Chapter 28: 28. Joint Congressional Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack November 15, 1945–May 31, 1946: Part 2 Safford On the Trail of the “East Winds Execute”

Outside the doors of the Committee’s hearing room, Captain L.F. Safford continued to pursue the fate of the missing Pearl Harbor documents. Safford played a crucial role in the several investigations. It was Safford who first called Kimmel’s attention to the fact that Washington had received information through Japanese MAGIC intercepts, information that had not been shared with the Pearl Harbor commanders. It was Safford who discovered that the intercepts were missing. It was Safford who finally located most of them and had them copied and replaced in the files where they belonged. However, he was never able to locate one particular intercept that he considered crucial. This was the “Winds Code Execute,” with the coded weather words “East Wind Rain,” announcing that the United States would be involved in Japan’s intended aggression from the very beginning.

Safford described to the Congressional Committee in considerable detail the procedure which had been followed to prevent knowledge of MAGIC and especially of the “Winds Code Execute” from becoming known. A copy of this winds execute message should have been in the files of Safford’s division, in the locked safe of then Commander, now Captain, Kramer. The personal or immediate custodian was Lieutenant Commander Harrison, U.S. Naval Reserve. Safford explained that the only people who had access to Captain Kramer’s safe were those on duty under Captain Kramer. Everything was normally cleared through Commander Harrison. There were not more than ten people at the most—translators and the yeomen on duty in Kramer’s section, the head of the section, Safford, or the officer who relieved Safford; or it is possible that the Director of Naval Intelligence might have called for files at any time. Any higher authority would have been given the files without question if he had requested it.^[1]

Safford: To the best of my knowledge the combination to the safe was held by Kramer and Harrison alone. There was a copy of the combination in a sealed envelope in my safe. There was another copy of the combination in a sealed envelope in the safe of the Aide to the Chief of Naval Operations. That was required for all safes in naval operations, so in case of casualty to the man who regularly opened the safe the safe could be opened when we had to. . . . I know of no occasion when we ever had to open those sealed envelopes, and enter the safe. I might add, whenever an officer was relieved, we changed the combination on his safe and substituted the new cards, and that was the only time we ever had to get into those envelopes.^[2]

Safford had appeared as a witness before the Hart inquiry, the Navy Court of Inquiry, the Army Pearl Harbor Board, and the Hewitt inquiry. He expected to be called again to testify if Congress should decide to investigate further after the war ended. Therefore, as arrangements were being made to set up the congressional committee in the fall of 1945, he continued his search for the missing “Winds Execute,” which he was convinced had been received.

Because of the erratic performance of radio waves and atmospheric disturbances, Safford knew that the best chance of intercepting the Tokyo broadcasts at the scheduled times in November-December 1941 would have been on the east coast of the United States. His recollection was that the “Winds Execute” had been picked up on December 4, at Station “M” of the communication intelligence group (ComInt) in Cheltenham, Maryland, and then transmitted by telewriter to Safford’s office, OP-20-G, in Washington, D.C.^[3]

As Safford went through the files, he ran across the initials “RT” on some of the Cheltenham intercepts. Every code clerk had his own personal “sign,” initials by which the messages he intercepted could be identified. Safford discovered that “RT” was the “sign” of Chief Warrant Officer Ralph T. Briggs, who had been stationed in Cheltenham on December 4, 1941, and who, in 1945, was back in Washington at one of the offices of Naval Security’s group command headquarters. Safford phoned Briggs and asked him to come to his office.

Even though the war was over and the JCC was revealing a great deal about MAGIC, Briggs was still security conscious. He knew that the press was trying to discredit Safford as the one person who continued to insist that the “Winds Code Execute” had been received before the Japanese attack and that it had indicated war with the United States and Great Britain. None of the persons who, Safford claimed, had seen the message on December 4 or 5 had come forward to support his position.

Because of security considerations, Briggs was reluctant to talk. However, when Safford showed him some of the information he had found, Briggs “began to feel that this man knew what he was talking about.” He realized Safford desperately needed support. Briggs wanted to help. The two men met several times. Briggs told Safford he had picked up the “Winds Code Execute” in Morse code.^[4] Safford asked Briggs if he would be willing to testify before the JCC. “Yes,” he replied, “I’d be glad to.”

