Pearl Harbor

Should anyone in the United States government, or military, have known, or suspected, that Pearl Harbor would be attacked? Were significant Japanese military messages intercepted? If so, who knew about them? And when did they know it?

At the end of all the hearings, Rear Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, the Navy's commander in Hawaii, and General Walter C. Short, in charge of the Army Air Corps, were found to lack the "superior judgment" required of high military commanders. But at the time - and now - many people (including Kimmel) vehemently disagreed.

In the Naval Court of Inquiry proceeding (the only hearing where evidence was produced and counsel were present), the court concluded Kimmel and Short were NOT in dereliction of duty. But Navy Secretary James Forrestal, and Admiral Ernest King, disagreed with those court findings and reversed them. Admiral Kimmel's family is still trying to convince Congress to clear his name and restore his four-star status.

What does the evidence show? The foremost historian of Pearl Harbor - the man who devoted 37 years of his life to the subject - was MacArthur's historian, Gordon Prange. After years of reviewing documents, talking with the people involved, and using an objective approach, Prange states his conclusion in Pearl Harbor: The Verdict of History.

Out of the smoke arising from honest debate and sincere scholarship, as well as the miasma exuding from the swamp of buck-passing, political opportunism, and name-calling, two facts emerged: first, the Japanese planned and executed the attack entirely on their own, with no urging, tempting, or backstairs assistance from Roosevelt, Hitler, or anyone else; second, the success of the operation resulted as much from superior Japanese efforts and performance as from American miscalculations and blunders.

Prange found that "miscalculations and blunders" existed from top to bottom. Japanese messages, for example, had been intercepted. The last message before the attack was especially ominous. It had fixed a deadline and instructed Japanese diplomats to destroy their codes.

General Marshall sent a coded message informing the military about this ominous development. But he did not pick up the phone to call Short and Kimmel in Hawaii. Nobody did that, as Admiral Kimmel later told Congress. (Follow the link to see him testify.) By the time the decoded message found its way to the Hawaiian commanders, the attack was over.

Based on the evidence, Prange did not hold Kimmel and Short responsible for dereliction of duty anymore than the Naval Court of Inquiry had. One can fairly wonder why King and Forrestal, despite the evidence, overrode the Court of Inquiry. But that is where the matter stands today.

As recently as 1995, at the request of Kimmel's family, Congress held a hearing on whether the Admiral's status should be posthumously reinstated. The vote in the Senate was close, in Kimmel's favor. By the time the current term in the House of Representatives had expired, however, the issue had not been put to a vote. Kimmel's family has vowed not to drop their quest.

At the end of the analysis, one issue remains very clear. It is stated on page 2 of The Pearl Harbor Papers: Inside the Japanese Plans.

For their part, the Japanese believed they had the right to anything they had the strength to take and, indeed, a divine mandate to rule Asia.

To exercise that military mandate, in Yamamoto's judgment, the American Pacific fleet had to be destroyed.