Chapter 21: 21. 1944: A Year of Investigations

The public was no closer in 1944 to unraveling the mystery surrounding the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor than it had been in January 1942. Even though “a speedy and public trial,” at which Kimmel would have an opportunity to present his side of the story, was “impossible” because of the need for wartime security, Kimmel began to prepare.^[1] Any such hearing or trial would have to depend on the testimony of witnesses with knowledge of the pre-December 7 situation, many of whom, stationed in combat positions from the northern Atlantic to the southwest Pacific, could become war casualties. On Kimmel’s recommendation, therefore, or as a result of his prodding, Secretary Knox issued a “Precept,” or order, instructing retired Admiral Thomas C. Hart, commander-in-chief of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet in the Philippines before the attack, to conduct an inquiry “for the purpose of recording and preserving testimony pertinent to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, T.H., on 7 December 1941.”^[2] Thus Hart was to examine “such members of the naval forces” as were “thought to have knowledge of facts pertinent to the said surprise attack.” It was to be “a sort of one-man board to take testimony.” Hart would soon be contacting Kimmel officially.^[3]

Kimmel had reservations about Hart’s inquiry. Not only could it not be “free and open,” but it was too narrowly focused. It was to be limited to examining “members of the naval forces” concerning events “pertinent to the said surprise attack.” Kimmel pointed out that many non-Navy personnel, Army personnel and civilians, should also be examined. And they should be questioned not only about events “pertinent to the said surprise attack,” but also about “events that took place some time prior to said attack and of events at places not in the Hawaiian Islands that have an important bearing on the actual attack.” The testimony of such persons should also be taken and preserved.^[4] Moreover, Kimmel maintained that he had a right “to be informed of the nature and cause of any accusation” against him.^[5]

Although Knox assured Kimmel that this examination would be “in no sense a trial,” and Kimmel would be “permitted to introduce matter pertinent to the examination, to cross-examine witnesses, etc.,” Kimmel still had qualms.^[6]The legal character of the inquiry was unclear. It would have some characteristics of “depositions,” others of “courts of inquiry,” and still others which were “neither those of depositions or courts of inquiry.” Kimmel’s counsel, Robert A. Lavender, pointed out that it was important that any testimony taken should be “sealed and delivered to the Judge Advocate of the court as custodian and presented to the accused in a reasonable time for examination and to make objections as to the introduction of evidence.” As there was no assurance that the Hart Inquiry testimony taken would be “sealed and . . . held inviolate” until a court martial, or that a witness’s testimony would not be used in a court martial unless he was dead, insane, or could not appear for some other reason,^[7] Kimmel “decline[d] to attend or participate in the proceedings before Admiral Hart.”^[8]

The Hart Inquiry (March 7, 1944–June 15, 1944)

In the course of interviewing naval officers, Hart traveled from Washington, D.C., to New York, San Francisco, Pearl Harbor, the USS Iowa, and the island of Guadalcanal in the southwest Pacific.^[9] Most of the men he questioned had served with Kimmel in Pearl Harbor prior to December 7, 1941, but several had held positions in Washington at the time of the attack and testified from a Washington viewpoint.

By December 1941 there seemed little doubt among those who were following events closely that war with Japan was inevitable. As a matter of fact, in Hawaii on Sunday, November 30, 1941, precisely one week before the attack, banner headlines on page 1 of the Honolulu Advertiser read KURUSU BLUNTLY WARNED NATION READY FOR BATTLE. British-held Singapore was reported on the alert; all troops there had been called to active duty. The Philippines were threatened by Japanese encirclement.^[10] War seemed likely. But all signs pointed to its breaking out thousands of miles from Hawaii, possibly in Singapore or the Philippines.

Hart questioned naval officers who had been at Pearl Harbor during the attack. Witness after witness confessed that he had been no less surprised than Kimmel by the sudden air attack. Practically all the information available to them had directed their attention elsewhere. Generally speaking, they were supportive of Kimmel’s pre-attack decisions and actions.

