17. “Known Impending War”

Chapter Seventeen

“KNOWN IMPENDING WAR”

THE UTILITY of the warnings sent to Hawaii may be judged in the light of how the Hawaiian commanders reacted. Short thought he was being warned against sabotage and subversion. He prepared his defenses against them. Kimmel thought he was being warned to get ready for offensive action against the Marshall Islands under the Navy war plan. He prepared himself for his mission, conserving his long-range reconnaissance planes and their crews for the tasks ahead. Neither commander was given to understand that there would be an attack anywhere except in Southeast Asia or the Southwest Pacific—certainly not against Hawaii.

The effectiveness of the messages may also be judged in the light of what Washington knew. The Army Board stated that “the messages actually sent to Hawaii gave only a small fraction”¹ of the information Washington possessed. Adm. Kimmel called the dispatches he received “a pale reflection of actual events.”² The report of the Navy Court of Inquiry commented upon the need in Hawaii for “information indicating that an attack was to be expected within narrow limits of time,”³ paraphrasing this again to say that defense plans were “ineffective because they necessarily were drawn on the premise that there would be advance knowledge that an attack was to be expected within narrow limits of time, which was not the case on that morning.”⁴

Washington had knowledge of the narrow limits of time within which the attack was to be expected. After November 26 the only possible description of the situation was, in the phrase of the Army Board, “known impending war.”⁵ That the time and place of the attack were revealed in the fourteen-part Japanese reply of December 6-7 and the 1:00 P.M. pilot message of December 7 is attested by the statement of the Naval Court, “In the early forenoon of December 7, Washington time, the War and Navy Departments had information which appeared to indicate that a break in diplomatic relations was imminent and, by inference and deduction, that an attack in the Hawaiian area could be expected soon.”⁶

None of this knowledge possessed by Washington was imparted to Kimmel and Short. They were denied three principal categories of intelligence:

1. Knowledge of the conduct of America’s side of the diplomatic negotiations, showing that Japan had been put in a box where it must knuckle under or fight.

2. Knowledge of hundreds of significant Japanese diplomatic code intercepts informing Roosevelt and his circle not only that Japan would fight, but when war was coming.

3. Knowledge of messages to and from Tokyo and its corps of spies in Hawaii, pointing precisely to Pearl Harbor as the target for attack.⁷

That the various so-called war warnings transmitted to Hawaii constituted any sort of real warning was bitterly disputed by Kimmel and Short. Kimmel, in his defense before the congressional committee, said that he realized that information about America’s relations with Japan and the plans of the Japanese government were of supreme importance to him. “The Pacific fleet,” he said, “was dependent upon the Navy Department in Washington for information derived from intercepted Japanese diplomatic messages.”

In February, 1941, soon after he took command of the Pacific fleet, he was told by Vice-Adm. Wilson Brown, just then arrived in Hawaii from Washington, that there was confusion in the Navy Department as to whether he was to be furnished secret information by naval operations or by naval intelligence. On February 19 Kimmel wrote to Adm. Stark, calling his attention to the situation and asking, “Will you kindly fix that responsibility so that there will be no misunderstanding?”⁸ Stark replied March 22 that “ONI is fully aware of its responsibility of keeping you adequately informed.”⁹

On May 26 Kimmel returned to the subject, saying that he was in a very difficult position, “far removed from the seat of government, in a complex and rapidly changing situation.” Without full information from Washington, he said, he would be left in a state of uncertainty, unable to evaluate the situation confronting him. He suggested that it be made a cardinal principle that he “be immediately informed of all important developments as they occur and by the quickest secure means available.” He took this letter with him to Washington in June and handed it to Stark, receiving an assurance that he would be given all information.¹⁰

In July Kimmel received from Stark at least seven dispatches quoting intercepted Japanese diplomatic messages. The Jap messages were referred to by numbers assigned them in Tokyo and the dispatches gave the verbatim text.¹¹ By such means Washington won Kimmel’s confidence. He felt that he was receiving all of the code intercepts which had any bearing on his course of action. Washington did not disabuse him.