Some time after that meeting, Captain John S. Harper, the commanding officer of the Naval Security station to which Briggs was then assigned, summoned Briggs to his office. Briggs described Captain Harper later as “very much chain-of-command oriented, strictly a line officer.” He wanted strict decorum, regulation uniform at all times, none of this running round in public with hats off as men did in the Army and Air Force. He was “a gung-ho officer in all respects.”

Harper confronted Briggs.

“I understand that you have been seeing Captain Safford.”

“That’s right.”

“On what authority?” Harper asked. “I’m the commanding officer of this station. Yet, I had no knowledge of that meeting. Why didn’t you inform me?”

“Why, I didn’t know you needed to know, Captain.”

Harper continued: “It is my understanding that he has asked you to testify.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Well, for your information,” Harper said, “you are not to testify. I can’t give you the reasons at this time, but some day you’ll understand why. . . . I know you must be interested in helping Captain Safford but at this point in time too much damage has already been done. Much too much has been revealed. I want you to understand that you are not to testify and that’s it! I don’t want you to meet with Captain Safford anymore. Do you understand?”

Briggs was shocked, shaken up. But he obeyed Harper’s orders; he felt he had to. He assumed Safford must have contacted somebody on the committee, suggested Briggs as a potential witness, and told where he could be located. When Briggs got back to his office, he phoned Safford. At first, Safford greeted his announcement with stunned silence. Then he said, “Well, I’m sorry to hear that.”^[5]

However, Briggs had supplied Safford with the confirmation he had been seeking for so long; the Japanese had actually implemented before the attack the false weather report “East Wind Rain,” indicating trouble of some sort, possibly war, with the United States as well as with England. But Safford realized that he wouldn’t be able to use Briggs’s name.

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When the committee reconvened on January 14, 1946, there were still several important witnesses to be heard—notably Short and Kimmel, Safford, and the Army and Navy couriers Kramer and Bratton, respectively.

Admiral Husband E. Kimmel— Upon Appointment as CinC Begins Readying Fleet for War

Kimmel was the lead-off witness after the new legal staff took over. He began by reading a prepared statement to the committee. He said he realized the fleet was vulnerable at Pearl Harbor, but he had accepted the decision as “an historical fact.”^[6]

The fleet was not then ready for war. So, Kimmel said, he set out through “an intensive training program to make it ready.”^[7] As noted, there were shortages in Hawaii of planes, especially for reconnaissance and long-range attack, shortages also of plane crews and of antiaircraft guns.^[8] Kimmel visited Washington in June 1941 and discussed the matter with Stark. He also had some conversations on the subject with the president, who was “fully cognizant” of the problem.^[9] By that time the fleet had been substantially weakened by the shift to the Atlantic of a large contingent of ships, about one quarter of the fleet. Kimmel told the committee he “felt that a strong Pacific Fleet was a real deterrent to Japan,” but that “a weaker [fleet] might be an invitation” to attack.^[10] According to his statement, Kimmel had argued vehemently against still further transfers, and in that he had prevailed.^[11]

Kimmel’s dilemma, given the situation, had been to decide how best to employ the fleet’s limited ships, planes, antiaircraft guns, ammunition, other equipment and supplies, as well as his men so as to fulfill his several responsibilities. Under questioning by the committee’s legal staff Kimmel again reviewed the situation that faced him as commander of the Pacific Fleet—not only the shortages of men and supplies but also the conflicting and confusing intelligence he had received, the need to develop a trained force of fighting men, and the difficulty of reconciling Washington’s recommendations for still further reductions in fleet strength with his instructions to prepare for offensive action as called for under the war plan, WPL-46.

Kimmel said he had written CNO Stark and Chief of the Bureau of Navigation Nimitz again and again of the dangerous conditions created by the shortage of qualified aviators and “the continued detachment of qualified officers and enlisted men” needed if the fleet were “to reach the high state of efficiency demanded by a campaign.” He could not spare “any considerable number of qualified officers from the Fleet without assuming an enormous risk.”^[12] Every action has its cost, of course. The transfer of ships to the Atlantic in mid-1941 reduced the strength of the Pacific Fleet. Passing 26 B-17s, the planes most suitable for reconnaissance,^[13] through Hawaii on their way to the Philippines, outfitting them with crews, guns and ammunition, did not improve Pearl Harbor’s reconnaissance capabilities; at times it even reduced them as, Short testified later, Hawaii had had to relinquish some of its own B-17s for the benefit of the Philippines.^[14] Nimitz had warned Kimmel (March 3, 1941) that the enactment of lend-lease would make the supply situation still worse; it would bring about an “enormous—almost astronomical”—demand for ordnance supplies for the British Navy and Allies.^[15] As a matter of fact, 1,900 planes were sent abroad from February 1 to December 1, 1941 (about 1,750 of them going to the British), and 1,900 antiaircraft guns were distributed under lend-lease (some 1,500 of them going to the British). That meant 1,900 fewer planes and 1,900 fewer antiaircraft guns available to improve Pearl Harbor’s defenses.^[16]

