5. The Basing of the Fleet

Chapter Five

THE BASING OF THE FLEET

WHY, AND at whose command, was the Pacific fleet based at Pearl Harbor, within reach of the air striking arm of the Japanese navy?

The American fleet was started westward to the Pacific after World War I by President Wilson. The creation of a separate Pacific battle fleet was first announced in June, 1919. At the time it was said that stationing a strong fleet in each ocean would stimulate a spirit of rivalry within the service, and thus promote the efficiency of the entire Navy. But even then the notion seemed to be entertained that the fleet in the Pacific would constitute a “deterrent” to Japan, whose star was rising with the acquisition, under League of Nations mandate, of the German islands north of the equator.

By the end of 1919 the United States had assembled a fighting fleet of two hundred units in the Pacific, a force almost as large as the entire Japanese Navy of that day. Early in 1921 the Atlantic fleet was sent to the Pacific for joint maneuvers. In June of that year, after a Republican administration had returned to Washington, it was announced that it had been decided on the advice of naval authorities to station most of our fighting ships permanently in the Pacific, but to base them upon southern California.

In 1932 the security of the Pearl Harbor base was tested in Adm. Yarnell’s mock attack. Yarnell’s surprise should have resulted in serious misgivings as to the safety of the fleet while anchored in harbor.* In 1936, however, the American fleet was again taken to Pearl Harbor by its commander, Rear Adm. Joseph M. Reeves, subsequently a member of the Roberts Commission. On May 27 the battleship divisions and supporting craft—a fleet of one hundred sixty-five ships—moved into Pearl Harbor for a test of the base as an anchorage for the entire fleet. Because the harbor entrance was being dredged, three carriers, the “Lexington,” “Saratoga,” and “Ranger,” were left offshore. The Roberts report, to which Reeves subscribed, recognized that there were diverse views respecting the basing of the entire fleet at Pearl Harbor, but stated, “We feel that the national policy in this matter is one that has been settled by those responsible for such decisions and that it is not within our province.”

In 1939 the fleet shifted its war games from the West Coast to the Caribbean in what was regarded as a gesture of warning to Hitler and Mussolini that the United States would stand behind the nations opposing their ambitions. While the fleet was on the East Coast it was planned to hold a grand review in connection with the New York world’s fair.

On April 16, 1939, however, the fleet unexpectedly was ordered back to the Pacific without explanation. This was about a month after Hitler had violated the Munich pact by absorbing all of Czechoslovakia, and eight days after Mussolini had marched into Albania. The return of the fleet to the Pacific was regarded as evidence of an agreement with Britain under which the British fleet would safeguard the Atlantic in the event of war, while the American fleet stood watch over the Pacific.

After its return from the Caribbean, the main body of the fleet remained at San Diego until January, 1940, when it proceeded to Hawaii for war games. On February 3 the first step was taken to convert Pearl Harbor into the permanent base for a substantial number of fleet units. It was reported that the base would become the home port for a Hawaiian detachment consisting of thirteen ships: the heavy cruisers “Indianapolis,” “Northhampton,” “Houston,” “Pensacola,” “Salt Lake City,” “Minneapolis,” “Astoria,” and “New Orleans,” the light cruiser “Raleigh,” the destroyer tender “Dobbin,” and the minesweepers “Kingfisher,” “Partridge,” and “Turkey.”

On May 7, 1940, the Navy announced that the entire fleet would remain at Pearl Harbor indefinitely. This represented a radical departure in American naval policy. Until this time it had been the Navy’s policy to keep the fleet on the West Coast and to send it into blue water only in a period of tension. Not until the congressional investigation of 1945–46 would it be explained why this policy was abandoned and at whose behest.

On May 10, three days after the announcement that the fleet would be concentrated at Pearl Harbor, the German blitzkrieg in the west roared over the frontiers of Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France. On the same day Winston Churchill succeeded Neville Chamberlain as prime minister. As the Germans surged on toward completion of the conquest of all western Europe, it might have seemed to Mr. Roosevelt that he had his fleet in the wrong ocean. But he was inclined to dismiss the proposal for creation of a two-ocean navy as a crackpot idea.