As late as the week preceding the Pearl Harbor attack Washington was still giving the appearance of relaying everything to the admiral. On December 1 Stark sent him a dispatch quoting the Japanese ambassador in Thailand on contemplated activities against the British.¹² On December 3 Kimmel received another dispatch quoting by number Tokyo’s “circular 2, 444” to diplomatic agents. On the same day still another dispatch was forwarded apprising Kimmel of instructions sent to Jap diplomatic and consular posts.¹³ True, these intercepts had no bearing on his own situation at Pearl Harbor, but they encouraged him to believe that Washington was, if anything, overzealous in keeping him abreast of all developments. Not until after the sudden Japanese blow against the Pacific fleet did he finally learn how completely he had been deceived. Kimmel said:

The Navy Department thus engaged in a course of conduct calculated to give me the impression that intelligence from important intercepted Japanese messages was being furnished to me. Under these circumstances a failure to send me important information of this character was not merely a withholding of intelligence. It partook of the nature of an affirmative misrepresentation. I had asked for all vital information. I had been assured that I would have it. I appeared to be receiving it. My current estimate of the situation was formed on this basis. Yet, in fact, the most vital information from the intercepted Japanese messages was not sent to me. This failure not only deprived me of essential facts. It misled me.¹⁵

Kimmel said that throughout 1941 he received dispatches and letters from Adm. Stark which might be broadly described as “war warnings.” These hazarded many guesses as to where Japan might strike, but the only one which mentioned Pearl Harbor was a quotation from the message which Ambassador Grew telegraphed the State Department on January 27, 1941, almost eleven months before Japan attacked. Grew reported that the Peruvian minister had informed a member of his staff that he “has heard from many sources, including a Japanese source, that in the event of trouble breaking out between the United States and Japan, the Japanese intend to make a surprise attack against Pearl Harbor with all of their strength and employing all of their equipment.”¹⁶ Grew said that the Peruvian minister himself considered the rumors fantastic, but felt that he should convey them to Grew’s staff.

In relaying this report to Kimmel, Stark said, “The division of naval intelligence places no credence in these rumors. Furthermore, based on known data regarding the present disposition and employment of Japanese army and naval forces, no move against Pearl Harbor appears imminent or planned for in the foreseeable future.” Kimmel observed that this estimate as to the improbability of a move against Pearl Harbor was never withdrawn.¹⁷

The commander of the Pacific fleet stated that when the War and Navy departments wished to put the forces in Hawaii on alert against attack, they could and did use appropriate language to that end. In evidence, he cited the dispatch of June 17, 1940, from Chief of Staff Marshall to Gen. Herron which directed, “Immediately alert complete defensive organization to deal with possible trans-Pacific raid.”¹⁸

This alert in 1940 lasted six weeks. It was then suspended, but was later reinstated for a further period. It was an all-out alert in which troops occupied field positions with full equipment and ammunition. Gen. Herron said that it occasioned no disturbance of the civilian population. This alert was invoked when Gen. Marshall was chief of staff under conditions which in no degree were comparable to the known existing danger in November and December of 1941, when Marshall was still chief of staff. He could have issued his orders then in language equally clear if convinced that Hawaii was in immediate peril.*

Kimmel said:

It is one thing to warn commanders at a particular base of the probable outbreak of war in theaters thousands of miles away, knowing and expecting that they will continue their assigned tasks and missions after the receipt of such warning, and that the very nature of the warning emphasizes to them the necessity for continuing such tasks and missions.

It is quite another thing to warn commanders at a particular base of an attack to be expected in their own locality. In 1941, we of the Pacific fleet had a plethora of premonitions, of generalized warnings, and forebodings that Japan might embark on aggressive action in the Far East at any one of the variously predicted dates. After receipt of such warnings, we were expected to continue with renewed intensity and zeal our own training program and preparations for war rather than to go on an all-out local alert against attack. . . .

Throughout 1941, the Navy Department had several courses open. It could furnish me directly with the best evidence of Japanese intentions and plans—the intercepted Japanese military and diplomatic messages. This would have given me an opportunity to judge for myself the gravity and intensity of the crisis as December 7, 1941, approached, and the probability of a Japanese attack on Hawaii. The Navy Department failed to do this. The Navy Department did not permit me to evaluate for myself the intercepted Japanese military and diplomatic messages.