Kimmel’s Dearth of Information

Kimmel may have found it difficult to obtain clear instructions and to procure the men and materiel needed to build the fleet to fighting strength, but probably his chief complaint was lack of information. In his dual capacity as “the commander in chief of the United States Fleet and the commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet,” he said he felt he was “entitled to every scrap of information they had in Washington.” It need not have been supplied in full, he said; it could have been sent in summarized form. But he felt he was entitled to “all the essential information which had to do with the Pacific situation.”^[17] According to Kimmel, he had received during July 1941 at least seven dispatches quoting intercepted Japanese messages. As a matter of fact, he had been given the impression that they were sending him all the important information available. Yet little or none of the information gleaned from later intercepts was furnished Kimmel.^[18]

Kimmel had “tried to impress on the Navy Department” that what he “needed out there was information . . . information upon which to base my actions.” He had recognized “the vulnerability of the fleet largely due to the fact that we had only one base [at Pearl Harbor] and to the limitations of fuel and other things.” Further, he had “hoped and believed that the information would come . . . in time to at least alleviate the situation.” Having pointed out the problem, he said, he “accepted the risks.”^[19]

Later when questioning Kimmel, Representative Gearhart agreed that, rather than being a deterrent, keeping the fleet at Pearl Harbor had actually proved to be “a direct invitation to the Japanese Government to come there and put our fleet out of commission.” If it had been stationed on the west coast, as Richardson had recommended, the added distance would have made a Japanese attack more difficult. Moreover, the west-coast location, with a land mass on one side, would have simplified the task of reconnaissance; U.S. air patrols would have had to survey only a radius of 180°, not 360° as in Hawaii.^[20]

After receiving the November 27 “war warning” and the November 29 notice describing the practical end of U.S.-Japanese negotiations, Kimmel said he received no further news from Washington on the relations between the two countries and was

left to read public [newspaper] accounts of further conversations between the State Department and the Japanese emissaries in Washington which [in contradiction of the Washington messages] indicated that negotiations had been resumed.^[21]

He also said that between November 27 and the attack, there was in Washington “a rising intensity in the crisis in Japanese-United States relations apparent in the intercepted dispatches.”^[22] He itemized some of the dispatches he had not seen at the time but had since learned about. For instance, there was the intercept concerning the “concealed Japanese plans which automatically went into effect on November 29.”^[23] The Navy Department had also known, Kimmel said, of the false weather broadcast, “East Wind Rain,” indicating a break in Japanese-U.S. relations.^[24] He cited several intercepts that had been picked up, decoded, and translated during this period asking the Japanese consulate in Hawaii for information on “the berthings of ships in Pearl Harbor.”^[25] These intercepts, Kimmel said, were only some of the significant indications of crisis that had been available in Washington between November 27 and December 7.

When questioning Kimmel, Gearhart quoted a two-part Tokyo-Berlin message of November 30 that had been intercepted, decrypted, and translated, and that had been available in Washington on December 1. In that message Japan reassured Germany that “the Imperial Government adamantly stuck to the Tri-Partite Alliance as the cornerstone of its national policy.” The United States had taken the stand, Tokyo told Berlin in part one of this dispatch, that

As long as the Empire of Japan was in alliance with Germany and Italy, there could be no maintenance of friendly relations between Japan and the United States. . . . [I]t has become gradually more and more clear that the Imperial Government could no longer continue negotiations with the United States. It became clear, too, that a continuation of negotiations would inevitably be detrimental to our cause.

In part two of this dispatch, Tokyo told Berlin that one particular clause in the note the United States had handed the Japanese ambassadors on November 26 was especially “insulting.” That clause meant in effect that “in case the United States enters the European war at any time the Japanese Empire will not be allowed to give assistance to Germany and Italy” in accord with their Tri-Partite Alliance.

