an attack.” No plan existed for a situation short of war. The command confusion was such that Bloch admitted he did not know whether Kimmel would hold him or Bellinger responsible if anything went wrong.31
At first Bloch denied to the Navy court that his duties as naval base defense officer included aerial reconnaissance. Yet the Joint Coastal Frontier Defense Plan (JCD-42) clearly so specified.32 He finally admitted to the Army board that he had accepted that responsibility but stressed that his “obligations for distant reconnaissance would not become binding until that plan was operative.” Asked if Short realized that Bloch lacked the facilities to fulfill his part of the agreement, Bloch demonstrated his talent for broken-field running: “I cannot say that I never told him and I cannot say that I did tell him.”33 Bloch tried hard to place upon Washington the blame for failing to activate JCD-42. This will not hold water. As the congressional majority report pointed out, “. . . the execution was essentially a responsibility resting in Hawaii.”34
The status of Bellinger’s patrol aircraft between November 27 and the attack was Condition B-5—50 percent of both matériel and personnel on four hours’ notice. This status, which Bloch had directed, was, according to Bellinger, “the normal readiness prescribed for normal conditions.”35 Once again, this time in the face of a clear warning, alert measures bowed to routine.
To Bloch it seemed “obvious that the Commandant of the District couldn’t use the patrol planes without permission of the Fleet because the planes were employed by the Fleet on other missions.” But Bloch could have asked for that permission. Had he recommended instituting at least partial air reconnaissance, undoubtedly Kimmel would have given him the green light. That is precisely what happened in an alert during the summer of 1941.36
Bloch sailed through the Pearl Harbor investigative fires without being so much as singed, in no small measure thanks to his acumen in maintaining a low profile. But one cannot help agreeing with Captain Zacharias’s belief that a contributing factor to the Japanese success at Pearl Harbor was Kimmel’s reluctance to tell Bloch to get on the stick or he would find someone who would.37
Two of Kimmel’s mistakes he inherited. The decision not to use antitorpedo nets around the battleships was Richardson’s; still, Kimmel neither rescinded nor modified it. Ideal nets were never available to him.38 Yet if Kimmel had taken the possibility of aerial torpedo strikes on his ships as seriously as the Japanese took the possibility of antitorpedo nets protecting the American vessels, we can imagine him hounding the Navy Department to speed up development and production of such nets.
When Kimmel took over, he changed the schedule which Richardson had instituted at Bloch’s instigation, but he maintained some of the rigidity. The predictable movements of fleet units enabled Japanese agents to report to Tokyo that major vessels were invariably in port over the weekends. This information was a foundation stone of Japanese planning.
But we agree with Forrestal “that his [Kimmel’s] most grievous failure was his failure to conduct long-range air reconnaissance in the more dangerous sectors from Oahu during the week preceding the attack.”39 Kimmel’s lack of sufficient aircraft for 360-degree coverage is not an acceptable excuse for not using such planes as were on hand. Bloch’s figures indicate that thirty-six aircraft were available. He observed that if these “could have maintained a 360-degree patrol as far as their radius of action would permit them to do, it would have been very thin on the outer circumference.”40
But thirty-six planes, however inadequate, are thirty-six more than none. Moreover, the Army had twenty-one B-18s in commission. The Navy could have requested use of these medium bombers, which, if not ideal for the purpose, were usable.41 A coverage of 360 degrees was not called for. Both the Navy and Army aircraft could and should have been utilized on the basis of such carefully reasoned estimates as the Martin-Bellinger and Farthing reports and of the experience gleaned from Fleet exercises.
One cannot be sure that long-range patrol planes winging northward on or before the morning of December 7 would have located Nagumo’s task force. The odds were slim, to be sure, but by rejecting long-distance aerial reconnaissance, Kimmel reduced those odds to zero. If successful, such scouting might well have enabled the ships in harbor to be alert, Short’s fighter planes armed and aloft, his ground defenses manned and ready. If unsuccessful, at least Kimmel would have done his manifest duty.