Rear Admiral W.W. Smith, Kimmel’s chief of staff in December 1941, testified that when he saw the December 3 dispatch concerning the burning of documents by the Japanese at Hong Kong, Singapore, Batavia, Manila, Washington, and London, he had little doubt that they were about to make a “hostile move.”^[11] We had been told that “heavy Japanese movements were on the way to the southard [sic]. It did not occur to us,” Smith testified, “that the attack was coming in our direction.”^[12] “We did expect a submarine attack . . . [but not] an air raid on Pearl Harbor, although plans were made to meet one, as I have said, by the stationing of ships and conditions of readiness.”^[13]

Rear Admiral Arthur C. Davis, who at the time of the attack was serving as fleet aviation officer of the Pacific Fleet, had thought a surprise air attack was “possible.” But he had considered it preventable only “by the most extensive searches and efforts” for which neither the planes nor the men necessary were available in Hawaii. Even under the best of circumstances, Davis said testifying in 1944, when an attack might be expected, it isn’t easy to sight an incoming enemy force.

We have, ourselves, quite often made an attack wherein Japanese search planes failed to sight our forces, even though in many of these cases we know that they were making intensive search flights. In the Guadalcanal landing, as an example, a Japanese search plane, under scattered cloud conditions, came close enough to our force actually to be sighted by long-range telescope from the ENTERPRISE, but failed to see and report the force.^[14]

Due to their dependence on Washington, the men in intelligence in Hawaii had no more reason to expect a surprise air attack on Pearl Harbor than had the men on the Navy’s ships and planes. There were serious gaps in their intelligence.

Captain Edwin T. Layton, fleet intelligence officer at the time of the attack, said intelligence was “evaluated information and a commodity of which you can never have quite enough. . . . [I]t is like a jig-saw puzzle with parts missing; the whole picture is rarely available as important pieces are missing.” He was convinced the State Department must have had information during the pre-attack period “that would have been of value to the Commander-in-Chief.”^[15] On the morning of December 6, when Layton delivered to Kimmel a report on the sightings of Japanese ships in the Gulf of Siam and Camranh Bay, “the thought of attack on Pearl Harbor at that time was very far from most people’s minds.”^[16]

Naval officers questioned by Hart rejected the Roberts Commission’s charge that Kimmel and Short had failed “to confer and cooperate.” Admiral W.W. Smith,^[17] Rear Admiral Walter S. Anderson, commander, Battleships Battle Force, Pacific Fleet,^[18] and Admiral William F. Halsey, commander Aircraft Battle Force and Task Force Two at the time of the attack, all said that their relations were excellent. “Admiral Kimmel . . . personally, spent a great deal of time socially with General Short. In golf, and other forms of exercise. . . . This enabled them to discuss things in an informal way.” But Army-Navy cooperation was common in Hawaii. “At this time, there were many Army officers that went to sea with the task forces to obtain a first-hand knowledge of what the Navy was doing. At the same time, many naval officers went on maneuvers with the Army.”^[19]

Witness after witness supported Kimmel’s claim that he had been handicapped in opposing the Japanese air attack because of too few planes and antiaircraft guns and insufficient personnel. According to Admiral Smith, Kimmel had asked for men “so many times that some members of the Staff advised him that he was only boring the Department. . . . He would ask for 20,000 men; 10,000 to fill vacancies in the Fleet, and 10,000 more for training . . . and the answer he invariably got was that, ‘The men are not available. They are needed in the Atlantic’.”^[20]

Vice Admiral William Satterlee Pye, commander at the time of the attack of Battle Force, United States Pacific Fleet, and commander of Task Force One, testified about the June 1941 detachment of ships from the Pacific to the Atlantic: three battleships, four light cruisers, one squadron of destroyers, and other ships had been transferred earlier, so that “the power of the Pacific Fleet had been materially reduced in order to strengthen the forces in the Atlantic.”^[21]

