Chapter 19: 19. The Administration Initiates an Investigation Roberts Commission Appointed

On December 16 the president named a five-man board, with Supreme Court Justice Owen J. Roberts as chairman, to investigate the attack. In addition to Roberts, it included two retired Navy officers, one retired and one active Army officer.^[1] According to Admiral William H. Standley, former chief of naval operations and a member of the Commission, FDR “hand-picked” the other four members in consultation with Stimson, Marshall, and possibly Knox, so that a majority could be trusted to conclude “that Short and Kimmel were primarily responsible for the Pearl Harbor disaster.”^[2]

The Commission’s assignment was to decide “whether any derelictions of duty or errors of judgment on the part of United States Army or Navy personnel contributed to such successes as were achieved by the enemy.” If any such derelictions or errors were found, it was to determine “who were responsible therefor.”^[3] The Commission’s authority was limited to investigating Army and Navy personnel only; no civilian personnel.

The Commission Begins Hearings

The Commission convened in Washington December 17, with only four of its five members present. When Admiral Standley arrived the next day, he found the Commission to be a “mixed”—and a very mixed up—Presidential commission “with civilian, naval and military members, for which there was no precedent in law, custom or jurisprudence.” He was “shocked at the irregularity of the procedure of the Commission and of the reliance placed upon unsworn testimony.”^[4] It was “empowered to prescribe its own procedure” but as originally set up, “it did not have the legal power to do anything which would be usual and essential to carry out the purposes for which it had been formed”^[5]—to summon witnesses, enforce their attendance, administer oaths, or take testimony. Standley protested at this lack of formal authority.^[6]

Washington Testimony—Unsworn

The Commission members knew nothing of pre-attack events except what they had read in the newspapers. They began by questioning top military officials on the Washington situation. None of the officers was sworn. Nor were they cross-examined. No transcripts, only brief summaries, of their remarks were published.^[7]

Secretary of State Hull had agreed to advise the Commission by letter as to warnings of probable Japanese attack he had received from Stimson and Knox.^[8] The secretaries of war and navy, interviewed jointly by the Commission members, offered “the fullest cooperation of their Departments.” General Marshall and Admiral Stark

appeared together . . . and furnished information . . . showing that [Kimmel and Short] . . . had been specifically warned of the likelihood of a probable outbreak of war . . . on October 16, November 24, and November 27, 1941.^[9]

General Marshall related “informative or warning messages sent to the Commanding General of the Hawaiian Department,” including his December 7 message to General Short which had been dispatched “on the morning of December 7” but which had not reached Short in Hawaii until after the attack.^[10]

The tenor of this unsworn testimony was that Washington had been fully alert to the possibility of a surprise Japanese attack and of “sudden raids” on Pearl Harbor. Stark was obliged to admit, however, that all the warnings sent out from Washington to the fleet commanders in the months before the attack concerning the possibility of “attacks and expeditions against positions in the Far East” conveyed the idea that both he and Marshall believed “the Far East would be the locality where the major sustained Japanese effort would be initiated.” Hawaii was “not specifically mentioned as a point of attack.”^[11]

The director of Naval Intelligence Division acknowledged that “secret information” had been received in Washington leading the Navy to conclude in November “that the Japanese were contemplating an early attack.” According to him, “[c]are was taken . . . to see that these two officers [Kimmel in Hawaii and Admiral Hart in the Philippines] were kept fully advised as to developments.”^[12] So he assumed that they had been sent this information.

Pearl Harbor Testimony Under Oath

On completion of the Washington testimony, the members of the Commission flew to Pearl Harbor. By then, Congress had approved a joint resolution granting the Commission power to conduct a proper investigation and authorizing it to “administer oaths and affirmations, examine witnesses, and receive evidence.”^[13] Thus, the military officers in Hawaii testified under oath. Both Short and Kimmel were still in the service, although they had been relieved of their respective commands on December 16, shortly after the attack. Short’s staff was available to help him; Kimmel’s staff had put to sea with the fleet, so he had little help in preparing his testimony.^[14]

Hawaii Sworn Testimony: Responsibility

According to the plan then in effect, Army and Navy coordinated their operations for the defense of Pearl Harbor. The three principals—Kimmel, Bloch, and Short—had been “very frank with each other,” “talked things over,” and Short believed they had enjoyed “closer cooperation in the last eight or ten months than . . . ever . . . before.”^[15]

Testimony revealed clearly that responsibility for the protection of Pearl Harbor’s shore-based establishments rested on the Army and Navy jointly.^[16] The Army’s role was basically to defend onshore establishments, the naval base, and the fleet when it was in harbor. The Navy’s responsibility was offensive, to support the Army by operations at sea. The Navy was not responsible for the defense of the base in case of an air raid, but, it was “responsible for the naval elements that could be made available [to the Army and the Army Air Force] for the defense of Pearl Harbor.”^[17] Kimmel was not included in the joint Army-Navy plan for defending the base’s onshore establishments; he fully “expected when the fight came on that he wouldn’t be down here in the harbor; that he would be on the high seas fighting.”^[18] According to him, the fleet was to have freedom of action, to “go and come without being concerned about the safety . . . [except for] the broader strategy of operations.”^[19] As Kimmel put it, “a Fleet base is a haven for refit, supply, and for rest and recreation of personnel after arduous duties and strenuous operations at sea.”^[20] Pearl Harbor’s defense was in the hands of the Army.