At his press conference on May 14 he said that a two-ocean navy was “an entirely outmoded conception of naval defense.”¹ He asked Congress for 50,000 airplanes, authority to muster the National Guard into federal service, and appropriations of a billion dollars for the Army and Navy. After that, he said, Congress could adjourn.

Congress, however, insisted on staying in session. It voted 5 billion dollars for defense and, on July 19, authorized a two-ocean navy. The Atlantic forces rapidly grew so large that a separate Atlantic fleet was created. But, to bolster this fleet, which was soon to enter into an undeclared war against Germany by executive order, the Pacific fleet was stripped of many of its major units. Steadily weakened, it still remained at Pearl Harbor—a temptation to Japan when the time would be ripe. This policy of splitting the fleet was severely criticized in 1941 by Capt. W. D. Puleston in his book, The Armed Forces of the Pacific.

“Until the two-ocean navy is completed,” Puleston said, “the Navy should be concentrated in one fleet and kept in one ocean. At their present strengths the Pacific and Atlantic fleets would need to be brought together before undertaking a major campaign in either ocean.”²

In June, 1940, national attention was focused on the Pacific fleet when it made a sudden and mysterious dash from its base. It is now known that the high command in Washington, after losing radio contact with the Japanese fleet, which unaccountably had gone into radio silence, had secretly alerted the Hawaiian garrison against the possibility of a trans-Pacific raid. Gen. Marshall, the Army chief of staff, ordered the troops of Gen. Herron’s Hawaiian command to go on an all-out alert, occupying field positions with full equipment and ammunition.*

The fleet, under command of Adm. J. O. Richardson, had put to sea, not only to increase its security through freedom of maneuver, but to intercept any enemy fleet which might be approaching. At the end of a week the fleet returned to Hawaiian waters. The only explanation offered for its unexpected departure was that it had been engaged in routine training exercises. The Army, however, maintained its alert for more than six weeks, although the fact was not made public for more than a year.

The congressional investigation in 1945 disclosed that the 1940 alert was based on the premise that an attack at any time on Hawaii by Japan “could not be ruled out because a large part of the fleet was based there.” This estimate had been submitted to Chief of Staff Marshall by Maj. Gen. George V. Strong, chief of Army war plans in 1940.³ It reduced to its simplest terms the obligation of the high command to put Hawaii on a full alert whenever available information indicated that there was a possibility of a sudden stroke against the fleet. Wherever the fleet was, so Gen. Strong reasoned, there would the danger be greatest. The conclusion was obvious.⁴ It persuaded Gen. Marshall in 1940, for he promptly directed an all-out alert. Why, in November and December, 1941, when he knew the danger to be far greater, he did not follow a similar course is one of the unanswered mysteries.

Gen. Strong’s view as to the inevitability of the place of attack was echoed by Capt. A. H. McCollum, head of the Far Eastern section of naval intelligence. He testified before the congressional committee that he had felt for many years that the Japanese would open hostilities by attacking our fleet wherever it was.⁵

The story of who sent the fleet to Pearl Harbor and why it was ordered there was first explained in testimony before the congressional committee in November, 1945, by Adm. Richardson.⁶ Richardson had taken up his duties as commander-in-chief of the United States fleet on January 5, 1940. The fleet at that time was based at the California ports of San Diego, San Pedro, and Long Beach. It proceeded to sea on spring maneuvers, arriving at Lahaina Roads in Hawaii on April 10. It was supposed to depart on May 9, but two days before the scheduled date Richardson was notified by Adm. Stark that there would be a delay of two weeks.

In explaining this decision, Stark wrote Richardson:

Just hung up the telephone after talking with the President and by the time this reaches you, you will have received word to remain in Hawaiian waters for a couple of weeks. When the fleet returns to the coast (and I trust the delay will not be over two weeks, but I cannot tell) the President has asked that the fleet schedule be so arranged that on extremely short notice the fleet will be able to return concentrated to Hawaiian waters.⁷

Stark explained that, with Italy expected to enter the European war at any moment, nobody could guess what lay ahead, and that the decision to retain the fleet at Pearl Harbor was related to the uncertainties of the situation. The letter shows that Roosevelt, using his “commander-in-chief” powers, was making decisions for the Navy, and that the order to keep the fleet at Oahu was his.