He reached his decision without consulting his most concerned subordinates. Bloch did not receive a copy of the “war warning” until the next day. Nor did Kimmel seek the advice and professional judgment of Davis, his Fleet aviation officer, or of Layton, his Fleet intelligence officer. Bellinger did not even know about the message. We cannot say definitely what the result would have been had Kimmel sought Bellinger’s opinion. But this we know: Bellinger could have told Kimmel that he was “in agreement with Admiral Davis that the greatest possibility of a successful air attack lay in an attack coming in from the sector of the north because of the prevailing wind conditions” and that he had enough aircraft available to have covered that sector for “at least a week. . . .”42
Equally regrettable is the fact that Kimmel did not notify Short when he received word on December 3 that the Japanese had ordered certain consulates and embassies, including the one in Washington, to destroy their codes. His failure to appreciate the importance of this step may well have been as tragic in its consequences as was his decision of November 27 against long-range reconnaissance. With this later information he had the chance to reconsider his former assessment of the situation. But as blindly as any dark-starred hero of Greek or Elizabethan drama, Kimmel ignored the opportunity.
Kimmel and his advisers must share blame with the higher headquarters for failure to comprehend the implications when Japan’s major carriers dropped out of radio traffic. They were not moving south; Rochefort had a very good line on that operation. To add a still more lurid hue to the picture, on December 1 the Japanese Navy changed its call signs for the second time within a month—an unheard-of action. Yet both Hawaii and Washington assumed, with deadly inaccuracy, that Japan’s main carrier strength remained in home waters. In Ingersoll’s words, Kimmel “was the man who was in charge of the methods of determining the location of the Japanese Fleet through radio intelligence. . . .”43 Japanese blackout of the task force, the dummy message traffic, and American complacency effectively canceled out the possibility of locating Japan’s First Air Fleet by this means. But such factors do not excuse the Army and Navy for not closing all mouseholes when the Japanese flattops disappeared.
For years Kimmel had worked, planned, and studied with one end in view: When and if war came, he would be on the bridge of his flagship speeding to engage the enemy. So he did not recognize the voice of opportunity when it murmured in his ear, “This is your hour,” for that hour demanded of him that for the moment, he cease polishing the sword and pick up the shield. He lacked the perception to read the meaning of the warnings and events of those last ten days before disaster and the flexibility to adjust his orientation from training to defense.
Some of their more ardent sympathizers termed Kimmel and Short “scapegoats.” This is one of those “loaded” words which one should use with the utmost care. It signifies a blameless creature punished for the sins of others. Kimmel and Short were no more blameless than they were solely blameworthy. The stain of error permeates the entire American fabric of Pearl Harbor from the President down to the Fourteenth Naval District and the Hawaiian Department. There are no Pearl Harbor scapegoats.
Mistakes at Washington level were many and varied, but it seems most unlikely that any one of them in itself was a decisive factor. Roosevelt’s solicitude that the public not be alarmed during the mounting crisis in the autumn of 1941 had a baleful effect. The instruction not to upset the citizenry watered down the Army’s warning to Short of November 27.
A related administration error was the length to which the executive branch went to handle the Japanese with kid gloves. In pursuance of this policy, the United States kept open the Japanese consulates although it closed the German and Italian; gave spies like Yoshikawa a free hand and squelched the efforts of Senator Gillette and Congressman Dies to dig into Japanese espionage. This attitude entered into Kimmel’s hesitancy to activate the Short-Bloch defense plan. “It might have been considered by the Japanese an overt act,” he explained to the Army board.44 The Army, too, carried this reluctance to irritate Japan to absurd lengths. One reason why Marshall did not telephone Short on the morning of December 7 was that “it could be construed as an overt act involving an immediate act of war against Japan.”45
War and Navy Department errors fell into two main areas. First was the failure to keep Kimmel and Short adequately posted. Even Kimmel conceded that Hawaii did not need a Magic machine, but more thorough information on the trends of U.S.-Japanese relations would have been helpful, especially in the late autumn. And more than once Stark followed up an official warning of dark developments by a personal letter downgrading the danger.