The Navy’s aircraft carriers were of special concern. Planes could not take off from a docked carrier, so when in port, both carrier and any planes “would be vulnerable . . . to attack and . . . destruction.”^[21] For safety’s sake, when in harbor, carrier aircraft were flown off their mother ships. Thus, the Navy “require[d] shore air bases for the use of carrier aircraft in order to maintain them in a proper state of training for war readiness”^[22] and so that “in event of being caught in port those planes could be useful.” Those shore air bases, also needed to outfit the carrier planes with bombs and ammunition, were an Army responsibility. When the planes assigned to carriers or to the Marines were “shore based,” they came under the commander Fleet Air Detachment.^[23] Air combat, Army pursuit airplanes, antiaircraft artillery, and the Aircraft Warning Service (radar) were under the command of the Army’s interceptor commander.^[24] Radar, still in its infancy in 1941, was not fully operational on the morning of December 7; it was then “operating for drill purposes only.”^[25]

Hawaii Sworn Testimony: The Surprise Element

Knox, recalling eleven-month old correspondence between him and Stimson, considered an air bombing attack or an air torpedo plane attack the greatest potential dangers and urged Stimson to have the Army improve Pearl Harbor’s readiness to meet such attacks.^[26] Stimson assured Knox that the Hawaiian Department “is the best equipped of all our overseas departments,” and he was working to further improve its defensive capabilities: new pursuit planes had been promised; Aircraft Warning Service equipment and barrage balloons were on order.^[27]

Bloch, who had once held Kimmel’s position as commander-in-chief of the fleet, said that the possibility of a Japanese air raid on Pearl Harbor had always been “a consideration, but in all estimates of the situation that [he was] familiar with . . . it was considered remote.”^[28] Nevertheless, in March Major General F. L. Martin, commander of the Army’s Hawaiian Air Force, and Rear Admiral P. N. L. Bellinger, commander of the Navy’s Naval Base Defense Air Force, had examined the prospects of an attack on the fleet in Hawaii:^[29]

[T]he most likely and dangerous form of attack on Oahu would be an air attack . . . launched from one or more carriers. . . . In a dawn air attack there is a high probability that it could be delivered as a complete surprise in spite of any patrols we might be using and that it might find us in a condition of readiness under which pursuit would be slow to start.

The two commanders recommended “daily patrols as far as possible to seaward through 360 degrees to reduce the probabilities of surface or air surprise.” However, they realized that this

can only be effectively maintained with present personnel and material for a very short period and as a practicable measure cannot, therefore, be undertaken unless other intelligence indicates that a surface raid is probable within rather narrow time limits.^[30]

“Distant reconnaissance,” a Navy responsibility, was generally acknowledged to be the best assurance against an approaching surprise attack. However, Bloch reported that reconnaissance planes were in serious short supply on the islands. It was estimated that to patrol 360 degrees continually would have required 200-300 planes.^[31] “On paper,” Bloch testified,

[he] had been given 108 patrol planes for that specific purpose [distant reconnaissance], none of which had ever arrived; not one of them.^[32]. . . We had a plane-building program, and on that plane-building program the assignment of the 14th Naval District was nine squadrons of patrol planes and two squadrons of observation planes, and they were the District forces that were supposed to do this reconnaissance, but there were none of them ever delivered here because they hadn’t been built.^[33]

Twenty-four of Oahu’s 72 patrol bombers were then out with the task forces Kimmel had sent to reinforce the bases on Wake and Midway. Only 36 planes were still at Oahu, 12 of which were under overhaul. There were nowhere nearly enough planes in Hawaii to carry out any distant reconnaissance.^[34] Bloch related his experience in 1938, when he had been commander-in-chief of the U.S. Fleet. “They endeavored to make the 360-degree search with the planes they had, and we had a tremendous number of casualties.” In a few days they “lost something like four or five planes, and two of them lost all the crews.” They lost the other planes that went down, but recovered the personnel. The lesson from this maneuver was that

to conduct a search efficiently and to maintain it required a large number of planes, and they had to be operated more or less day on and day off, so that one day they [the crews] would go out; the next day they could rest. In other words the strain on the personnel was greater than it was on the matériel.^[35]

The Navy under Kimmel had been diligent in conducting reconnaissance, mainly anti-submarine patrols, covering the 25 to 50 mile belt around the island that the available planes could cover.^[36] However, Kimmel admitted that he had considered an air attack “highly improbable” and patrols to the northward not justified. Had he had warning that an air attack was anywhere near probable, he said, “I would have used everything we had, everything.”^[37] But given the state of the planes, it seemed more prudent to conserve them for action in the war that was anticipated.

In addition to considering the likelihood of submarine and air attacks, the Navy had also considered the possibility of a torpedo attack. However, this threat had generally been discounted because of the shallowness of the approach to Pearl Harbor.^[38] So “the use of [anti-torpedo] baffles for Pearl Harbor or other harbors in the Fourteenth Naval District” was not recommended.^[39] In June, the Navy Department again concluded that a torpedo plane attack in Pearl Harbor’s relatively shallow water was unlikely. In any event, no anti-torpedo baffles were installed.