This clause alone, let alone others, makes it impossible to find any basis in the American proposal for negotiations. What is more, before the United States brought forth this plan, they conferred with England, Australia, the Netherlands, and China—they did so repeatedly. Therefore, it is clear that the United States is now in collusion with those nations and has decided to regard Japan, along with Germany and Italy, as an enemy.^[26]

Kimmel said the Navy Department had realized that “the high point in the crisis in Japanese-American affairs would be reached when the Japanese reply to the American note of November 26 was received and the Department had been looking for it ever since that date.”^[27]

Kimmel’s Instructions: Carry out War Plan 46

Stark’s November 27 “war warning” had advised Kimmel that

an aggressive move by Japan is expected within the next few days. The number and equipment of Japanese troops and the organization of naval task forces indicates an amphibious expedition against either the Philippines Thai or Kra Peninsula or possibly Borneo. Execute an appropriate defensive deployment preparatory to carrying out the tasks assigned in WPL46.^[28]

Washington’s attention was apparently focused on southeast Asia, and Kimmel’s attention was also directed there by this “war warning.”

Kimmel testified that also on November 27, the Navy Department “suggested that I send from the immediate vicinity of Pearl Harbor [to Wake and Midway] the carriers of the fleet which constituted the fleet’s main striking defense against an air attack.” That same day, he said, the war and navy departments

suggested that we send from the island of Oahu, 50 percent of the Army’s resources in pursuit planes. . . . In these circumstances no reasonable man in my position would consider that the “war warning” was intended to suggest the likelihood of an attack in the Hawaiian area.^[29]

Kimmel found his pre-attack instructions most confusing, presenting him with a “Do-Don’t” situation. The November 29 Navy message had told him that “the United States desires that Japan commit the first overt act. . . . [U]ndertake such reconnaissance and other measures as you deem necessary but these measures should be carried out so as not repeat not to alarm civil population or disclose intent. . . . Undertake no offensive action until Japan has committed an overt act.”^[30] Army Message #472 of November 27 had given similar instructions to Short.^[31]

Kimmel explained:

The Pacific Fleet was based in an area containing over 130,000 Japanese, any one of whom could watch its movements. You can appreciate the psychological handicaps orders of this kind placed upon us. In effect, I was told:

Do take precautions.

Do not alarm civilians.

Do take a preparatory deployment.

Do not disclose intent.

Do take a defensive deployment.

Do not commit the first overt act.

One last feature of the so-called “war warning” dispatch remains to be noted. This is the directive with which it closed:

Execute an appropriate defensive deployment preparatory to carry[ing] out the tasks assigned in WPL-46.

Under WPL-46, the first task of the Pacific Fleet was to support the forces of the Associated Powers (Britain, the Netherlands, and the United States) in the Far East by diverting enemy strength away from the Malay barrier.^[32]

The “Malay Barrier” was defined in WPL-46 as “the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Java, and the chain of islands extending in an easterly direction from Java to Bathurst Island, Australia;”^[33] it encompassed Borneo, New Guinea, the Kra Peninsula, the Kra Isthmus, which was a Malay State, and also British Singapore.^[34]

According to Kimmel,

The Navy Department emphasized this instruction [to divert enemy strength away from the Malay Barrier] by repeating it on November 29. The dispatch of that date directed:

Be prepared to carry out the tasks assigned in WPL-46 so far as they apply to Japan in case hostilities occur.

Thus in two separate dispatches I was ordered by the Navy Department to have the Pacific Fleet ready to move against the Marshalls upon the expected outbreak of war in the Far East.

This was a determinative factor in the most difficult and vital decisions I had to make thereafter. There was not a hint in these two dispatches of any danger in the Hawaiian area.^[35]

On the one hand, Kimmel had been instructed to “Undertake no offensive action until Japan has committed an overt act,” that is to sit and wait. And on the other hand he had been ordered to continue preparing to go on the offensive against the Japanese in the Marshall Islands—as called for in the war plan.

United States-British Military Agreement?

In view of this country’s policy of cooperating with the British, it was imperative that the field commanders be advised of any U.S. agreements or commitments that would involve them and the military forces under them. During the months preceding the attack, Kimmel had questioned Stark repeatedly as to what the United States would do and what Kimmel’s responsibilities as commander-in-chief of the Pacific Fleet would be if the Japanese attacked the British and Dutch in southeast Asia without striking U.S. territory. To help him make his own judgments, he pressed Stark to keep him posted as to diplomatic and military affairs affecting the situation.