Witness after witness pointed out that the planes and flight crews available in Hawaii were clearly insufficient for long-range surveillance. Commander Patrick C. Bellinger of Patrol Wing Two estimated “an overall force of approximately 200 planes” (84 planes flying daily) and 252 crews would be required “to conduct a search through 360 degrees, to a distance of at least 800 miles, assuming a 15 mile radius of visibility.”^[22] Given 25-mile visibility, 150 planes and 225 flight crews, flying 16½ hours per day, would be needed to search a radius of 800 miles. The total of 24,750 plane-hours would consume 1,980,000 gallons of gasoline per month and require an average of 82½ engine changes plus 182 spare engines per month. And still the effectiveness of the search would be only about 50 per cent.^[23] The Hawaiian Command then had only 81 planes; nine were undergoing repair, 58 were in commission, and 14 were in the air. However, because of physical fatigue, about two crews are needed for every plane in operation, and the number of flight crews in Hawaii on December 7 fell far short of the number required.^[24]

Rear Admiral (commander at the time of the attack) Willard A. Kitts, fleet gunnery and training officer, U.S. Pacific Fleet, did not think Kimmel was “unduly occupied with training matters to the extent that he lost sight of the other aspects of readiness and security.” He believed the success of the training in gunnery had been

borne out by the splendid performance that the anti-aircraft batteries of the Fleet put forth on the 7th of December. . . . [A]t least twenty-eight planes were shot down by vessels of the Fleet. Not a bad performance for men who had never fired a shot in action and considering the number of guns engaged.^[25]

Bellinger, who had been commander of the Naval Base Defense Air Force, thought it was “foolish to think that such a skeletonized organization,” as the Pacific Fleet was then,

functioning on the basis of cooperation by the Navy and Army Air Forces and set up to be put in motion by special orders or by an emergency occurring, remaining practically non-existent except during periodic drills, could go into action and function effectively at the occurrence of an actual emergency. An organization of this nature to be effective must function twenty-four hours every day, and prior to an air raid not subsequent thereto.

Bellinger testified that he knew of “no man who, under the circumstances, could have done more” than Kimmel did.^[26]

Admiral Halsey pointed out that the problem was one of

balancing security against training and how far he could afford to let his trained men go and still have his Fleet ready for instant action. He was constantly going over in his mind how far this should go. . . . [Kimmel] was very much against the transfer of so many trained men and the influx of so many recruits under the conditions that faced us.^[27]

Kimmel’s task as commander-in-chief was a juggling act. In the light of his orders and available intelligence, he had to weigh the relative importance of training against that of preparations for war; he did not dare overemphasize one to the neglect of the other.

Rear Admiral Wilson Brown, commander of the fleet’s Scouting Force, Task Force 3, spoke well of the fleet’s pre-war training:

[T]he high state of efficiency maintained while doubling the size of our Fleet in two years, the seamanship, gunnery, and fighting ability of our Navy during two years of war reflects [sic] the quality of our naval leadership and of our training processes during the pre-war period as well as during the war period.

The success of the Japanese, Brown held, was not due to laxity on the part of U.S. personnel, but rather to the detailed information the Japanese had about our Fleet.^[28]

Admiral Hart examined nine witnesses who had not been in Pearl Harbor during the weeks before the attack, including several who had then held important positions in Washington and had been privy to especially important pre-attack intelligence —Rear Admiral Ingersoll, assistant chief of naval operations; Rear Admiral Turner, chief of the Navy’s war plans division; Rear Admiral Wilkinson, director of naval intelligence. They were all just as surprised as the Hawaiian officers had been that the Japanese had targeted Pearl Harbor.