There had been “gossip in the newspapers in the States” to the effect that there had been “a lot of drinking and that some in the high command were not fit for duty” on Sunday morning, December 7.^[40] Both Kimmel and his aide, Admiral Theobald, denied that drunkenness was a contributing factor; “no liquor is allowed on board ship.”^[41] According to Kimmel, there had been “very little drunkenness among the officers and men of this fleet. We have dealt very seriously with the incidents which were reported by the patrol, and they have been isolated instances.”^[42] Nor was Kimmel “conscious . . . of the special dangers of a Sunday,”^[43] when more passes and leaves were issued on Saturdays and fewer men and officers were apt to be aboard ship, alert, and ready for action. There were not “appreciably more” absences of officers and men on Sunday than on any other day. True, some commanding officers were ashore, but that depended on whether or not their families were in Hawaii. There were “a great many officers here who had no families, and they slept on board,” so if there were fewer officers aboard it was “not entirely” due to its being a weekend.^[44]

Hawaii Sworn Testimony: Preparedness

As Admiral Richardson prepared to relinquish command of the U.S. Pacific Fleet in January 1941, he and Kimmel, who was preparing to take over command, collaborated in a letter to Chief of Naval Operations Stark, concerning the security measures required “for the protection of Fleet units, at sea and in port.” “Surprise raids on Pearl Harbor, or attempts to block the channel,” they wrote, were “possible.” The fleet was “severely handicapped” in preparing for such contingencies by “certain marked deficiencies in the existing local defense forces and equipment both Army and Navy.” Moreover, many of the fleet’s facilities were obsolescent. Richardson and Kimmel urged that correcting these “critical deficiencies” be given “priority over the needs of continental districts, the training program, and material aid to Great Britain.”^[45]

Short, who was responsible for the protection of the fleet when in Pearl Harbor, said it was “practically impossible to protect the ships in such a restricted area against a serious attack, no matter how much you tried.” With so many ships docked so close together, he could not have guaranteed that no enemy plane could get in and make a hit; some “would be bound to suffer losses.”^[46]

Throughout 1941, the Hawaiian commanders—Kimmel, Short, and Bloch—had pressed repeatedly for additional men and equipment. They received some reinforcements but these failed to build up the Hawaiian forces as hoped, as other factors were steadily eroding them. Regular and experienced officers were being “detached at an alarming rate,” and many trained enlisted men were not planning to reenlist when their duty was up.^[47] In May 1941, about a quarter of the Pacific Fleet’s ships had been transferred to the Atlantic on orders from Washington. Moreover, relatively few of the new planes, men, and guns that reached Hawaii remained there; most continued on to the west. The Army was “engaged in ferrying . . . planes to the Asiatics.”^[48] Long-range patrol bombers were being flown to the Philippines via Hawaii, Midway, Wake, and Australia.

Over and above the Army’s defensive role at Pearl Harbor, the Army air corps “had a very specific mission . . . of preparing . . . combat teams to ferry planes [B-17s] to the Philippines.” No one can just step into the cockpit of a B-17, a Flying Fortress, from his training ship and immediately fly it across the Pacific. A pilot must first train on B-18s and A-20s, and then serve as a B-17 copilot, before taking over as a full-fledged B-17 pilot. It would have been risky to send a plane across the Pacific with a half-trained crew, and Short had only six bombers at his disposal to do all this training. Short couldn’t (1) use these six bombers for training pilots for ferrying missions, and at the same time (2) turn them over to the Navy for long-range reconnaissance, and also (3) keep them scattered about, warmed up 24 hours a day, and ready to take to the air. He didn’t have enough planes to accomplish both (1) and (2), and he hadn’t considered the threat serious enough to justify (3).^[49]

On October 17 Stark had wired Kimmel:

Because of the great importance of continuing to reenforce the Philippines with long range Army bombers you are requested to take all practical precautions for the safety of the airfields at Wake and Midway.^[50]

The plan was to ferry some 60 long-range bombers out to the Philippines via Hawaii and Wake. As Kimmel was “responsible for the defense of Wake and for the defense of Midway and for putting Marines and guns and all other defensive weapons out there,”^[51] he proceeded to strengthen their defenses as best he could.

The “war warning” message of November 27 had instructed Kimmel to carry out “the tasks assigned in WPL 46,” that is, to get ready to attack the Japanese bases in the Marshall Island.^[52] Two other dispatches on that same day ordered him to prepare troops for our advance bases and to transport 25 Army pursuit planes with ground crews to Wake and Midway. “Stationing these planes [on Wake and Midway] must not be allowed to interfere with planned movements of Army bombers to Philippines.”^[53] Kimmel realized the Army was short of planes. Shortly before reinforcing Wake and Midway he had wanted the Army to participate in Navy maneuvers, but the Army “could not do it because they were engaged in ferrying these planes to the Asiatics, and in getting their planes in a ferrying condition here. . . . They had their problems too,” Kimmel said.^[54] Short and Kimmel met with staff members on November 27 to discuss the transfer from Oahu of 25 pursuit planes each to Wake and Midway, as Washington had ordered.^[55] Kimmel questioned his war plans officer: “[W]hat is your idea of the chances of a surprise raid on Oahu?” McMorris: “I should say none, Admiral.” At the time, Short said,

[T]here was no exception taken to that statement by either Admiral Kimmel or Admiral Bloch, and apparently the Navy felt that they had definite information of the location of carriers and major ships of the Japanese and that there was no question in their minds of the possibility or probability of a surprise attack upon Oahu.^[56]

The construction of the airfields on Wake and Midway had to be carried out “under the most adverse conditions. We were faced with the necessity of building bases and of protecting them at the same time.” The dispatch of reinforcements there would seriously weaken Hawaii’s defensive forces. It was finally decided to send only half the number of planes Washington had suggested. “Rightly or wrongly, “ Kimmel testified, “we eventually had there about 350 marines and 6 5-inch guns and 12 3-inch guns and a number of machine guns, and we had 12 fighting planes there.”^[57]

On November 28 Kimmel dispatched a convoy, under Admiral William F. Halsey, with men and planes to Wake. Because “there had been a warning from the Chief of Naval Operations that the conversations with the Japanese representatives were about to break down, and to be prepared for eventualities,” all the ships in Halsey’s convoy were “to assume a condition of readiness for instant combat” and to maintain “strict radio silence.”^[58]