Another course of action then remained. That was to issue an order which would have directed dispositions of the fleet to guard against an attack in Hawaii. The message of June 17, 1940, “Be on the alert against hostile overseas raids,” was such an order. It would have had the same effect in December of 1941 as it had in June of 1940. Such an order was not given.

It then remained for the War and Navy departments to order Short and himself to execute their joint coastal frontier defense plan, or to order the fleet and Army to mobilize under the Pacific war plan, which would have placed the fleet on a war basis without authorizing acts of war. Neither of these was done.¹⁹

Discussing the so-called “war warning” of November 27, Kimmel said,

The phrase “war warning” cannot be made a catch-all for all the contingencies hindsight may suggest. . . . The statement . . . that negotiations had ceased on November 27 was a pale reflection of actual events; so partial a statement as to be misleading. The parties had not merely stopped talking. They were at swordspoints. So far as Japan was concerned, the talking that went on after November 26 was play-acting. It was a Japanese stratagem to conceal a blow which Japan was preparing to deliver. The stratagem did not fool the Navy Department. The Navy Department knew the scheme. The Pacific fleet was exposed to this Japanese stratagem because the Navy Department did not pass on its knowledge of the Japanese trick.²⁰

In six separate dispatches, on November 5, 11, 15, 16, 22, and 24, Japan specifically established a deadline of November 25, later advanced to November 28, Washington time, by which its ambassadors in Washington were to have concluded an agreement with the United States for a settlement of Pacific problems. On November 22 Tokyo advised the ambassadors that if no such agreement were reached by the time of the deadline, “things are automatically going to happen.” Messages from November 28 on, which were intercepted and decoded, informed the American government that Hull’s proposal of November 26 was completely unsatisfactory to Japan and that an actual rupture of negotiations would occur upon receipt of the Japanese reply. The dispatches showed that Japan attached great importance to the continuance of negotiations to conceal from the United States whatever plan automatically took effect on November 28.

As time went on after November 28, Japanese insistence that the ambassadors keep up the pretense of negotiating to divert the suspicion of the United States constituted evidence that the operation which Japan had put into effect on November 28 would require a substantial time interval before its results became apparent to the American government, and that in its initial phases the Japanese evidently believed that it could be effectively concealed.

There was another category of intelligence available in Washington which would have pointed directly to Pearl Harbor as the objective of this mysterious plan.* These were the spy messages between Tokyo and Hawaii. No word of them was sent to Kimmel or Short.

On September 24 the Japanese government instructed Consul General Nagoa Kita in Honolulu to divide the waters of Pearl Harbor into five sub-areas in reporting on warships at anchor or tied up at wharves, docks, or buoys. Area “A” was the term prescribed to delineate the waters between Ford Island and the arsenal; “B” the waters south and west of Ford Island; “C,” East Loch; “D,” Middle Loch; and “E,” West Loch and communicating water routes.

“With regard to warships and aircraft carriers,” the consul was instructed, “we would like to have you report on those at anchor (these are not so important), tied up at wharves, buoys, and in docks. (Designate types and classes briefly. If possible we would like to have you make mention of the fact when there are two or more vessels alongside the same wharf.)”²¹

On September 29 Kita replied to this dispatch by listing a detailed system of symbols to be used thereafter in designating the location of vessels in Pearl Harbor.²² On November 15 Tokyo sent the following dispatch to Honolulu, “As relations between Japan and the United States are most critical, make your ‘ships in harbor report’ irregular but at the rate of twice a week. Although you already are no doubt aware, please take extra care to maintain secrecy.”²³ On November 18 another Tokyo message directed Honolulu: “Please report on the following areas as to vessels anchored therein: Area N, Pearl Harbor, Mamala Bay (Honolulu), and the areas adjacent thereto. (Make your investigation with great secrecy.)”²⁴

On November 18 the Japanese consul general in Honolulu reported in detail to Tokyo the ships in harbor and the course and speed of vessels entering the harbor, and their distances apart.²⁵ On November 20 Tokyo instructed Honolulu to make a comprehensive investigation of fleet bases in the neighborhood of the Hawaiian military reservation.²⁶