The prime error, however, lay in keeping from the Hawaiian commanders the contents of the consular messages, especially the “bomb plot” series. The fact that Washington did not evaluate this information at its real worth is inexcusable. No attempt to explain away or minimize these messages stands up before their content. Kimmel and Short had every right and the urgent need to receive the full text of the exchanges between Tokyo and Honolulu whenever these referred to ships of the Fleet or military installations in the Islands or in any fashion pointed to tactical espionage.
Both Washington and Oahu erred seriously in connection with the warnings of November 27. Turner placed himself on a hot spot when he testified that he “thought the chances were about 50-50 that we would get a heavy raid in Hawaii. . . .”46 This estimate imposed upon him the clear duty of saying so plainly in his directive to Kimmel. Such a warning could have done no harm and might have done inexpressible good. Not only would it have alerted Kimmel in unmistakable terms, but it also would have cleared the Navy Department of blame for failing to do just that.
The War and Navy departments should have ridden herd on Kimmel and Short following dispatch of these warnings, despite the usually sound policy of not breathing down the necks of major field commanders. This was no ordinary situation. Stimson and Knox, Marshall and Stark should have insisted upon receiving daily or at least very frequent follow-ups on the situation from all addressees. Such reports would have revealed quickly the inconsistencies between what Washington had intended be done in the Hawaiian area and what Kimmel and Short actually did. Instead, when Gerow received Short’s reply to the message of November 27, he assumed it answered the G-2 sabotage warning dispatched the same day. A quick check of the number which Short cited against the file copies of the two dispatches would have proved that this was not the case. One of Gerow’s assistants should have performed this routine task before the general saw the incoming dispatch. The Navy did not even have a reply to interpret or misinterpret, having asked none of Kimmel. Hence a number of key officials in the Navy Department believed that he had sent his Fleet to sea. Unfortunately throughout the Pearl Harbor story we find a plethora of assumptions based upon too few facts.
Another communications problem arose on the morning of December 7. Despite Marshall’s realization that the “one o’clock” message was very significant, he failed either to use the scrambler phone or to ensure that the message went to Hawaii on a priority basis. And that information could have been on its way much earlier had anyone on duty possessed the power or initiative to act before the Chief of Staff reached his office. But, as the Army board noted, “Complete authority to act in General Marshall’s absence does not seem to have been given to any one subordinate. . . .”47
On that same occasion Stark should have sent a Navy message to duplicate and thereby stress Marshall’s dispatch or, better yet, have phoned Kimmel personally. Stark movingly testified to the Navy court about his self-examination to determine where he might have been “derelict” or “might have omitted anything.” The only such incident he could recall was his not having paralleled the Marshall message.48
All these failures at all levels have a common denominator—the gap between knowledge of possible danger and belief in its existence, as Forrestal noted in his fourth endorsement to the Navy and Hewitt reports:
. . . although the imminence of hostile action by the Japanese was known, and the capabilities of the Japanese Fleet and Air Arm were recognized in war plans made to meet just such hostile action, these factors did not reach the state of conviction in the minds of the responsible officers . . . to an extent sufficient to impel them to bring about that implementation of the plans that was necessary if the initial hostile action was to be repelled or at least mitigated.49
This fundamental disbelief is the root of the whole tragedy. All other acts or failures to act are its stalks, branches, and fruit. Captain Gilven M. Slonim, USN, has put the matter in a nutshell of wisdom: “Possibilities and probabilities, capabilities and intentions become academic when one does not accept the credibility of his own estimates. Americans did not believe.”50
Yet it would be a mistake of the first magnitude to credit the success of the Pearl Harbor operation solely to American errors. We have seen how meticulously the Japanese perfected their planning; how diligently they trained their pilots and bombardiers; how they modified weapons to achieve maximum damage; how persistently they dredged up and utilized information about the U.S. Pacific Fleet. They balked at no hazard, ready to risk a wild leap to achieve their immediate ends.