On December 5 Kimmel sent out a second convoy under Admiral J.H. Newton, with a squadron of planes bound for Midway.^[59]

Bloch, who had taken over the responsibility for the security of the base, had written the Navy Department about “the weakness in the pursuit planes, bombing planes, and anti-aircraft guns.” The Army had dispatched to Hawaii a large number of pursuit planes and some heavy bombers, but “no anti-aircraft guns [were] forthcoming.”^[60] When Bloch pressed his need for planes and vessels, he was told they were “doing everything within their power to get them” and would send them as soon as they could.^[61] As a result of Bloch’s efforts, Pearl Harbor finally obtained “one division of destroyers, four destroyers, only one of which has any listening gear, and one division of four mine sweepers.” In accordance with Kimmel’s order, the destroyers were stationed at the harbor entrance; the mine sweepers swept the channel; the nets were operating; and boom and harbor patrols were executed. However, “anti-aircraft protection of Pearl Harbor was weak.” Bloch was also charged “on paper” with the responsibility for distant reconnaissance; 108 patrol planes had been promised for that purpose, “none of which had ever arrived; not one of them.”^[62]

Before December 7 Short received three serious warning messages from Washington—October 16, November 27, and November 28.^[63] All three messages

emphasized right straight through that we must not disclose our stand and that we must not alarm the population and that we must take measures to protect against sabotage, against espionage, and against subversive action. Nowhere did they indicate in any way the necessity for protecting against attack. They also did indicate definitely that we must avoid publicity and avoid alarming the public.^[64]

Short instituted what was known as Alert #1, for sabotage. If the Army had gone to the next higher alert, Alert #2, all anti-aircraft guns would have been set out with live ammunition right alongside; people would then have noticed. And that, Short maintained, would have violated “the War Department’s intentions to not alarm the population.”^[65] On November 29 he detailed the “precautions” being taken against “subversive activities.”^[66] Washington “made no objection whatever” to Short’s report that he “was alerted for sabotage.” Short told the Commission,

If they had any idea that that was not a correct order, they had all the opportunity from November 27 to December 7 to come back and say, “We do not consider the action taken by you as sufficient and that you should instead take action to defend yourself against air attack”.

He took Washington’s failure to object to his action as “tacit agreement with the course [he] had taken.” He did not “see how [he] could draw any other conclusion.”^[67]

Short believed that if Washington really wanted him to know something urgently, it would have contacted him by its speech-scrambler telephone. Short had a “secret phone . . . with connections to the secret phone right in the Chief of Staff’s office.” Short had talked with Marshall “repeatedly” on this telephone, which was “the fastest thing that could possibly come through,” taking only about 15 minutes to establish contact. While “not considered as safe as code, they [scrambler phones] are reasonably safe.”^[68] Washington didn’t phone Short with a special warning between November 27 and December 7.

The Office of Navy Intelligence’s (ONI) December 5 summary of the Japanese naval situation reported that “extensive preparations are under way for hostilities.” Troop transports and freighters were “pouring continually down from Japan and northern China coast ports headed south, apparently for French Indo-China and Formosan ports.”^[69] And the intelligence Kimmel and Short received from Washington during this period indicated that the Japanese forces were heading for southeast Asia and were expected to strike in the very far west at the Philippines, Thailand, the Kra peninsula, or possibly Borneo,^[70] about 3,000 miles from Hawaii.

Both Kimmel and Short had prepared contingency plans, detailing what to do in case they were attacked. Kimmel “was by no means convinced that we were going to get into the war at this time and that we would become involved immediately. That was, of course,” he said, “[his] mistake.”^[71] Nevertheless, he had made plans for going to war. From November 30 on, he had prepared daily memoranda “to show what the initial steps would be when war would come.” On the morning of December 6 Kimmel had gone over his December 5 memorandum, which had set forth the “steps to be taken in case of American-Japanese war.” He said they “were alive to the possibility of war.”^[72] “[I]n accordance with the security measures we had in effect,” he pointed out, Patrol Wing 2 did not have to wait for specific instructions; it set out immediately after the attack began to search for the enemy.^[73]

Hawaii Sworn Testimony: Intelligence

The members of the Roberts Commission learned from witness after witness about the intelligence available to the Hawaiian commanders. It came principally from four sources: (1) observation, (2) deciphering of some minor Japanese codes, “PA-K2,” (3) direction-finding (D.F.) stations that analyzed radio beams broadcast from Japanese ships, and (4) advice forwarded from the ONI and chief of naval operations (CNO) in Washington.

Responsibility for intelligence in Hawaii was divided between two authorities: the Combat Intelligence Unit, concerned primarily with “the functions of the enemy . . . and . . . enemy movements,” and the District Intelligence Officer, who “has more to do with defense. . . . Subversive activities, aliens, sabotage, and that sort of thing.”^[74] Commander Joseph John Rochefort of Combat Intelligence tried “to cover every possible transmission . . . by the Germans, Italians, Japanese” through his D.F. stations and his interceptor watch, which “intercepts enemy transmissions in the form of radio messages and copies the radio messages intact.” His operators were able to pick up transmissions from Tokyo and the Japanese fleet. Then there was also the “search watch,” which searched “from the bottom of the [radio] band to the top.”^[75] To discover what the Japanese fleet was doing, the intelligence officers in Hawaii did their best to piece together what they could learn from the intercepted radio transmissions, radio beams, and their search watch. Otherwise, all they knew of the impending crisis, except for the Washington dispatches reporting Japanese ship movements in the vicinity of the South China Sea, was gleaned from the Honolulu newspapers. And according to press reports, the threat appeared to have abated temporarily; Japanese-U.S. conversations in Washington were continuing.