Richardson, in response to this communication, wrote Stark,

It seems that, under present world-conditions, the paramount thing for us is the security of the western hemisphere. This, in my opinion, transcends everything—anything certainly in the Far East, our own or other interests.

South America is the greatest prize yet remaining to be grabbed. Until the outcome in Europe can be more clearly seen, security in the western hemisphere seems to be the most important consideration to us.

I feel that any move west [toward Japan and Asia] means hostilities. I feel that at this time it would be a grave mistake to become involved in the west, where our interests, although important, are not vital, and thereby reduce our ability to maintain the security of the western hemisphere, which is vital.

If the fleet is to go west it can only start, properly prepared, from the West Coast where it can be docked, manned, stocked and stripped, and a suitable train assembled.⁸

On May 22, still at Pearl Harbor, Richardson sent another letter to Stark demanding to know why the fleet was being kept in Hawaii. He asked:

Are we here primarily to influence the actions of other nations by our presence, and if so, what effect would the carrying out of normal training . . . have on this purpose? . . . Are we here as a stepping off place for belligerent activity? If so, we should devote all our time and energies to preparing for war. . . . This could more effectively and expeditiously be accomplished by an immediate return to the West Coast. . . . As it is now, to try to do both (train and prepare for belligerent action) from here and at the same time is a diversification of effort and purpose that can only result in the accomplishment of neither.

Stark on May 27 replied to the question of why Richardson was in the Hawaiian area by saying,

You are there because of the deterrent effect which it is thought your presence may have on the Japs going into the East Indies. . . . You would naturally ask—suppose the Japs do go into the East Indies? What are we going to do about it? My answer to that is, I don’t know and I think there is nobody on God’s green earth who can tell you.

On June 22 Stark advised Richardson that the fleet was to remain “tentatively” in Pearl Harbor. Richardson continued his protests against retaining the fleet in Hawaii. On September 12 he filed a memorandum with Stark listing his objections as follows:

1. Difficulty, delay, and cost of transporting men, munitions, and supplies.

2. Inadequacy of Lahaina as operating anchorage because of lack of security.

3. Inadequacy of Pearl Harbor as an operating anchorage because of difficulties of entry, berthing, and departure of large ships.

4. Congested and restricted operating areas in the air and on the surface.

5. Inadequate facilities for fleet services, training, recreation, and housing.

6. Prolonged absence from mainland of officers and men in time of peace adversely affects morale.

7. In case of war, necessary for fleet to return to mobilization ports on west coast or accept partial and unorganized mobilization measures, resulting in confusion and a net loss of time.

Richardson continued:

If the disposition of the fleet were determined solely by naval considerations, the major portion of the fleet should return to its normal Pacific coast bases because such basing would facilitate its training and its preparation for war.

If factors other than purely naval ones are to influence the decision as to where the fleet should be based at this time, the naval factors should be fully presented and carefully considered, as well as the probable effect of the decision on the readiness of the fleet. In other words, is it more important to lend strength to diplomatic representations in the Pacific by basing the fleet in the Hawaiian area, than to facilitate its preparation for active service in any area by basing the major part of it on normal Pacific coast bases?

In case our relations with another Pacific nation deteriorate, what is the State Department’s conception of our next move? Does it believe that the fleet is now mobilized and that it could embark on a campaign directly from Hawaii or safely conduct necessary training from the insecure anchorage at Lahaina, which is 2,000 miles nearer enemy submarine bases than our normal Pacific coast bases?

Adm. Richardson felt so strongly about these matters that when he was called to Washington, he took them up directly with the President. On October 8 he was received by Roosevelt for a White House luncheon conference. Adm. William D. Leahy, then governor of Puerto Rico, who later became Presidential chief of staff, was also present.

Richardson had felt for a long time that the President’s disposition to ignore competent professional advice and formulate his own war strategy was dangerous to the nation and to the fleet. On January 26, before the fleet was ordered to Pearl Harbor, he had expressed himself vehemently in a private letter to Adm. Stark:

I strongly feel that you should repeatedly impress on the boss that an Orange [Japanese] war would probably last some years and cost much money, my guess is five to ten years, 35 to 70 billion dollars. . . . We ought not to go into a thing like this unless we expected to see it through.