On May 26, 1941, Kimmel wrote Stark:

Full and authoritative knowledge of current policies and objectives, even though necessarily late at times, would enable the Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Fleet to modify, adapt, or even re-orient his possible courses of action to conform to current concepts.

He asked that he “be immediately informed of all important developments as they occur and by the quickest secure means available.”^[36]

During the summer of 1941 after Germany, Britain’s enemy, had attacked the U.S.S.R., which then became Britain’s new ally, the concern became whether or not Japan, Germany’s ally under the Tri-Partite Alliance, might attack Russia’s maritime provinces on the Asiatic coast west of Japan, just north of Korea. Kimmel continued to press Stark for information.

On July 26 Kimmel asked specifically about “the U.S. attitude towards Russian participation in the war.” What role if any would the Pacific Fleet have to play

between the U.S. and Russia if and when we become active participants. . . . (1) Will England declare war on Japan if Japanese attack Maritime Provinces? (2) If answer to (1) is in the affirmative, will we actively assist, as tentatively provided in case of attack on N.E.I. [Netherlands East Indies] or [British] Singapore? (3) If answer to (2) is in the affirmative, are plans being prepared for joint action, mutual support, etc.?^[37]

In October Kimmel learned from a traveler who had visited “Singapore, Manila, Java, Dutch East Indies, Australia and New Zealand” that “if Japan attacks Russia the British Empire will declare war on Japan. . . . [T]he Dutch East Indies would follow Great Britain.” On October 29, Kimmel asked Stark, “If they do embark on such an adventure and Britain and the Dutch East Indies declare war on Japan, what will we do?”^[38]

On November 7, Stark wrote Kimmel: “Things seem to be moving steadily towards a crisis in the Pacific. Just when it will break, no one can tell.” Stark’s “principal reaction” was that “it continually gets ‘worser and worser’! A month may see, literally, most anything.”^[39]

On November 14, Stark sent Kimmel a copy of the November 5 memorandum he and Marshall had sent the president.^[40] In that memorandum, Stark and Marshall had written:

The only current plans for war against Japan in the Far East are to conduct defensive war, in cooperation with the British and Dutch, for the defense of the Philippines and the British and Dutch East Indies. . . . War between the United States and Japan should be avoided while building up defensive forces in the Far East, until such time as Japan attacks or directly threatens territories whose security to the United States is of very great importance.^[41]

The closest thing to a reply that Kimmel received to his several requests for information as to how the United States would respond if the British and Dutch were attacked was Stark’s postscript to a November 25, 1941, letter: “Neither [FDR nor Hull] would be surprised over a Japanese surprise attack. From many angles an attack on the Philippines would be the most embarrassing thing that could happen to us.” Some think such an attack “likely,” Stark said, but he did not “give it the weight” others did. He “generally held that it was not time for the Japanese to proceed against Russia. . . . [Rather he looked] for an advance into Thailand, Indo-China, Burma Road area as the most likely.” He said he wouldn’t

go into the pros or cons of what the United States may do. I will be damned if I know. I wish I did. The only thing I do know is that we may do most anything and that’s the only thing I know to be prepared for; or we may do nothing—I think it is more likely to be “anything.”^[42]

Later when Gearhart questioned Kimmel, he supported Kimmel’s reasoning that Washington expected the Japanese to move against the Philippines and/or southeast Asia, thousands of miles west of Hawaii. Gearhart considered this consistent with the jurisprudential interpretation “ejusdem generis rule,” namely that “A general statement followed by a specific limitation, always limits the interpretation in the courts to the things of the same character of the specific things mentioned.”^[43] In other words, the general statement in the November 27 “war warning” to the effect that “an aggressive move by Japan is expected within the next few days” was limited by the specific statement that followed indicating “an amphibious expedition against either the Philippines Thai or Kra peninsula or possibly Borneo.”^[44]

Kimmel Had Been Told Little or Nothing re U.S.-British Military Agreements and Japanese Threat in Southeast Pacific

The U.S. Pacific Fleet’s task under the war plan was to support the forces of the “Associated Powers,” i.e., the United States, the British Commonwealth, and their allies, “in the Far East by diverting enemy strength away from the Malay Barrier,”^[45]—the imaginary line connecting the Malay Peninsula, via Sumatra, Java, and the various islands to the east extending to Bathurst Island, just off the north-central coast of Australia. When Ferguson’s turn came to question Kimmel, the senator devoted most of the time to trying to find out whether information available in Washington had been relayed to him, what the United States’ interest in the Malay Barrier was, and what commitments, if any, the United States may have made to the British and Dutch.