From about November 1 on, Hawaiian Intelligence personnel realized something was afoot. They couldn’t put their fingers on it exactly, but it was apparent that something was building up, just as it had been several years earlier, when the Japanese were preparing to move against the Chinese island of Hainan, and again in the spring of 1941, when they were getting ready to go into Indochina.

About November 25 or 26, it became apparent that Japanese submarines and aircraft carriers, and probably a battleship division, were concentrated in the Marshall Island area, south of Wake. By the end of the month it looked as if everything, except for some ships still in the Marshalls, was west of that, down around Palao, not far from the Philippines. This formation just didn’t seem logical, but Hawaiian Intelligence was positive, from their study of the traffic, that the carriers were in the Marshalls. So they sent a dispatch to this effect to the Navy Department in Washington.

About a day after that the carriers just completely dropped from sight; never heard another word from them. . . . [T]hey just completely dropped out of the picture approximately the first of December; battleships likewise.^[76]

Fleet Intelligence Officer Lieutenant Commander Edwin Thomas Layton estimated they were in port, having completed two weeks’ operations, and they are having an overhaul for new operations.^[77]

In addition to the traffic buildup, Hawaiian Intelligence had another hint of impending Japanese action—the fleet’s frequent code changes in late 1941. The Japanese normally changed their sea and shore calls twice a year, on the first of November and the first of March or April. But in 1941 they didn’t wait for November. They changed their codes a month early, on October 1. Then they changed them again on November 1, and still again on December 1.^[78] The Japanese were apparently planning something. But what? Where? When? The Army’s Hawaiian department relied on information supplied by the Fourteenth Naval District, the War Department’s G-2 in Washington, which got its information through ONI.^[79]

Members of the Roberts Commission asked again and again why the Hawaiian forces were surprised so completely. The intelligence that reached Hawaii from Washington in the weeks and months preceding December 7, 1941, warned repeatedly that a strike was expected in southeast Asia, thousands of miles from Pearl Harbor. Kimmel summarized: “And the Department by their dispatches evidenced considerable concern about the security of their outlying bases.” Even Commission chairman Roberts admitted that “anyone who reads those telegrams will see that the Naval Intelligence indicated aggressive movements many thousand miles from Pearl Harbor.”^[80] The buildup of Hawaii’s defenses had been neglected at the expense of other theaters of war, as Kimmel had noted. Repeated requests by the Hawaiian commanders for more men and materiel had been ignored.

Post-Attack Revelations in Hawaii

Immediately after the attack, officials of the F.B.I. entered the Japanese consulate in Honolulu. They interrupted the burning of papers, arrested the consul, and seized Japanese codes and papers. Short said, “They got almost a complete file.”^[81] With the help of these codes, the Navy was soon able to decipher communications which had passed between Tokyo and the Japanese consul in the weeks preceding the attack. These captured communications undoubtedly included the “ships in harbor” messages that had been intercepted in Hawaii before the attack, forwarded still in code by airmail on Washington’s orders, then decoded, translated, and made available before December 7 to Washington officials, —though not to the Hawaiian commanders.

On December 9, Kimmel saw translations of these messages. They made it very clear that Tokyo had attached special importance to information concerning the location of ships in Pearl Harbor. Apparently, “Japan had no intention of attacking Pearl Harbor in the absence of a large number of our battleships and aircraft carriers.”^[82] One message, sent to Tokyo by the Japanese consul on December 3^[83] itemized

Elaborate arrangements . . . to report to Japanese submarines and Japanese vessels at sea the departure of aircraft carriers and battleships from Pearl Harbor by: (1) Broadcast advertisements over KGMB at 0945 daily; (2) A system of lights from a house on Lanakai and Kalama during the night and visual day signals at Lanakai from a star-boat during daylight; (3) Further visual warning of the absence of aircraft carriers and battleships was a bonfire to be shown on the Island of Mauri [sic] near the Kula Sanatarium.^[84]

Had Kimmel known on December 3, when the Japanese consul sent this message to Tokyo, that a series of signals was being set up to indicate which ships were in the harbor and which were out, he would have “immediately reported it to Washington and [would have] considered it almost equivalent to a declaration of war.”^[85] If he had had this information on December 6, he “would have ordered all units to sea, because the best dispositions against surprise air attack can be effected with the fleet at sea.”^[86] But he and Short knew nothing of any such messages. They undoubtedly had suspected that Japanese spies on Oahu had been watching the ships in the harbor, although they certainly didn’t know that messages about ship locations had been decoded, translated, and read by many top U.S. officials, days, even weeks, before the attack. Likewise, the Roberts commissioners probably did not know that some of these messages had been available in Washington prior to the attack—at least none of the Washington officials they questioned had mentioned them.