Hart caught up with Wilkinson on Guadalcanal in the south Pacific. Wilkinson had taken over as director of naval intelligence in the midst of the October 1941 radical personnel shifts. From Wilkinson’s testimony, Japan’s immediate objective appeared to be “the occupation of [the] southwestern coast of Indo-China, Kampot, and possibly Bangkok, or lower Siam on the Malay Peninsula.” Japanese troop transports and freighters were “pouring continually down from Japan and Northern China coast ports headed South, apparently for French Indo-China and Formosan ports.” Much activity was going on in the Mandates, the mid-Pacific islands under Japanese control consisting of large re-enforcements of personnel, aircraft, munitions, and also construction material with yard workmen and engineers. However, naval intelligence assumed that “the major capital ship strength remains in home waters, as well as the greatest portion of the carriers.”^[29]

The United States was keeping a close eye on the Japanese ship movements, according to Wilkinson, because of the tentative American-British agreement that “any movement beyond certain geographical limits [100 degrees longitude, 10 degrees north latitude] in Southeast Asia” would be considered as “a casus belli for England and as a matter of grave concern for the United States.”^[30] Wilkinson said Turner believed, without specific evidence, “that the Japanese would launch an attack on the Philippines,”^[31] where the U.S. Asiatic Fleet was based. Otherwise, according to Wilkinson, U.S. territory did not appear directly threatened.

Ingersoll told the inquiry that “While the Government could not guarantee that we would enter the war if Japan attacked Great Britain,” in line with the ABC Agreement, “they fully believed that we would do so. In our conversations with the British,” however,

we never could make a firm commitment that at any particular time the United States would enter the war, for the reason that unless we were attacked first the Executive Department did not have the power to put the Country into war.^[32]

Ingersoll testified that the United States was “virtually at war with Germany” in the Atlantic, although without benefit of a war declaration.^[33] “It was felt that Germany was the principal enemy to be disposed of first.”^[34] Nevertheless, Ingersoll said “We felt that the war would be precipitated in the Pacific and that we would only become involved in the war in the Atlantic as a result of war in the Pacific.” As a matter of fact, efforts had been made

to get our merchant vessels out of the Far East and out of the other areas in the Pacific where they could be captured by the Japanese. . . . [T]he Atlantic situation did not preoccupy our attention to the exclusion of the Pacific.^[35]

Ingersoll had anticipated Japan would strike “without a declaration of war.” But that her surprise attacks

would be made against the Philippines and Guam with possibly raiding attacks on our outlying small islands to the westward of Hawaii, and submarine attacks against our shipping around Hawaii. . . . [He did] not recall anyone in Operations representing to Admiral Stark that the war would be precipitated by an air attack on Pearl Harbor.^[36]

Captain Safford’s Testimony

Captain Laurence F. Safford of the security (intelligence) section of the Navy’s communications division, met informally with Hart and related to him from memory some of the information Washington had derived from decrypted Japanese intercepts before the attack. Hart cautioned him against making statements he couldn’t prove and asked him to check the record before returning to give formal testimony.

Safford returned to the Navy Department and looked for the pertinent intercepts. But they were missing! Therefore, when Safford testified formally before the Hart Inquiry on April 29, 1944,^[37] he again spoke from memory and a few notes. However, he was able to recall in considerable detail many of the important Japanese dispatches that had been intercepted, deciphered, translated, and read by top military and administration officials in Washington before the attack.

As early as the spring of 1941 (May 22), they had received “positive proof of Japanese plans for the conquest of Southeastern Asia and the Southwest Pacific.” Further indications of Japan’s plans for aggression in the southwest Pacific and against southeast Asia were picked up in September and October. On November 4, we received information that Japan’s internal situation, both political and economic, was so desperate as a result of the U.S. embargo that the Japanese government had to distract popular attention by a foreign war or by some bloodless diplomatic victory. We learned on November 12 that the Japanese government regarded November 25 as the deadline for negotiations then being conducted in Washington. It was obvious that Japan was preparing for offensive military operations of some nature.