The most significant of these instructions to Honolulu agents concerning the berthing of the fleet was sent on November 29. It said, “We have been receiving reports from you on ship movements, but in future will you also report even when there are no movements.”*²⁷ The date of this dispatch was the same as that on which Tokyo had stated that “things are automatically going to happen.” What was happening was that the Japanese fleet was bearing down on Pearl Harbor for the attack, and Tokyo wanted assurance that the warships of the Pacific fleet would be found where they were expected to be—set up as stationary targets at their harbor moorings.

On December 2 the spies in Hawaii were informed:

In view of the present situation, the presence in port of warships, airplane carriers, and cruisers is of the utmost importance. Hereafter, to the utmost of your ability, let me know day by day. Wire in each case whether or not there are any observation balloons above Pearl Harbor or if there are any indications that any will be sent up. Also advise me whether or not the warships are provided with anti-mine nets.²⁸

At 7:22 P.M., December 6, the night before the Japanese carrier assault on Pearl Harbor, American intelligence intercepted this report by the spies to Tokyo:

The following ships were observed at anchor: nine battleships, three light cruisers, three submarine tenders, seventeen destroyers, and in addition there were four light cruisers and two destroyers lying at the docks. The heavy cruisers and airplane carriers have all left. It appears that no air reconnaissance is being conducted by the fleet air arm.²⁹

At 12:42 A.M., December 7, American intelligence intercepted another message from Kita which was a clear give-away. After discussing the lack of balloon barrage defense, the consul at Honolulu reported as follows to Tokyo:

However, even though they have actually made preparations, because they must control the air over the water and land runways of the airports in the vicinity of Pearl Harbor, Hickam, Ford and Ewa, there are limits to the balloon defense of Pearl Harbor. I imagine that in all probability there is considerable opportunity left to take advantage for a surprise attack against these places.³⁰

On December 4, Washington intercepted the “east winds rain” code report that apprised Roosevelt that Japan had determined upon a state of war with the United States, omitting a formal declaration. After the decoding of the long series of messages from the Jap spies telling of the fleet disposition in Pearl Harbor, there could be no question where the attack would come. The spy message of December 6 set up our warships in harbor for the attack of the following day. Yet no word of warning went from Washington to Kimmel and Short until too late.

Washington’s excuse is that the last two messages were not decoded until December 8.³¹ They were intercepted by the Army monitoring station at San Francisco and copies were mailed to Washington. When the Army signal intelligence service heard they were on the way, San Francisco was ordered to put them on a teletype which had been installed that very day. Army translators were called back on duty in Washington that night, but spent their time decoding Jap diplomatic messages.

Although the information in the messages had been requested by Tokyo in a message intercepted at Hawaii on December 2, the request for this intelligence was forwarded to Washington by air mail for decoding and did not arrive there until December 23. Army intelligence thus was deprived of the tipoff that the responses from Honolulu would point to Japanese intentions to attack the fleet and base.³²

A third message of similar purport was translated in the rough at Washington by 1:00 P.M. on Saturday, the 6th. This message was sent from Honolulu on December 3 by Consul General Kita. The message arranged light signals to be shown in windows at night which could only have served to guide an enemy offshore attacking force. Testimony was given by Army cryptographers that they were instructed to hold up distribution of the translation until they achieved a “smooth translation.”³³

“If you could have had that information,” Senator Ferguson asked Gen. Short, “it would have indicated an attack on Hawaii, would it not?”

“Yes, sir,” Short agreed.

Referring to the message of December 6 stating that there were no barrage balloons up and that there was opportunity for a surprise attack, Ferguson asked Short, “If that had been decoded and sent to you, or the information from it, would that have meant anything to you?”

“That would practically have meant a surprise attack was in store for us or was a certainty,” Short said.

“And would that alone have alerted you?”