Back in Washington: Some Admissions by Marshall

The Commission completed its Hawaiian hearings and departed on January 10, 1942. On January 15 the members arrived back in Washington and resumed questioning Washington officials for one day.^[87] They again questioned Marshall, Stark, Turner, and Gerow. The most significant testimony was that given by Marshall, this time under oath.^[88]

Marshall admitted that even with the superior intelligence available to him, he had been surprised by the attack. “Japanese movements were going on around” the Philippines, Marshall recalled. “And if anything happened they were going to get it. . . . So, in point of priority, if we had turned to the telephone” to send a warning, he “certainly would have turned to the Philippines first.” Washington had had evidence also of

gathering strength in the Mandate Islands, air and naval vessels. . . . [W]e assumed that Guam would be wiped out of the picture right at the start. That they [the Japanese] would carry the matter right up to Hawaii I didn’t anticipate.^[89]

Marshall admitted also that he had “fully anticipated a terrific effort to cripple everything out there by sabotage.”^[90] He had considered the local Japanese population to be the greatest threat to Hawaii. On top of that, he admitted his failure to realize that Short’s “alert for sabotage” called for bunching the planes.^[91]Yet the specific purpose of Alert #1, as stated in the Hawaiian Department’s Standard Operating Procedure, was to defend the airfields and vital installations “against acts of sabotage and uprisings.”^[92] It was for this reason that Short ordered the planes “kept in the vicinity of the landing mat or the apron in groups, so they could be guarded very closely.”^[93]

As for naval reconnaissance, Marshall had assumed that, as a result of the November 27 “war warning,” the Navy would have dispatched over-water patrols to search for enemy ships.^[94] He appeared unaware of the shortage of planes in Hawaii.

When Stark and Turner were questioned again, this time under oath, they appeared to have a more realistic view of the Hawaiian supply situation than Marshall.^[95] Turner had “assumed that they had a long-range reconnaissance,” although he “knew that there were an insufficient number of planes there to conduct a long-range reconnaissance search 360 degrees extending over a considerable period of time.”^[96]

At the time of the November 27 “war warning,” when Stark had ordered Kimmel to undertake “defensive deployment . . . in accordance with his [war] plan,” he had expected Kimmel to “take dispositions to avoid surprise, so far as he could with what he had” (italics added). However, Stark had thought that Kimmel would have been able to include air patrols.^[97] Stark had also expected Kimmel “to get more planes and personnel, and so on, out to Wake and Midway, if possible, and to send his task forces—some task forces to sea in readiness to catch any raiders.” And this, Stark admitted, Kimmel had done.^[98]

According to Gerow, the November 27 “war warning” had called for carrying out “reconnaissance and other means of guarding against a surprise attack.”^[99] Short’s failure to do so, Gerow said, did not constitute “a direct disobedience of that directive,” although he considered it a “failure to obey orders.”^[100] Gerow was quite critical of Short for not having conducted more extensive reconnaissance.^[101]

The Commission finished questioning Washington witnesses within the day and then began preparing its report.

Commission Findings

In the month the Commission existed, it took testimony from 127 witnesses in Washington and Hawaii. Its findings came to 2,173 pages of evidence and exhibits.^[102] It spent January 20-23 drafting its report. The report was finished on January 23 and delivered to the president on the morning of January 24. The Commission then adjourned. The report was published in full in the New York Times on January 25, 1942.

To Commissioner Standley, it appeared that the majority of the members were prejudiced against Kimmel from the start. This prejudice even carried over to the way Kimmel’s remarks were recorded. They were carelessly transcribed, contained errors, and when he suggested certain revisions,^[103] the Commission inserted his corrections “by interleaving the text of each suggested revision on a page immediately following each page referred to,”^[104] making his testimony difficult to read. To mollify him, the corrected transcript was printed in full at the end of the Commission’s published hearings, just preceding the exhibits.^[105]

What had the members of the Commission learned in their month of hearings? They had learned that the intelligence available in Hawaii was meager indeed, and even misleading. All available clues had pointed to a Japanese strike in southeast Asia, thousands of miles west of Pearl Harbor. The Commission members had learned that Pearl Harbor was lacking in planes, anti-aircraft guns, and other material needed for the defense of the base, due to the demands of other theaters of war. They had discovered what they had known before they started their investigation, that the Hawaiian commanders had been surprised by the Japanese air attack. But they had also discovered that Chief of Staff Marshall had been just as surprised. Nevertheless, the Commission placed the responsibility for the extent of Japan’s success in surprising the fleet on the two Hawaiian commanders.

The Commission appeared to place considerable credence on the January 24, 1941, letter from Secretary of Navy Knox to Secretary of War Stimson, written eleven months before the attack, suggesting that, “If war eventuates with Japan, it is believed easily possible, that hostilities would be initiated by a surprise attack upon the Fleet or the Naval Base at Pearl Harbor” by air bombing attack, air torpedo plane attack, sabotage, submarine attack, mining, or bombardment by gun fire.^[106] Disregarding later letters, intelligence, and communications to the commanders in the field about the movements of the Japanese in the South China Sea, the Commission implied that this should have sufficed to alert the Hawaiian commanders against a surprise attack.

The Commission found that the commanders operated under some disadvantage: “The personnel, matériel, and equipment were insufficient to place the forces on a war footing and maintain them on that footing for an extended period.” Yet the report continued: “These deficiencies did not preclude measures which would have to a great extent frustrated the attack or mitigated its severity.”^[107] Moreover, in spite of the recognized shortage of reconnaissance planes, the Commission held that “Means were available for distant reconnaissance which would have afforded a measure of security against a surprise attack.”^[108]

The Commission admitted that the Hawaiian commanders “were handicapped by lack of information as to Japanese dispositions and intent,” which would have been vital to the defense of Pearl Harbor. Nevertheless, in the Commission’s view, “The lack of such knowledge rendered more urgent the initiation of a state of readiness for defense.”^[109] According to the Commission report’s conclusions, the “responsible commanders in the Hawaiian area [had] prepared plans which, if adapted and used for the existing emergency would have been adequate.”^[110]