The pace of the urgent intercepts picked up toward the end of November. On November 24, 1941, we learned that November 29 was

definitely the governing date for offensive military operations of some nature. We interpreted this to mean that large scale movements for the conquest of Southeast Asia and the Southwest Pacific would begin on that date, because, at that time Hawaii was out of our minds.^[38]

On December 1 U.S. officials learned that Japan was going to attack Britain and the United States. Then on December 4 we “received definite information . . . that Japan would attack the United States and Britain, but would maintain peace with Russia.”^[39]

At 9:00 p.m. (Washington time), December 6, 1941, we received positive information that Japan would declare war against the United States, at a time to be specified thereafter. This information was positive and unmistakable and was made available to Military Intelligence at this same time.^[40]

Because this information was so important, it “was distributed as a rush job by Lieutenant Commander Kramer.”

Much of the December 6 information was distributed over the telephone by Admiral Wilkinson and by Secretary Hull. The following officials were given this information that night: President Roosevelt (via the White House Aide), Secretary Hull, Secretary Stimson, Secretary Knox, Admiral Stark, Rear Admiral Turner, Rear Admiral Wilkinson, Rear Admiral Beardall. Lieutenant Colonel R.S. Bratton, U.S. Army, was given the same information at 9:00 p.m. [December 6] for dissemination to War Department officials, and we did not know any more, except that he got a copy over to Secretary Hull by 10:00.^[41]

Finally, at 10:15 a.m. (Washington time), December 7, 1941, we received positive information from the Signal Intelligence Service (War Department) that the Japanese declaration of war would be presented to the Secretary of State at 1:00 p.m. (Washington time) that date.

Before that message was presented to the secretary of the Navy, Kramer appended a note to the effect that “1:00 p.m. Washington time was sunrise in Hawaii and approximately midnight in the Philippines, and this indicated a surprise air raid on Pearl Harbor in about three hours.”^[42]

According to Safford, two specific messages received in Washington before the attack gave pretty clear indications that Japan intended to declare war on the United States. The “Winds Message,” intercepted December 4, was “regarded . . . as definitely committing the Japanese Government to war with the United States and Britain.”^[43] And the message received in the evening of December 6 constituted “positive information that Japan would declare war against the United States, at a time to be specified thereafter.”^[44]

Hart: Is there any documentary report which shows the date and hour of delivery of the foregoing information to various officials?

Safford: There is no documentary evidence.

Safford was testifying, he said, on the basis of his “recollection of Lieutenant Commander Kramer’s verbal reports.”^[45] Records of all the Japanese intercepts had been made and filed at the time, but in 1944 Safford could find no copies whatsoever.

Hart: Was any of the foregoing information, under dates of November and December, 1941, disseminated by the main Washington unit direct to the corresponding unit in Fourteenth Naval District [Hawaii]?

Safford: No, sir. That was not permitted by a written order then in force; but there was one exception. On the 3rd of December, I prepared OpNav Secret Dispatch 031855. . . . In sending this information, I was overstepping the bounds as established by approved war plans and joint agreement between Naval Communications and Naval Intelligence.

This information was sent to Manila for action and it was routed to Pearl Harbor for information.^[46] It reported the Japanese government’s orders to its emissaries throughout the world to destroy their codes and code machines.^[47] Hawaii could not possibly have gained this information through their own efforts. The dissemination of such intelligence was the duty, responsibility, and privilege of the Office of Naval Intelligence, not of Safford’s Communications Intelligence Unit.^[48]

This was Safford’s first testimony before a Pearl Harbor investigation; he had not been asked to testify before the Roberts Commission. His revelations were startling. No one appearing before Roberts had hinted at the availability of such intelligence as Safford described. And of the Washington witnesses questioned by Hart, only Turner and Ingersoll had said anything that might have been interpreted as referring to the Japanese intercepts.

Safford appeared to know what he was talking about, but he was unable to produce copies of any of the Japanese messages to support his testimony. Almost three years had passed since he had actually seen any of the intercepts he was describing. How much, if any, of Safford’s detailed testimony could be believed? Safford’s memory could be playing tricks on him.

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Secretary of Navy Knox died suddenly of a heart attack on April 28, 1944, while the Hart Inquiry was in progress. James V. Forrestal, then undersecretary of Navy, was sworn in as his successor on May 19.^[49]

Hart concluded his inquiry on June 15 and adjourned “to await the action of the convening authority.”^[50] The testimony of witnesses was recorded and submitted with the several documents and exhibits introduced to Forrestal.