“Very decidedly.”³⁴

Adm. Kimmel testified before the congressional committee that in the volume of intercepted Japanese dispatches eliciting and obtaining information about American military installations and naval movements, the dispatches concerning Pearl Harbor, on and after September 24, stand out, apart from all others. He said:

No other harbor or base in American territory or possessions was divided into sub-areas by Japan. In no other area was the Japanese government seeking information as to whether two or more vessels were alongside the same wharf. . . . With the dispatch of September 24 and those which followed, there was a significant and ominous change in the character of the information which the Japanese government sought and obtained. The espionage then directed was of an unusual character and outside the realm of reasonable suspicion. It was no longer merely directed to ascertaining the general whereabouts of ships of the fleet. It was directed to the presence of particular ships and particular areas; to such minute detail as what ships were double-docked at the same wharf.

In the period immediately preceding the attack, the Jap consul general in Hawaii was directed by Tokyo to report even when there were no movements of ships in and out of Pearl Harbor. These Japanese instructions and reports pointed to an attack by Japan upon the ships in Pearl Harbor. The information sought and obtained, with such painstaking detail, had no other conceivable usefulness from a military viewpoint. Its utility was in planning and executing an attack upon the ships in port. Its effective value was lost completely when the ships left their reported berthings in Pearl Harbor.

No one had a more direct and immediate interest in the security of the fleet in Pearl Harbor than its commander-in-chief. No one had a greater right than I to know that Japan had carved up Pearl Harbor into sub-areas and was seeking and receiving reports as to the precise berthings in that harbor of ships of the fleet. I had been sent Mr. Grew’s report earlier in the year with positive advice from the Navy Department that no credence was to be placed in the rumored Japanese plans for an attack on Pearl Harbor. I was told then that no Japanese move against Pearl Harbor appeared “imminent or planned for in the foreseeable future.” Certainly I was entitled to know when information in the Navy, Department completely altered the information and advice previously given to me.³⁵

The irony of Kimmel’s predicament was that the information which the Roosevelt administration denied the commander-in-chief of the United States fleet was being freely given to the British all through 1941. Gen. Miles testified that the secret American process for decoding Japanese communications was given to Britain as early as January.³⁶

Kimmel told the congressional committee that he, as commander-in-chief of the fleet, was just “as entitled to receive copies of intercepted Japanese communications as the British Admiralty.”³⁷ Knowledge of these dispatches, the admiral said, would have radically changed his estimate of the situation in the Pacific and would even have afforded an opportunity to “ambush the Japanese striking force as it ventured to Hawaii.”

Gen. Short protested against receiving the same kind of treatment.

While the War Department G-2 may not have felt bound to let me know about the routine operations of the Japanese in keeping track of our naval ships, they should certainly have let me know that the Japanese were getting reports of the exact location of the ships in Pearl Harbor, which might indicate more than just keeping track, because such details would be useful only for sabotage, or for air and submarine attack, in Hawaii. As early as October 9, G-2 in Washington knew of this Japanese espionage. This message, analyzed critically, is really a bombing plan for Pearl Harbor.³⁸

The Hawaiian commanders, as has been seen, were also denied knowledge of the final Jap diplomatic note of December 6-7, followed by the pilot message directing that the statement be handed in to Hull at 1:00 P.M. The Army Board has shown that there could have been no misconception as to the meaning to be read into these dispatches. “It was well known,” the report states,

that Japan’s entry into all wars of the past has been characterized by the first overt act of war coming simultaneously with the declaration. The services, both Army and Navy, were well aware of this Japanese characteristic. It was, therefore, to be expected that an unexpected attack would be made by Japan as the first indication of a breach of relations.³⁹

The breach of relations would come at 1:00 P.M., Washington time. Therefore, that was the hour for war and the first overt act. Kimmel asserted:

All this information was denied to Gen. Short and me. Had we not been denied this many things would have been different. Had we been furnished this information as little as two or three hours before the attack, which was easily feasible and possible, much could have been done.⁴⁰

What Kimmel could have done in those crucial two hours has been told by Adm. Wilkinson. He testified that Kimmel could have sent his major fleet units out of Pearl Harbor and into the open sea at ten-minute intervals, with destroyers and other smaller craft leaving simultaneously. In two hours Kimmel could have got twelve major ships and as many as twelve to fourteen smaller vessels out of the confined harbor, where they were trapped by the Jap torpedo and bombing planes.⁴¹