The Commission members had heard testimony to the effect that the Army and Navy officials in Hawaii had cooperated with one another and had enjoyed fairly good working relations. Yet they charged that the Hawaiian commanders had “failed to confer . . . and to adapt and use the existing plans to meet the emergency.”^[111] The Commission maintained that if the Hawaiian commanders had “complied with . . . orders issued by the Chief of Staff and the Chief of Naval Operations November 27, 1941,” the Army’s aircraft warning system and inshore air patrols, and the Navy’s distant reconnaissance “should have been operating;” the Army and Navy antiaircraft artillery

should have been manned and supplied with ammunition; and a high state of readiness of aircraft should have been in effect. None of these conditions was in fact inaugurated or maintained for the reason that the responsible commanders failed to consult and cooperate.^[112]

The members of the Commission had heard testimony to the effect that the only sure way to be forewarned of an approaching air attack was through continual 360-degree long-range reconnaissance. But they had also learned that the planes and personnel available in Hawaii were completely inadequate for carrying out such reconnaissance. Moreover, they had learned that antiaircraft artillery is ineffective against low-flying planes. Even with round-the-clock, far-ranging reconnaissance and an all-out alert, some of the early torpedo planes that made the first strike on December 7 would undoubtedly have been able to penetrate the defenses and surprise the defenders. They recognized that, “There were deficiencies in personnel, weapons, equipment, and facilities to maintain all the defenses on a war footing for extended periods of time, but,” they held, “these deficiencies should not have affected the decision of the responsible commanders as to the state of readiness to be prescribed.”^[113]

The members of the Commission were much interested in Marshall’s last minute (December 7) message to the field commanders, sparked by the “One p.m. Message.” They questioned him about it, but made no criticism of his dilatory tactics in sending it out. Nor did they comment on his failure to use his scrambler phone. And they did not criticize Stark’s failure to act when he first saw the “One p.m. Message” at about 9:30 that Sunday morning. They knew that Marshall’s last minute warning did not reach Short and Kimmel until well after the Japanese planes had departed Hawaii, but they discounted the difference its timely arrival prior to the attack would have made because of the general lack of preparedness.

In the light of the warnings and directions to take appropriate action, transmitted to both commanders . . . it was a dereliction of duty on the part of each of them not to consult and confer with the other respecting the meaning and intent of the warnings, and the appropriate measures of defense required by the imminence of hostilities.^[114]

The Commission found Kimmel and Short at fault for having “failed properly to evaluate the seriousness of the situation. These errors of judgment were the effective cause for the success of the attack.”^[115]

The Roberts Commission’s purpose, as stated in the executive order setting it up, was to investigate the contributory negligence of the military only. However, the Commission went beyond its official authorization. It gratuitously absolved the top Washington officials, civilian and military, of any blame in a way that was not supported in the Commission’s published record. It stated specifically in its report that the secretaries of state, war, and navy had all fulfilled their respective obligations satisfactorily. It also stated that the top Army and Navy officers in Washington, that is Marshall and Stark, had both fulfilled their command responsibilities properly and had issued suitable and timely warnings to the Hawaiian commanders.^[116]

On the other hand, the commanders in Hawaii, Short and Kimmel, were pronounced guilty of “dereliction of duty.” They had

demonstrated . . . a lack of appreciation of the responsibilities vested in them and inherent in their positions as commanders in chief, Pacific Fleet, and commanding general, Hawaiian Department.^[117]

Retirement of General Short “Without Condonation . . . to Future Disciplinary Action.”

When the Roberts report came out, Short was in Oklahoma City awaiting further assignment. He was “completely dumbfounded. To be accused of dereliction of duty after almost forty years of loyal and competent service was beyond [his] comprehension.” On January 26 he telephoned Marshall, “an old and trusted friend of thirty-nine years standing.” Short asked Marshall if he should retire. “Stand pat,” Marshall said. “[B]ut if it becomes necessary I will use this conversation as authority.”^[118]

Short had “faith in [Marshall’s] judgment and loyalty.” He told Marshall that he “would place [himself] entirely in his hand.” However, Short was a gentleman. As he hung up the phone, he “decided it wasn’t quite fair to [Marshall] to have to use the conversation as authority.” He felt Marshall should not have to assume the responsibility of deciding Short’s fate on the basis of oral instructions alone, so he wrote out a formal application for retirement and sent it along with a personal covering letter to Marshall. “[U]nder existing conditions,” he wrote, he would “very much prefer to remain on the active list.” However, he enclosed his application for retirement “so that you may use it should you consider it desirable.”^[119]

In hope of softening any judgment against him, Short then reminded Marshall that “12 B-17s arrived from the mainland in the midst of the attack without ammunition, with guns cosmolined and with skeleton crews, resulting in the destruction of four of these planes.” The War Department, which had dispatched these planes from the mainland during the night of December 6–7, apparently had not anticipated the attack on Pearl Harbor. Short considered that “a strong argument” that the War Department had “agreed with [Short] that sabotage was the most dangerous thing to the Hawaiian Department.”^[120]

By the afternoon of Short’s call, Marshall was of “the opinion that we should accept General Short’s application for retirement today and to do this quietly without any publicity at the moment.” The Judge Advocate General saw no objection to this procedure and stated “[q]uite informally” that he considered a Court of Inquiry “unnecessary . . . and that a court-martial would not be in the public interest at this time.”^[121] When Marshall received Short’s written application a couple of days later, he forwarded it to the adjutant general to hold pending instructions from Stimson.^[122]