When Ferguson questioned Kimmel he summarized Turner’s earlier JCC testimony on the situation in the western Pacific. Turner (Navy War Plans) had said that he

believed that we would be attacked, definitely . . . [i]n the Philippines and if we were attacked in the Philippines I knew it would be war. I thought it would be war if we were not attacked, I thought it would be war if they attacked the British and the Dutch, but there would have been some delays possibly.

Ferguson said,

In other words, if they [the Japanese] attacked the British and the Dutch alone you thought it meant war and [you made] a distinction that if they attacked the Dutch, the British, and the Americans at the Philippines it did mean war.

Turner had agreed with Ferguson’s summary.^[46]

Ferguson: [W]ere you aware that Admiral Turner had informed the Japanese Ambassador . . . July 23 or 24, that the United States would not tolerate, in view of its policy of aiding Britain and its interpretation of self-defense, a Japanese threat to the Malay Barrier?

Kimmel: I did not know that he had made any such statements.^[47]

Ferguson: Now if you would have had that information in relation to Admiral Turner’s conversation . . . never disputed as far as Turner was concerned and he was never called on the carpet, or it was never taken up with him that he was wrong . . . if you had known of that would you then have known the policy of America in case of an attack upon the Malay Barrier?

Kimmel: It would have been most helpful to me and if I had known all the circumstances and the fact that that was the policy of the Government; yes, it would have helped immensely.^[48]

Ferguson: Well, were you ever told that Admiral Stark was called to the White House by the president on July 24 and that then he heard a statement by the president to Japan to the effect . . . that if Japan attempted to get Dutch oil by force, the British and Dutch would fight and there would then result a most serious situation between the United States and Japan?

Kimmel: I don’t remember ever having been informed of that conversation. . . . No, sir.^[49]

Ferguson: Well, were you advised that responsible leadership was intercepting secret Japanese messages wherein the Japanese Ambassador was advising his Government that it must expect armed opposition from Great Britain and the United States should Japan move against the Malay Barrier?

Kimmel: I was never informed of that.^[50]

Ferguson: Well, were you aware from your own judgment, like Admiral Stark and Admiral Turner have stated here, that Anglo-Dutch-American embargoes on Japan oil supplies, regardless of their justification for such embargoes, constituted an actual and a logical cause of war with Japan?

Kimmel: Well, I thought that the embargoes would irritate Japan considerably and I knew about the embargoes.

Ferguson: Well, did you think it would irritate them enough, as has been stated by Admiral Stark, that we should have anticipated war over that?

Kimmel: Not necessarily; no.^[51]

Ferguson: Well, now, were you advised that on August 17, when the president returned from the Atlantic conference [with Churchill], that the president called the Japanese Ambassador to the White House and told him in diplomatic language, and it was rather blunt and in writing, that a Japanese threat or show of force against the Malay Barrier or any movement in the Pacific would compel the United States immediately to take any and all steps necessary to protect our rights?

Kimmel: No, sir, I did not know about that.^[52]

Ferguson: Now, did that task [diverting enemy strength away from the Malay Barrier as prescribed in the U.S. war plan] depend upon your first knowing that America was in the war by virtue of an attack or declaration of war?

Kimmel: It did. I had no authority to act until I received definite word from my Government. . . . Had the Japanese made an attack on the Kra Peninsula, had they made an attack on Java, I would have been unable to do anything until I got orders to move.^[53]

On September 11, 1941, President Roosevelt had issued a “shoot-on-sight order” to U.S. Navy ships aimed at German ships and submarines operating within areas in the Atlantic considered “vital to American defense.” Kimmel noted that similar orders had been issued the Southeast Pacific Force “for surface raiders east of 100° west,” that is, about 700 miles off the western coast of South America. Kimmel wrote Stark on September 12 asking whether this “shoot-on-sight order” applied also to the rest of the Pacific.^[54]

The threat of Japanese action, Kimmel wrote,

coupled with current rumors of U.S.-Japanese rapproachement [sic] and the absence of any specific reference to the Pacific in the president’s speech, leaves me in some doubt as to just what my situation out here is.