I hesitate to write you because the written word is so easily misunderstood. Also I do not know what your ideas are, what you are telling the boss, what is the meaning of our diplomatic moves, or our senators’ talks, or our neutrality patrol. But you are the principal and only Naval adviser to the boss and he should know that our fleet cannot just sail away, lick Orange, and be back home in a year or so. Also the probable cost of any war should be compared [to] the probable value of winning the war . . . .

All of this letter may be needless, but I know that if you do not tell the boss what you really know and feel about the probable cost and duration of an Orange war, NOBODY WILL.*

Asked before the congressional committee who “the boss” was, Richardson retorted, “The President of the United States, known by (sic) the Constitution as the commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy!”⁹

Stark, in response to these promptings, made a half-hearted attempt to talk sense to the commander-in-chief, but was rebuffed. Describing his lack of success, he said, “I asked the President several times what our Navy’s role would be if Japan made war on British possessions. He just didn’t answer. Once he said, ‘Don’t ask me those questions’. I don’t think he knew the answer.”¹⁰

Richardson was well aware when he came to Washington that no one else had been able to deter Roosevelt from his career as a one-man general staff, working through intuition. He determined, however, to make one last attempt himself. The admiral said:

My mission was primarily to find out what was back of our intentions in the Pacific and to ascertain the duration of the stay of the fleet in Pearl Harbor. I took up with the President the question of returning to the Pacific coast all of the fleet except the Hawaiian detachment. The President stated that the fleet was retained in the Hawaiian area in order to exercise a restraining influence on the actions of Japan.

I stated that in my opinion the presence of the fleet in Hawaii might influence a civilian political government, but that Japan had a military government which knew the fleet was undermanned, unprepared for war, and had no train of auxiliary ships, without which it could not undertake active operations. Therefore, the presence of the fleet in Hawaii could not exercise a restraining influence on Japanese action.

I further stated we were more likely to make the Japanese feel that we meant business if a train were assembled and the fleet returned to the Pacific coast, the complements filled, the ships docked and fully supplied with ammunition, provisions, stores, and fuel, and then stripped for war operations.

The President said in effect, “Despite what you believe, I know that the presence of the fleet in the Hawaiian area has had and is now having a restraining influence on the actions of Japan.”

I said, “Mr. President, I still do not believe it and I know that our fleet is disadvantageously disposed for preparing for or initiating war operations.”

The President then said, “I can be convinced of the desirability of returning the battleships to the West Coast if I can be given a good statement which will convince the American people and the Japanese government that in bringing the battleships to the west coast we are not stepping backwards!”

Later I asked the President if we were going to enter the war. He replied that if the Japanese attacked Thailand, or the Kra Peninsula, or the Dutch East Indies, we would not enter the war; that even if they attacked the Philippines he doubted whether we would enter the war, but that they could not always avoid making mistakes, and that as the war continued and the area of operations expanded, sooner or later they would make a mistake and we would enter the war.¹¹

Within a month the nation would vote on Roosevelt’s third-term aspirations. He was telling Adm. Richardson that in the end Japan “would make a mistake and we would enter the war,” but three weeks later he would address the parents of the nation and, in his Boston broadcast, make his famous pledge, “I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again: Your sons are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.”¹²

Although he was now telling his fleet commander that the United States would not even fight in defense of the Philippines, an American possession, let alone in defense of Siam or the British and Dutch colonies, within three months he would commission his Army and Navy high command to initiate staff conversations with the British and Dutch which committed this country to fight in defense of their colonies.*

He was frank only when he expressed belief that some Japanese “mistake” would serve as the casus belli.

Two days after this meeting at the White House, Adm. Richardson learned more about Roosevelt’s plans concerning the Pacific fleet. He was summoned to a conference in the office of Secretary Knox, together with Adm. Stark, Adm. Royal E. Ingersoll, deputy chief of operations; Capt. C. M. Cook, of Stark’s staff, and Comdr. Vincent R. Murphy, Richardson’s aide. Richardson related:

The Secretary stated that he had important information bearing on the employment of the fleet. He stated that he had just talked to the President and that the President was concerned about the Japanese reaction to the British decision to reopen the Burma road October 17.