The president asked for assurance that accepting Short’s retirement would not preclude his later court martial and suggested including a phrase in the letter reading roughly as follows: “Provided it is agreed by you that this is no bar to be used legally or otherwise to subsequent court martial proceedings.”^[123]Judge Advocate Major General Myron C. Cramer questioned the advisability of bringing a retired officer to court martial. Cramer was doubtful that a conviction could be obtained in Short’s case: “[T]he offenses charged against General Short are offenses of omission or nonfeasance which require a much stronger showing to justify a trial than those involving misfeasance or malfeasance.” Moreover,

For the president to discharge General Short summarily under the provisions of Article of War^[124] would tend even more strongly than a dismissal by a sentence of a general court-martial to enable him afterward to claim persecution.^[125]

To avoid the possibility that “the president’s exercise of discretion in terminating the officer’s active service on his own application” might constitute a “bargain” that Short would “not further be prosecuted for known offenses occurring prior to retirement,” Cramer suggested that Short’s request for retirement be accepted with the understanding that it

will not constitute a condonation of his offenses, if any, on the part of the War Department, or be considered a bar to any future trial by general court-martial in case such trial should be deemed advisable.^[126]

Acting on Cramer’s advice, Stimson on February 14, 1942, instructed that a “saving clause” be included in the letter accepting Short’s retirement “without condonation of any offense or prejudice to any action on behalf of the government.”^[127] The War Department’s February 17, 1942, letter to Short accepting his application for retirement read as follows:

By direction of the president, Major General Walter C. Short . . . upon his own application, is retired from active service to take effect February 28, 1942 . . . without condonation of any offense or prejudice to future disciplinary action.^[128]

General Short was out of the Army by March 1, 1942.

Retirement of Admiral Kimmel “Without Condonation to Future Disciplinary Action.”

On January 25, Stark talked about Kimmel with Knox. Kimmel was then notified, on orders from Washington—from Knox himself, Kimmel learned later—that Short had submitted a request for his retirement.^[129] Until then, Kimmel had not thought of retiring. However, he “took that as a suggestion that I submit a similar request.”^[130]Therefore, on January 26, he too submitted his request for retirement. Two days later Kimmel was informed by phone that his notification of Short’s request for retirement “was not meant to influence” him. However, Kimmel wrote back that same day that he wished his “request for retirement to stand, subject only to determination by the Department as to what course of action will best serve the interests of the country and the good of the service.”^[131]

Kimmel gathered that Stark did not really expect Kimmel would be retired at that time. Nevertheless, the question of Kimmel’s retirement moved ahead. The wording to be used in the Navy Department’s letter of acceptance was raised with the Navy’s assistant judge advocate general.^[132] At FDR’s request, Attorney General Francis Biddle and Acting Assistant Solicitor General Edward Dickinson were consulted. Several suggestions with respect to the wording were made by FDR and others. FDR was anxious to have the matter settled. Finally, a phrase very similar to that suggested for the War Department’s letter to Short was agreed on.

On February 19 Kimmel received formal notification from Knox that he would be placed on the retired list on March 1. Knox’s letter read in part: “This approval of your request for retirement is without condonation of any offense or prejudice to future disciplinary action.”^[133]

Ever since the attack, blame and opprobrium had been heaped on both Kimmel and Short. They had received abusive letters and even threats on their lives.

When Kimmel read the second paragraph of Knox’s letter, with its conditional approval of his request for retirement, he promptly wrote Stark: Was the letter “to be published to the country as a promise that I will be disciplined at some future time”? Kimmel stood “ready at any time to accept the consequences of [his] acts.” He did “not wish to embarrass the government in the conduct of the war;” but he felt that his “crucifixion before the public has about reached the limit.” He felt that publication of the secretary’s letter with its conditional approval of Kimmel’s retirement would “further inflame the public and do [him] a great injustice.”^[134] Kimmel “regret[ted] the losses at Pearl Harbor just as keenly, or perhaps more keenly than any other American citizen.” He wished he had been smarter than he was and able to foresee the events of December 7. He had devoted all his energy to his job and had “made the dispositions” he considered called for. He could not “reproach [himself] for any lack of effort.” He had been “willing to accept [all this] for the good of the country out of [his] loyalty to the Nation.” But he did “think that in all justice the department should do nothing further to inflame the public against” him. He thought he was “entitled to some consideration even though” some may have believed he had “erred grievously.”^[135]

Kimmel was retired effective March 1 after more than 40 years of service in the Navy.^[136] On or about that date Kimmel was notified

through the public press . . . that the Secretary of the Navy had directed that charges and specifications be prepared to bring [him] to trial by General Court Martial at some future time.^[137]

Kimmel and Short Find Post-Attack Positions Contributing to the War Effort

Both men soon found civilian positions in which they could contribute to the war effort. Short became head of the traffic department at the Ford Motor Company plant in Dallas, Texas, which was devoted entirely to making war equipment.^[138] Kimmel took a position with a New York firm of consulting marine engineers, Frederick R. Harris, Inc., where he helped design the first large sectional floating drydock capable of holding a battleship.^[139] These drydocks “saw much service in the war in the Pacific.”^[140]

Resentment of the Hawaiian commanders did not cease. In August 1942, “public curiosity” was aroused by the news that Kimmel was holding a civilian job in New York. Was he receiving retirement pay in addition to his pay as a civilian employee? Yes, he was, the Navy Department replied; as a retired Navy officer, he was

clearly entitled to three-quarters retired pay, or $6,000 a year, and it is “absolutely legal” for him or any other retired naval officer to take a civilian job and draw his retirement from the Navy at the same time.

Kimmel was “expected to get the routine retired salary from the Navy until the prospective court-martial is established to try him.”^[141]