How We heard

The attack on Pearl Harbor, 81 years ago today.  I had just turned five years old, too young to understand what had happened, and what would be happening for four years after that,  which would have an impact on so many generations thereafter.

We heard it on the radio. On Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese military staged a surprise raid on the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, a possession of the United States. In that single attack, 2,403 United States military and civilians lost their lives, and another 1,100 were injured. Our military also lost numerous aircraft and naval vessels.

Franklin Roosevelt was President of the United State and the next day gave a radio address. In his address to a joint session of Congress, Roosevelt described the day of the attack as “a date which will live in infamy.” Less and an hour later, Congress declared War on Japan and the United States entry into World War II became realty.

The first thing my mother did was have us all kneel down and say the rosary together. She told us that more than ever, everyone else needed our prayers, not only us.

Pearl Harbor?

None of us knew much about Hawaii or why American ships were there, let alone why another nation would bomb them and cause such devastation. It was a little island called Oahu in the US possession. Our Navy had first established a base there in 1899, shortly after the government of the Hawaiian kingdom was overthrown. Though our Navy was there primarily to protect fishermen in the whaling trade, it soon became a primary base for the US Pacific Fleet.

We had no air defense there…why would we? It was the beginning of an age of air power. Yet our nation’s leaders knew of impending threats to the United State and received warnings to be alert for anything that would force us to enter the war that was devastating other parts of the world.

And we certainly never heard anything about Four Star Admiral Husband Kimmel or Army Lt. General Walter Short, his army counterpart in charge at Pearl Harbor.

Admiral Kimmel

Admiral Kimmel, a native of Kentucky the son of a West Point graduate who at first fought for the Union, but switched do defend fellow Southerners in the Civil War. The Admiral was a graduate of the Naval Academy and was the commanding officer at Pearl Harbor in 1941.

Ironically, he was assigned there to replace Admiral James Richardson. Richardson had been relieved of duty 10 months earlier in part for protesting that the Pacific fleet based at Pearl Harbor would be the first logical target in the event of a war with Japan.

Admiral Kimmel had a reputation of being a hard worker, an inspiration to his subordinates, and a stickler for detail. Officers and enlisted men under him called his leadership “at the highest level,” or “the ideal man for the job” of leadership, a description Admiral Bull Halsey used to describe him.

At the same time as Richardson, Adm. Kimmel wrote to the Chief of Naval Operations that “I feel that a surprise attack (submarine, air, or combined) on Pearl Harbor is a possibility, and we are taking immediate practical steps to minimize the damage inflicted and to ensure that the attacking force will pay.”

Ten days after the attack, Admiral Kimmel was relieved of duty

At the time he was in the midst of planning and executing retaliatory moves, including an effort to reinforce Wake Island, which had seen a clash between American Japanese ships. His plan was deemed to be too risky; however, Wake Island was shortly thereafter invaded and occupied by the Japanese.

The Roberts Commission

The following year, The Roberts Commission appointed by Roosevelt to investigate the Pearl Harbor attack, determined that Admiral Kimmel and Gen. Short  were both guilty of errors in judgment and dereliction of duty. Both were demoted and relieved of their duties.

In 1944, James Forrestal was Secretary of War and ordered a Naval Court of Inquiry to investigate the attack and to assess who in the Navy should bear the blame.

Naval Court of Inquiry 

That court, comprised of admirals, interviewed numerous witnesses and concluded Kimmel’s decisions were correct, given the limited information available to him at the time.  Instead, it criticized the Chief of Naval Operations Harold Stark for failing to warn Kimmel that war was imminent. The court concluded that  “based upon the facts established, the Court is of the opinion that no offenses have been committed nor serious blame incurred on the part of any person or persons in the naval service.”

That report was never made public since it also revealed that American cryptographers had broken the Japanese codes, a critical wartime secret.

Secretary Forrestal however felt Kimmel could have done more with information he had, and once again concluded both Kimmel and Stark  “failed to demonstrate the superior judgement necessary for exercising command…”

Kimmel Retired

Kimmel had already retired, in early 1942, and was working for a military contractor in Groton Connecticut.

Two years later, his son, Manning was commanding officers of the USS Robalo, a submarine sunk in July 1944. While the first notice to the family was that Manning went down with the ship, it was later said he was with a handful of survivors from the sub who had been swept overboard as the boat sank after hitting a mine.  He was captured by Japanese forces, pushed int a ditch, doused with gasoline and burned alive.

Admiral Chester Nimitz

In 1964, Admiral Chester Nimitz, who was named Commander of the Pacific Fleet three weeks after Dec. 7,  told a reporter  “God’s mercy that our fleet was in Pearl Harbor on December 7.”  If Kimmel “had advance notice that the Japanese were coming, he most probably would have tried to intercept them. With the difference in speed between Kimmel’s battleships and the faster Japanese carriers, the former could not have come within rifle range of the enemy’s flattops. As a result, we would have lost many ships in deep water and also thousands more in lives. Instead, at Pearl Harbor, the crews were easily rescued, and six of eight front-line battleships ultimately raised.”

Attempts to Clear Kimmel

In 1994 Kimmel’s family tried to have Adm.  Kimmel’s four-star rank reinstated. President Bill Clinton denied the request, as had Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan during their earlier terms.  A 1995 Pentagon study concluded other high-ranking officers were also responsible for the failure at Pearl Harbor, but did not exonerate Kimmel.

On May 25, 1999, the United States Senate, by a vote of 52–47, passed a non-binding resolution to exonerate Kimmel and Short and requested that the President of the United States posthumously restore both men to full rank

Senator Strom Thurmond, who sponsored the resolution with other Senators,  called Kimmel and Short “the two final victims of Pearl Harbor.”

The Senate inquiry in 2000 issued a lengthy exoneration of Kimmel’s conduct. President Clinton did not act on the resolution, nor have any of his successors.

Admiral Kimmel died in Groton, Conn, in May 1968 and is buried at the US Naval Academy Cemetery in Annapolis, Maryland.

Similar Stories

Heroes

Hometown hero