Yamamoto was primarily responsible for conceiving the plan, but literally hundreds ensured its success, from Nagumo to the lowliest grease monkey. We must acknowledge the special roles played by that remarkable combination Genda and Fuchida. Genda with his originality and bold intelligence, Fuchida with his practical industry and contagious enthusiasm became the brain and heart behind the tactical plan. With few exceptions the Pearl Harbor planners were positive thinkers. Nevertheless, they did not let optimism degenerate into sloppiness. They understood that to a degree a man makes his own luck. He must reach out to pluck the fruit, not wait for it to fall into his mouth. Nevertheless, plain, unadulterated luck played a significant part in Japan’s success.
As an example, the weather provided relatively smooth seas and an abundance of fog, thus permitting Nagumo to refuel and hide his ships at the same time. Moreover, at the perfect moment, just in time to permit accurate strikes, the clouds over Oahu parted in so propitious a manner that in briefing the Emperor, both Nagumo and Fuchida referred to the phenomenon as obviously caused by divine intervention. Such factors were totally beyond human power to arrange. The flight of B-17s approaching Oahu at almost the same time as Fuchida’s first wave, thus disguising the incoming attack force, was another bit of good fortune completely out of Japanese hands. What is more, the whole series of American blunders and misunderstandings were so many unexpected bonuses for the Japanese.
The tremendous gamble paid off with Japan’s greatest victory of World War II. It made its play and cashed in its winnings, but its triumph was only temporary. The Japanese fought the long, agonizing conflict which ensued with all the skill and bravery which were their glory and the senseless brutality which was their bane, but never again would Hirohito’s Navy touch the heights of that first attack. For never again would it have the time to exploit fully the national gifts for painstaking craftsmanship, exquisite design, and ceaseless patience. And never again would the Japanese catch Uncle Sam so completely asleep at the switch.
As the initial shock and gloom wore off, the American public began to realize that the Pearl Harbor attack had been by no means an unmitigated disaster. Even Bloch, no wild-eyed progressive, said in retrospect, “The Japanese only destroyed a lot of old hardware. In a sense they did us a favor.51 Far more quickly and thoroughly than the Americans could have done themselves, the Japanese had kicked the U.S. Navy upstairs into a swift, modern force with the carrier at its heart.
The shallow waters in the anchorage preserved most of the stricken ships to fight another day. The salvage and restoration of those ships are a saga of expertise, tenacity, hard work, and invincible optimism. Before the Pacific war ended, all but three of Japan’s victims had been renovated and helped harass the Axis to final defeat. One of the three—the target ship Utah—would not have engaged in the conflict in any case. Just two combat battleships—Arizona and Oklahoma—were beyond salvage.52
Of infinitely more value than the repair of shattered ships was the welding together of the American people into a mighty spear and shield of determination. No more did Americans ask whose fight it was or question what they should do about it. Yet one must not exaggerate the type of unity the Japanese bestowed upon the Americans. The entire nation had not suddenly become of unanimous mind; the national energies had mobilized to achieve a single, readily identifiable goal.
The Japanese gave each American a personal stake in the titanic struggle for the minds and bodies of mankind which raged in Europe and Asia. After December 7, 1941, Americans no longer could look upon the war from a distance as an impersonal, ideological conflict. The sense of outrage triggered a feeling of direct involvement which resulted in an explosion of national energy. The Japanese gave the average American a cause he could understand and believe to be worth fighting for.
Thus, in a very special way Pearl Harbor became the turning point of the world struggle. The United States could—and undoubtedly would—have entered World War II eventually in some other way. No doubt in the long run the manpower, resources, and industrial might of the United States would have prevailed. But Pearl Harbor ensured that American strength would be concentrated into an arrow point of resolution, that the entire nation would stand as one man and woman behind the men at the front.
Military history is one of the most rapidly shifting of all studies. Strategy and tactics alter with fluctuating world conditions, technology, and leadership; alliances about-face so that the deadly enemy of yesterday may easily become the cherished friend of today; the daring revolutionary of one war suffers a sea change into the rigid dogmatist of the next; weapons and other matériel become obsolete almost before they leave the drawing board. But Pearl Harbor demonstrated one enduring lesson: The unexpected can happen and often does.