Gen. Short’s testimony showed how helpless the fleet was, moored to its berthings in harbor. He said that the Japs’ low-flying torpedo planes probably would have been able to get through our anti-aircraft barrage even if the harbor defenses had been on a full alert, because our anti-aircraft was ineffective against low-flying aircraft.⁴²

If the ships had left harbor, however, the story, Adm. Kimmel says, would have been different. In the open sea they would have been dispersed, they would have been able to maneuver against attack, they would have been expecting attack, and they would have been on a full alert, with battle stations manned and all guns firing. A good number of the planes based on Hawaiian fields would have been in the air to meet the oncoming attack force. Kimmel said:

I surely was entitled to know of the hour fixed by Japan for the probable outbreak of war against the United States. I cannot understand now—I have never understood—I may never understand—why I was deprived of the information available in the Navy Department in Washington on Saturday night and Sunday morning. . . . The Pacific fleet deserved a fighting chance. It was entitled to receive from the Navy Department the best information available. Such information had been urgently requested. I had been assured that it would be furnished me. We faced our problems in the Pacific confident that such assurance would be faithfully carried out. . . .

If this investigation succeeds in preserving for the future the pertinent facts about Pearl Harbor, I shall be content. History, with the perspective of the long tomorrow, will enter the final directive in my case. I am confident of that verdict.⁴³

Gen. Short faced the congressional committee with a similarly resolute spirit. He said:

As a matter of the interests of the country and as a loyal soldier, I maintained a steadfast silence for four years and I bore the load of public censure during this time and I would have continued to bear it so long as I thought the question of national security was involved. However, the war is now ended.⁴⁴

Short was especially severe in his criticism of Washington for failing to correct his anti-sabotage alert and then blaming him for not having instituted a higher degree of readiness:

When any department of the Army has issued an order on any matter of importance, it has performed only one-half of its function. The follow-up to see that the order has been carried out as desired is at least as important as issuing the order. The War Department had nine days in which to check up on the alert status in Hawaii and to make sure that the measures taken by me were what was desired, which it did not do. The checkup would have required no more than a reading of my report of measures taken.

I felt, and still feel, that if the chief of staff wanted an all-out alert in Hawaii, he would have ordered it himself and not expected me to make the decision, knowing as he did how relatively limited was my information as compared to that available to him.⁴⁵

Marshall himself, when examined before the congressional committee, inferentially conceded the justice of this complaint. He was questioned by Representative Keefe as follows:

KEEFE: When you issued the alert on the 17th of June, 1940, you used the language, “To deal with possible trans-Pacific raid.”

MARSHALL: That is correct, sir.

KEEFE: Yes. Well, now, then, let us put it this way without splitting words: Gen. Marshall, on the morning of the 28th of November you had tremendously more information as to the possibility of an attack by the Japanese than you had in June, 1940?

MARSHALL: That is correct, sir.

KEEFE: If you had information in June, 1940, as to the possibilities of a trans-Pacific raid, you had a mountain of evidence on the 27th of November, did you not, to the same effect?

MARSHALL: That is correct.⁴⁶

Marshall was interrogated by Keefe as follows concerning his responsibility to check up on the measures taken by Short and reported by him in response to War Department message No. 472:

KEEFE: So we get down to the simple fact that here is a message from your commanding general in the bastion of defense in the Pacific to which all of our defenses, as you have testified, were tied, in which he tells you that he is alerted to prevent sabotage; liaison with Navy. Now in all fairness, Gen. Marshall, in the exercise of ordinary care as chief of staff ought you not to have proceeded to investigate further and give further orders to Gen. Short when it appeared that he was only alerted against sabotage?

MARSHALL: As I stated earlier, that was my opportunity to intervene and I did not do it.

KEEFE: Well, now, you say that was your opportunity. That was your responsibility, was it not?

MARSHALL: You can put it that way, sir.

KEEFE: Well, I don’t want to put it that way. I am asking you. You used the words “that was your opportunity,” I do not want an opportunity to arise in the future discussion of this matter to have a conflict of words and not to be able to understand just what you meant. Do I understand that your use of the word “opportunity” is synonymous with responsibility?