In the event of drastic Japanese action, Knox said, the President was considering shutting off all trade between Japan and America and establishing a patrol of light ships in two lines, one from Hawaii west to the Philippines, and the other from Samoa to the Dutch East Indies.

The question was raised whether this included stopping Jap ships as well as others. The view was expressed that this would be an act of war. I asked if the President was considering a declaration of war. The Secretary said the President hadn’t said.

“All I know is what I’ve been told,” the Secretary said. I was amazed at the proposal. I said the fleet was not prepared to put such a plan into effect and war would be the certain result of such a course of action. I said we would be certain to lose many ships.

There was further discussion that such a line of ships would disperse the units and leave them exposed to destruction. It was said that the best way to control shipping would be to control the source of the trade by control of the relatively few ports involved. I, in particular, protested.

The Secretary appeared displeased at the general reaction, and mine in particular and said, “I am not a strategist; if you don’t like the President’s plan, draw up one of your own to accomplish the same purpose.” The interview ended with Adm. Stark and I agreeing to draw up a tentative plan of operations in connection with the reopening of the Burma road.¹³

The plan drafted by Stark and Richardson provided for the transfer to the Pacific of an aircraft carrier, planes, one or two cruisers, and some destroyers. “Adm. Stark,” said Richardson, “was not prepared to approve the plan. He said he would talk with the President and let me know later. When the plan was completed, both Secretary Knox and the President were away from Washington. All I ever heard of the plan after that was a directive from Adm. Stark to send a copy of it to Adm Hart, commander of the Asiatic squadron.”

This astonishing scheme to put Japan under blockade was advanced by Roosevelt three weeks before his “again and again and again” speech and a month before the national election. He could not have been unaware that it inevitably would have led to war. Yet, while keeping such projects secret from the country, he was busy assuring the electorate that he firmly intended to stay out of war.

The plan shows Roosevelt as a reckless amateur naval strategist who thought that ships could be disposed about the oceans in the way that a child places dominoes on a board. If the plan had ever been put into effect, Japan would have been able to destroy the fleet piecemeal, for it would have been so dispersed that no warship could support any other. Hitler at his intuitive worst never engaged in such fantasies.

While in Washington, Richardson related, he was subjected from many sides to the theory that the fleet at Pearl Harbor was a deterrent to Japan. The State Department, it seemed to him, was the leading exponent of this school of thought. Secretary Hull, he said, “felt we should take a very strong position in regard to Japan. And he felt that the retention of the fleet in Hawaii reflected that strong attitude.”

Adm. Richardson said he gathered the impression from his Washington visit that Dr. Stanley Hornbeck, then adviser to the State Department on Far East relations and now ambassador to Holland, was regarded by the administration as the unofficial commander-in-chief of the fleet. The admiral said:

Whether wrong or not, after talking with Dr. Hornbeck I was distinctly of the impression that he was exercising greater influence over the disposition of the fleet than I was. In my notebook at the time I wrote my impression that he was “the strong man on the Far East and the cause of our staying in Hawaii, where he will hold us as long as he can.” He was, however, unwilling to accept the responsibility for the retention of the fleet in Hawaii. I told him he was completely wrong, even though he was the State Department’s adviser on foreign affairs and had written many books on the subject.¹⁴

The evidence is abundant that the State Department, together with Roosevelt, was running the Navy, although it did not trouble to take the field commanders who would be forced to bear the brunt of the consequences of its action into its confidence by keeping them abreast of diplomatic developments.*

Adm. Stark said that a year before the war began the State Department wanted to extend its policy of using the Navy as a “deterrent” to Japan by sending a naval detachment to the Philippines. He said that facilities were lacking in the Philippines to maintain a sizable naval force. “The Navy,” he said at the time, “already is faced with enough difficulty maintaining the Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor.” In letters to Adm. Kimmel, he referred to State Department suggestions as “childish.”¹⁵

Stark said, however, that he did agree to a scheme cooked up in combination by Roosevelt and the State Department to keep naval vessels “popping up” at various points in the Western Pacific so that the Japs would be left guessing.

“Did the State Department want to use the Navy in a diplomatic way?” Stark was asked.

