Hendrix's Eccentric Commentary

12/7/2024

Today is the anniversary of the Day that will Live in Infamy, the attack by the Japanese on Peral Harbor.  By coincidence, in the last six weeks I have read several books about Pearl Harbor.  One of the issues that always comes up is the question of how much responsibility Admiral Kimmel (CinCPac) General Short (CG Hawaiian Department) and Admiral Bloch (FO 14th Naval District) bore for the attack. The first commission (the Roberts Commission) to investigate the Pearl Harbor attack used the phrase “dereliction of duty”. Admiral Kimmel in particularly resented this and spent the rest of his life trying to clear his reputation.  Gordon Prange, the authority on Pearl Harbor, though he lays much responsibility on Kimmel, Bloch, and particularly Short, prefers the milder phrase “bad decisions.”

In my view there is much to be said in mitigation for these men:  in their heart of heart most people couldn’t quite believe that the Japanese would attack the US even as the evidence that they were going to war became incontrovertible.  If they did attack the US everyone expected the first attack to hit the Philippines.  Everyone knew that the Japanese were likely to  start the war with a surprise attack and knew that an attack on Pearl Harbor was possible, then everyone promptly disregarded that fact.  There were perhaps too many warning over the course of 1941 that war was imminent, so there might have been a type of “the boy who cried wolf” syndrome in operation.  Kimmel, Short, and Bloch could argue that they were not kept as updated on the course of negotiation with Japan, and of the code breaking intercept from Purple that indicated that war was imminent, as they should have been.  All this is true and could reasonably be offered in mitigation.

That, however, is not exculpatory. On November 27, 1941 the Navy Department sent a message that included the phrase:  “This dispatch is to be considered a war warning.”  The phrasing was deliberately chosen to be a clear warning and it is hard to see how this could be misunderstood.

On December 1, Admiral Kimmel was informed that the Japanese Navy had changed all their radio call signs, after having changed them a month before.  (The Japanese Navy usually changed call signs every six months.) This was recognized by all as a sign that a major naval operation was about to begin.

Furthermore, Admiral Kimmel was informed by his Fleet Intelligence Officer, Edwin Layton that he had lost track of the Japanese aircraft carriers.  Admiral Kimmel even joked to Layton that “the carriers could be rounding Diamond Head and you wouldn’t know it?”  Layton admitted that was the case.

On December 3, 1941 Admiral Kimmel was informed that Japanese embassies and consulates around the world were beginning to destroy their secret documents and codes.  This was clearly understood to mean that war was imminent.

With this degree of warning that Admiral Kimmel and General Short did not confer and see to that, at a minimum: the aircraft warning system was fully functional; that radar was manned 24/7; that some anti-aircraft and costal batteries were manned with ammunition available, that some aircraft were ready to scramble; that some effort at air patrols of the surrounding area were made; that some degree of readiness was maintained in  the fleet even in port; that in general Pearl Harbor was not caught in condition sleepy Sunday morning on December 7 seems quite damning and that these elementary precaution were not taken is the responsibility of the commanders.

It is a harsh judgment, and perhaps easy to make at a distance of three-quarters of a century, but if this is not dereliction of duty, it is something very near it.