MARSHALL: Mr. Keefe, I had an immense number of papers going over my desk every day informing me what was happening anywhere in the world. . . . I noted them and initialed them; those that I thought the Secretary of War ought specifically to see I put them out for him to see, to be sure that he would see it in case by any chance he did not see the same message.

I was not passing the responsibility on to the Secretary of War. I merely wanted him to know.

Now the same thing related to these orders of the War Department. I was responsible. I was responsible for the actions of the general staff throughout on large matters and on the small matters. I was responsible for those, but I am not a bookkeeping machine and it is extremely difficult, it is an extremely difficult thing for me to take each thing in its turn and give it exactly the attention that it had merited.

Now in this particular case a very tragic thing occurred, there is no question about that, there is no question in regard to my responsibility as chief of staff. I am not attempting to evade that at all, but I do not think it is quite characterized in the manner that you have expressed yourself.

KEEFE: Well, now, let me put it in another way. You have now stated it was your responsibility as chief of staff to see to it that Gen. Short out there in Hawaii, which you have described as being your bastion of defense, to see that he was alerted, and if he misinterpreted your order to see that that order was carried out.

MARSHALL: That is my responsibility, sir.

KEEFE: Now, I have stated it correctly, haven’t I?

MARSHALL: Yes, sir, you have.⁴⁷

Gen. Gerow admitted that there had been a failure to follow up the warning sent to Short November 27. “If there was any responsibility to be attached to the War Department for failure to send an inquiry to Gen. Short,” he said, “the responsibility must rest on war plans divisions, and I accept that responsibility as chief of war plans division.”⁴⁸

When Representative Keefe asked Marshall about Gerow’s assumption of responsibility, the chief of staff stated, “He had a direct responsibility and I had the full responsibility.”⁴⁹

“The War Department,” commented Short, “had four years to admit that a follow-up should have been made on the November 27 message and on my report of the same date, but no such admission of responsibility was made public until Gen. Gerow and Gen. Marshall testified before this committee.”⁵⁰

As to his conclusion that sabotage was the principal danger, Short said that 37 per cent of the population of Hawaii (about 161,000 persons) was of Japanese descent. Of these 40,000 were aliens. Many lived in close proximity to air fields and defense installations.⁵¹ Marshall himself on May 3, 1941, had described sabotage as the primary danger in Hawaii. In an aide mémoire to President Roosevelt, the chief of staff said: “In point of sequence, sabotage is first to be expected and may, within a very limited time, cause great damage. On this account, and in order to assure strong control, it would be highly desirable to set up a military control of the islands prior to the likelihood of our involvement in the Far East.”⁵²

Marshall, writing Short on February 7, 1941, just after the general had assumed command in Hawaii, said, “The risk of sabotage and the risk involved in a surprise raid by air and by submarine constitute the real perils of the situation.”⁵³

Short said:

I felt that I had a right to expect the War Department to inform me by the most rapid means possible if a real crisis arose in Japanese relations. I did not expect that when the crisis arose the message would remain in the hands of Gen. Miles and Col. Bratton without action from 9:00 A.M. till 11:25 A.M., and that when action was finally taken the desire for secrecy would be considered more important than the element of time. Had the message in regard to the Japanese ultimatum and the burning of their code machines been given me by telephone as an urgent message in the clear without loss of time for encoding and decoding, delivery, etc., or if I had been directed by telephone to go on an all-out alert for a dawn trans-Pacific raid, without being told the reason, I would have had approximately four hours to make detailed preparations to meet an immediate attack.

In that time, Short said, he could have warmed up his planes and got them into the air, just as Kimmel could have put to sea with his ships. Short continued:

My decision to put the Hawaiian Department on an alert to prevent sabotage was based upon a belief that sabotage was our gravest danger and that air attack was not imminent. I realize that my decision was wrong. I had every reason to believe, however, that my estimate of the situation coincided with that of the War Department general staff, which had the signal advantage of superior sources of intelligence as to enemy intentions.