“They wanted to use it in supporting diplomacy in any way they thought effective,” the admiral replied.¹⁶

In a letter to Richardson on March 15, 1940, Stark indicated that the State Department had had a hand in sending the original Hawaiian detachment of thirteen warships to Pearl Harbor. “I still think that the decision to send the detachment to Hawaii under present world-conditions is sound,” he asserted. “No one can measure how much effect its presence there may have on the Orange foreign policy. The State Department is strong for the present setup and considers it beneficial; they were in on all discussions, press releases, etc.”

Sumner Welles, Undersecretary of State, said that the only discussion of Pearl Harbor in numerous State Department conferences was of its strategic position in the Pacific. No one in the department, he said, regarded Pearl Harbor as an object of attack, but he said he recalled conversations with Richardson in which the fleet commander expressed “grave concern” because the fleet was not secure in the base.

He said the State Department opposed Richardson’s suggestion that the fleet be moved to the Pacific Coast because such a step, in the opinion of department officers, would have given the Chinese the impression that we were withdrawing from the Pacific and would have been an invitation to the Japanese to “move in.” When he talked to Richardson, Welles said, he did not believe that Pearl Harbor was in danger of attack. That, he said, was a question for the President and the Navy Department to decide.

“So the President had the Navy Department and State Department views before him and it was up to him to make the decision about moving the fleet, basing it on the information before him?” Welles was asked.

“That is correct,” Welles said.¹⁷

Joseph C. Grew, former ambassador to Tokyo, also echoed the State Department opinion that the fleet, in Hawaii, was a “deterrent.” He said that he hadn’t been consulted on the subject of basing the fleet at Pearl Harbor, but that he did think it had a restraining influence on Japan and was “more or less useful there.”

“What restraining influence did it have on December 7, 1941?” Grew was asked.

“Definitely no effect,” he replied.

Grew explained that he did not know that the fleet was undermanned, undersupplied, and totally unprepared for war, as Richardson testified, and that keeping it bottled up in harbor would have no effect in deterring Japan from aggressive action.¹⁸

Under examination by members of the congressional committee, Adm. Richardson was asked, “Was the fleet in Pearl Harbor a restraining influence, as the President contended?”

“I didn’t think so when I was talking to him and I haven’t changed my mind!” Richardson responded.

“Did the Japs know the deficiencies of our Navy?”

“I never had any doubt that they did,” Richardson replied. “The Secretary of the Navy told me the Japs knew more about our fleet than I did!”

“Was any definite order issued to keep the fleet in Pearl Harbor after it arrived there from fleet maneuvers in May, 1940?”

“There was never a definite order,” Richardson replied. “We just gradually drifted into staying.”

“After your argument with the President in October, 1940, over the basing of the fleet, when did you next hear from him?”

“I never heard from him again,” the admiral said. “I never saw him again.”¹⁹

Returning to Hawaii, Richardson wrote a memorandum to Stark from Bremerton, Washington, in which he said that he wanted to stress his firm conviction that “neither the Navy nor the country was prepared for war with Japan.” He stated:

It now appears that more active, more open steps aimed at Japan are in serious contemplation and that these steps, if taken now, may lead to hostilities. The present Orange plan [for attack against Japan] is believed beyond the present strength of the United States fleet and beyond the present resources of the United States Navy. The strength of the fleet is not sufficient. We cannot at this time, even with Great Britain assuming responsibility for our Atlantic interests, denude the ocean of sufficient forces to protect our coastal trade and to safeguard our more vital interests in South America. Nor can we neglect the protection of our own and the interdiction of Japanese trade in the Southeastern Pacific.

The Army is not now prepared and will not in the future be prepared to support our western advance. The Fleet Marine Force is not sufficient to support the necessary operations alone.²⁰

A month later, on November 22, Stark wrote Richardson a letter which was significant in that it conceded that the fleet at Pearl Harbor was vulnerable. “Much is being done by the Army, and by the Navy in support of the Army, to maintain security of the Panama Canal,” the chief of naval operations stated. “Of at least equal importance is the security of our fleet against sudden destructive attack. And the fleet is, as usually must be the case, in a more exposed situation.”

Adm. Richardson remained in his command only four months after he took issue with Roosevelt. On February 1, 1941, after only thirteen months in a post where the normal tour of duty was two years, he was relieved. His successor, Adm. Kimmel, was designated not only commander-in-chief of the United States fleet, but commander-in-chief of the Pacific fleet, a new command created with his accession.