Safford Finds the Missing Intercepts

After testifying at the Hart Inquiry, Safford continued his search for the intercepts. But he was unsuccessful; all copies seemed to have disappeared. Safford was mystified. Finally someone told him about a packet of papers in a Navy safe labeled “P.H.” Perhaps that contained the documents he was looking for. It did! It contained an almost complete set of the missing Japanese intercepts. Safford then had copies made and restored to the files.^[51]

No one has ever been able to explain how the four original copies of each intercept produced for the government’s Army and Navy permanent files and held under tight security had been lost or destroyed. Apparently this one set of intercepts survived

because of a series of coincidences. On December 9, almost immediately after the attack, Navy Secretary Knox flew to Hawaii to investigate the damage done by the Japanese. He didn’t return until December 14. Hawaii was then a territory, not yet a state. With the secretary out of the country, Undersecretary James V. Forrestal became acting secretary. Forrestal had known nothing of “Purple” and had not been privy to MAGIC. On assuming the responsibilities of secretary, he asked to be briefed. Therefore, apparently on orders of Admiral Noyes, director of naval communications, Lieutenant Commander Kramer, Japanese translator and Navy courier, assembled for Forrestal a special folder of intercepts and other papers “relative to the break in diplomatic relations with Japan.”^[52] Because of Safford’s familiarity with the traffic, Kramer had gone over the folder with Safford to check for completeness.^[53] Then both Commander McCollum of Far East intelligence and Kramer briefed Forrestal, “explaining the significance of the various messages”^[54] and “the way things shaped up from this traffic.”^[55]

When Knox returned and Forrestal was relieved of his position as Acting Secretary, his bundle of intercepts must have been tossed in a safe and forgotten.

Court Martial Deadline Extended

The tides of war had shifted by this time. The Allies were preparing to launch a second front in Europe. The Axis powers were on the defensive both in Europe and in Asia. Many people, Republicans and some anti-New Deal Democrats, were beginning to ask why, after all this time, it was still necessary to maintain secrecy about the Pearl Harbor attack. Why couldn’t the truth be told? Was the administration trying to hide something?

Safford had told Kimmel about the important Japanese intercepts. But except for what he had learned about them from Rochefort in 1942,^[56] Kimmel had only Safford’s word that they had ever existed. Even so, Kimmel didn’t want to lose the chance of having his day in court. Whenever anyone asked him about his possible court martial, he always replied that he was ready; he had always wanted “a free, open and public hearing.”

“In the critical years following Pearl Harbor,” Kimmel had understood why he “had to bear, in silence, the burden of shame heaped upon [him] by the report of the Roberts Commission and by published interpretations of that report.” However, he felt that now, with our armed forces on the offensive on all fronts, he owed it to his family, friends, and the public to make it clear that he wanted

a trial by Court-Martial at the earliest practicable date. . . . To be held under a shadow of blame for an additional prolonged and indefinite period is intolerable. The public has a right to know what happened.

And he, Kimmel, had “an American’s right to [his] day in court.”^[57]

Kimmel sent his attorney, Charles B. Rugg, and his assistant, Edward B. Hanify, to Washington in the spring of 1944, to try to have Congress extend the deadline for his court martial. After a rather heated debate, Congress approved another six-month deadline extension and, at the same time, passed a joint resolution calling for investigations of the Pearl Harbor attack by both the Army and Navy.^[58]

FDR signed the joint resolution against the advice of Secretary of War Stimson and Knox. In signing, he stated that he was sure

the Congress did not intend that the investigation . . . should be conducted in a manner which would interrupt or interfere with the war effort. On the strength of this confidence I have approved the resolution.^[59]

Thus, by appearing to approve further investigations of Pearl Harbor, the politically astute president succeeded in shifting the responsibility for any delay to his secretaries.