I know it is hindsight, but if I had been furnished the information which the War Department had, I do not believe that I would have made a mistaken estimate of the situation. To make my meaning clear, I want to add that I do not believe that my estimate was due to any carelessness on my part or on the part of the senior Army and Navy officers with whom I consulted. Nor do I believe that my error was a substantial factor in causing the damage which our Pacific fleet suffered during the attack.⁵⁴

Senator Ferguson contrasted the hampering restrictions laid by the November 27 warning upon the Pacific fleet and Hawaii garrison with the original Roosevelt administration theory that the fleet, at Pearl Harbor, would constitute a “deterrent” to Japan.

Ferguson asked Short how he could have committed an “overt act” against Japan. The general said that he could have committed it only by sending out his long-range bombers, with a subsequent attack by them upon a Japanese ship or submarine, or by arresting consular agents or Japanese nationals and thus occasioning offense to Tokyo.

Short said that the “overt act” restriction in the November 27 warning “meant to me simply that the War Department was extremely anxious to avoid war, and they did not want any international incident to happen in Hawaii that might provoke war or might give the Japanese an opportunity to claim that we had started the war.”

Senator Ferguson recalled that “we had put the fleet in Hawaii in order that we might show Japan our strength, and we were backing up our diplomacy by the fleet being out there.” He asked why, then, with a strong army in Hawaii, the United States should have instructed it to act as if “we were weak and afraid.”

Emphasizing the contradiction, Ferguson said to Short,

In one case, we put the Navy in there as a symbol of strength, and in the other case—in your case—we tried to conceal the fact that you had a strong army and you were ready for anything that might happen.

Now, would it have been possible that if we had a full mobilization of the Army—some 40,000 men in Hawaii—if we had shown that we were on the alert for anything that might come, we would never have had an attack at Pearl Harbor?

Short replied:

I think it quite probable that if that had been reported to the Japanese, they would have turned back the attacking force.

Ferguson asked Short if the warning of November 27 had omitted the restrictions against alarming the public or disclosing intent, and if Short had then fully alerted his command, with the soldiers under arms, the machine guns manned, the radar working twenty-four hours a day, “then would you have come to the conclusion, in your opinion as an Army general, that they would have turned back?”

“There would have been a very excellent chance that they would have turned back,” said Short. “That would have been the tendency, because they would have felt, or they would be sure, that they would take heavy losses. Surprise was the only opportunity they had to succeed.”⁵⁵

Ferguson then asked Short to assess the blame for having given the Japanese the inestimable advantage of surprise. The Senator recalled that Short had said, “I do not feel that I have been treated fairly or with justice by the War Department. I was singled out as an example, as the scapegoat for the disaster.”

“You are covering very broad ground when you use the words ‘War Department,’” said Ferguson. “I wish you would be specific and tell me who you had in mind.”

“I had in mind the general staff in particular,” Short replied, “because they were primarily responsible for the policies pursued by the War Department.”

“And the general staff was headed by whom?”

“Gen. Marshall.”

“And who else would be in there?”

“Gen. Gerow as head of the war plans division had the direct responsibility of keeping me informed. Gen. Miles, the head of G-2, had a very direct responsibility.”

“What about the Secretary of War?” asked Ferguson. “Is he included there in the words ‘War Department?’”

“As far as technical things went, I would not have expected him to be as fully aware of the significance of technical things. I would expect him to be fully aware of any policy.”

“So, as far as the policy was concerned, he would be included in that?”

“Yes, sir.”⁵⁶

It is time to consider the policy-makers.

* The minority report of the Joint Congressional Committee (p. 43) points out that in contrast to the “war warnings” of November, 1941, the language of the Herron alert was “crystal clear.”

* “In the days immediately preceding Pearl Harbor, Japan made no effort to conceal the movements or presence of her naval forces in South East Asia (Tr., Vol. 3, p. 453). The movements of her troops in Indo-China at that time were the subject of diplomatic exchanges between the United States and Japan (For. Rel. II, p. 779). Yet the intercepts showed that some Japanese plan went into effect automatically on Nov. 29, from which Japan hoped to divert American suspicion by a pretext of continued negotiations” (Min., p. 26).

* Italics supplied.