Richardson reported in Washington to Secretary Knox on March 24, 1941. “When I saw the Secretary,” he related, “I said, ‘In all my experience in the Navy, I have never known of a flag officer being detached in the same manner as I, and I feel I owe it to myself to know why.’ The Secretary said the President would send for me and talk the matter over.”

“Did the President ever send for you?” Richardson was asked.

“He did not.”

“Did you seek a meeting with the President?”

“By no means.”

“Did anything the Secretary say to you indicate to you why you had been detached?”

“He told me, ‘The last time you were here you hurt the President’s feelings.’”²¹

Adm. Richardson was not alone in the belief that the fleet at Oahu served no sensible purpose—that it could neither act as a “deterrent” to Japan, as the administration believed, nor take the offensive from its Pearl Harbor base.

Adm. Stark, said Richardson, supported him. The ousted commander said:

It is my belief that had Adm. Stark been uninfluenced by other considerations, he’d have agreed wholeheartedly with me on that point. His letters show that in many instances. When I was given permission to return one-third of the fleet at a time to the Pacific coast for replenishment of supplies and obtaining additional men, Adm. Stark said that he gave the order “with great pleasure.”²²

Stark, when called to testify, said that he agreed with Richardson originally on the inadvisability of basing the fleet at Pearl Harbor, but by the time Kimmel was appointed commander he was inclined to believe that the fleet, at Hawaii, was a deterrent to Japan. He said that he had had one conversation with Roosevelt in which the question of withdrawing the fleet was discussed. One view, he said, was that withdrawal to the coast, followed by a return to Hawaii, would have diplomatic repercussions.

“Whenever I’m in doubt and don’t know what is best,” Stark quoted Roosevelt as saying, “I find it best to sit tight.”²³

Roosevelt sat tight and the fleet stayed at Pearl Harbor.

Adm. Kimmel, who inherited command from Richardson, said in his testimony before the Roberts Commission:

I knew that the Navy Department and the administration in Washington insisted on keeping the fleet out here. I knew of the vulnerability of the fleet here. I thought it was appreciated in the Navy Department as well as by me, but it was one of the things I felt was beyond my power to change.

I had the choice of saying I would not stay and to get another commander-in-chief, or to remain. Naturally, I wish I had taken the other course at the present time, but I did not.²⁴

Adm. Leahy testified that he “was in complete disagreement” with the school of thought which contended that the fleet, in Hawaii, could exercise a restraining influence on Japan. “It was certainly not a restraining influence,” Leahy said, “if it was not ready for war. I’m in complete agreement with Adm. Richardson on that.”²⁵

Adm. Kimmel said that, because of the depletion of fuel oil reserves, and because he possessed no air cover which would safeguard the fleet if it put to sea, he had no option except to keep his ships in harbor after dispatching his two carrier forces to Wake and Midway Islands on orders from Washington just before the Japanese surprise.* It was also necessary to keep the ships in harbor, he said, so that they could be altered in line with current war experiences.²⁶

Adm. Stark, in turn, said he had no criticism of Kimmel for keeping the remainder of the fleet, including eight battleships, in harbor. There was a difference of opinion in naval circles, he said, as to whether the fleet was safer at sea or in port, where there were harbor defenses and short-range fighter planes for protection.²⁷ From this testimony, it is apparent that the fatal mistake was in sending the fleet to Oahu in the first place. That decision was Roosevelt’s. The minority report of the Joint Congressional Committee (pp. 49-53) observed:

The decision to base the fleet at Pearl Harbor was made by the President in March 1940, over the protest of Admiral Richardson. . . .

When this decision to base the fleet at Pearl Harbor was made, certain definite facts in relation to such base must be presumed to have been fully known and appreciated by the responsible command at Washington.

The base is a shallow-water base with limited base mobility, with no chance for concealment or camouflage and without enough air beaches to properly park the necessary defensive air equipment. Entrance to the base is by a narrow winding channel requiring sorties at reduced speed, and in single file, and presenting the possibility of a blockade of the base by an air or submarine attack on the entrance.

The base is surrounded by high land immediately adjacent to the city of Honolulu, thereby affording full public familiarity with installations and movements within the base at all times.

The base is located on an island where the population was heavily Japanese, and where, as was well known, Japanese espionage was rampant, and making it probable that any defensive insufficiency of any kind or nature would be open to Japanese information.

All of the fuel for the base must be transported, by tanker, from the mainland more than 2,000 miles away, thus intensifying the necessity for complete defensive equipment and supplies for the base.

The waters about Oahu are of a depth facilitating the concealed movement of submarines, and the near approach of submarines to the shore, thereby favoring such methods of hostile attack.

The approaches to Oahu cover a full circle of 360°, with open sea available on all sides.

The situation thus confronting the Pacific fleet upon reaching its Pearl Harbor base seems entirely clear. Before the base could be a safe base, it must be supplied with adequate defense facilities, which facilities must be in kind and amount in relation to the physical characteristics of the base above referred to. An absence of adequate defensive facilities directly increased the peril of the fleet. Since the decision to base the fleet at Pearl Harbor was made at Washington, the responsibility for providing proper base defense for the fleet rested primarily upon Washington. (See Stark letter, Nov. 22, 1940, Tr., Vol. 5, pp. 706 ff.). . . .

The record discloses that with full knowledge of the defense necessities inherent in the defense of the Pearl Harbor base, and with full knowledge of the dangers and peril imposed upon the fleet while based at the Pearl Harbor base, and with full knowledge of the equipment essential to a proper protection of the fleet at such base, it was decided by President Roosevelt to remove the fleet from the mainland bases and base it at Pearl Harbor. . . .

We are forced to conclude, therefore, that in view of the obligations assumed by the government in other military theaters, . . . . and the consequent inability of the government to properly contribute to the safety of the fleet at Pearl Harbor, that the only alternative left which might have relieved the fleet from the resultant peril would have been to have changed the original decision to base the fleet at Pearl Harbor, and thereupon return the fleet to its several mainland bases. It appears obvious that the safety of the fleet would have been helped by such removal. The perimeter of a defense at a mainland base would only be 180° instead of 360°, thus permitting distant patrol reconnaissance by one-half as many planes. The transportation and supply facilities to the mainland base would be immensely improved, as would all necessary communication facilities. The mobility of the fleet at a mainland base would have been improved and the concentration of the fleet in a single limited base would have been avoided. We therefore are of the opinion that the fleet should not have been based at Pearl Harbor unless proper base defenses were assured.

Since no such change in policy was approved, and the fleet remained based at Pearl Harbor without the necessary defense equipment to which we have referred—plus the fact that the precise status of the defense weakness must be assumed to have been open to the unusual Japanese espionage operating in Hawaii, and therefore that the Tokyo war office must be assumed to have been cognizant of the status of affairs at Pearl Harbor, we are forced to conclude that the failure to remove the fleet from Pearl Harbor to the mainland must be viewed as an important relevant factor necessarily involved in the success of the Japanese attack on Dec. 7.

When asked before the congressional committee whether he thought the fleet, at Hawaii, was a deterrent to Japanese aggression, Adm. Kimmel said the Jap attack on the fleet was a sufficient answer to this theory. “They made an attack,” he said. “The facts speak for themselves.”²⁸

*Cf. pp. 17-18.

*Cf. p. 246.

*The two words were capitalized and underscored.

*Cf. pp. 104-16, 367-69.

*The irresponsibility of the State Department in military matters is reflected in the statement in the minority report of the Joint Congressional Committee (p. 29): “The State Department seemed to labor under the impression that the United States could defeat Japan in a few weeks.” The minority adds that the same kind of thinking permeated the annual report of Secretary of the Navy Knox, released December 6, 1941.

*The minority report of the Joint Congressional Committee (p. 54) states: “The fuel reserves were insufficient, limiting full use of the fleet at sea, required constant augmentation from the mainland, and the location of such fuel supplies was such as to make them vulnerable to any raiding attack. The fleet was required to come into the base at frequent intervals to refuel. The facilities at the base made such refueling slow. The fleet was without a sufficient supply of fast tankers to permit refueling at sea, and there was ever present the inescapable fact that a destruction of the fuel supply-would necessarily immobilize the entire fleet.”