Kimmel asked Stark specifically,

What orders to shoot should be issued for areas other than Atlantic and Southeast Pacific sub-areas? This is particularly pertinent to our present escorts for ships proceeding to the Far East. So far, my orders to them have been to protect their convoy from interference; to avoid use of force if possible, but to use it if necessary. These orders, at least by implication, preclude taking the offensive. Shouldn’t I now change them to direct offensive measures against German and Italian raiders?

Because of the delicate nature of our present Pacific relations, Kimmel felt Stark was “the only one who can answer this question.”^[55]

Kimmel had also asked “what to do about submarine contacts off Pearl Harbor and the vicinity.” His orders at that time were “to trail all contacts, but not to bomb unless you are in the defensive sea area. Should we now bomb contacts, without waiting to be attacked?”^[56]

In his letter Kimmel expressed fear that FDR’s emphasis on the Atlantic might lead to “a possible further weakening of this Fleet. A strong Pacific Fleet is unquestionably a deterrent to Japan—a weaker one may be an invitation” to attack. Before the JCC Kimmel testified that he believed the maintenance of the “status quo” in the Pacific was

almost entirely a matter of the strength of this Fleet. It must [not] be reduced, and, in the event of actual hostilities, must be increased if we are to undertake a bold offensive. . . . Until we can keep a force here strong enough to meet the Japanese Fleet we are not secure in the Pacific—and the Pacific is still very much a part of the world situation.^[57]

Ferguson asked Kimmel whether he had known that the Japanese ambassador to the United States, the Japanese foreign minister, and Japanese press had indicated that they expected the United States to proceed in the Pacific as it had in the Atlantic with a “shoot-on-sight” order. Kimmel said he had never heard anything to that effect. As a matter of fact, because of the correspondence he had had to the effect that we “did not want to tackle two wars at once,” he had gotten the impression that the government wanted to confine the war to the Atlantic; “we did not want to go into the Pacific.” He thought the United States was doing all it could to keep out of war in the Pacific. Prior to December 7 he had not believed “that war was imminent. . . . or that we were in any way forcing the war.” So he had not considered that “the Japanese would expect us to take any such action in the Pacific as had been taken in the Atlantic.”^[58]

On September 23, 1941, Stark replied to Kimmel. For the present, he wrote, “the president has issued shooting orders only for the Atlantic and Southeast Pacific sub-area. The situation in the Pacific generally,” Stark said, “is far different from what it is in the Atlantic.” Kimmel’s “existing orders to escorts are appropriate under the present situation. They are also in accordance with Art. 723 U.S. Navy Regulations: no orders should be given to shoot at the Present Time, other than those clearly set forth in this article. . . . Art.723, U.S.N.R. reads as follows:

The use of force against a foreign and friendly state or against anyone within the territories thereof, is illegal.

The right of self-preservation, however, is a right which belongs to States as well as to individuals, and in the case of States it includes the protection of the State, its honor, and its possessions, and the lives and property of its citizens against arbitrary violence, actual or impending.

Stark talked with Hull before sending this letter and added a postscript. Hull asked that the letter be held “very secret.” Stark summed up Hull’s comments by saying “that conversations with the Japs have practically reached an impasse,” and Stark could see no chance for a “settlement and peace in the Far East until and unless there is some agreement between Japan and China—and just now that seems remote.”^[59]

By this time, the Japanese were “rapidly completing withdrawal from world shipping routes.”^[60] The United States also issued orders to ships to avoid areas where they might encounter Japanese ships. On October 16, 1941, all U.S. merchant ships,^[61] and on October 17, 1941, all U.S.-flag shipping^[62] were directed to keep to the southward through the Torres Straits between the northern coast of Australia and the southern shores of the island of New Guinea, and to keep “well clear of Orange [Japanese] mandates taking maximum advantage of Dutch and Australian patrolled areas.” By October 23, ships carrying U.S. Army and Navy troops and military cargo were being escorted both ways between Honolulu and Manila.^[63]

On November 5, 1941, Marshall and Stark had sent a joint memorandum to the president. There they admitted that the U.S. Fleet in the Pacific was then “inferior to the Japanese Fleet and cannot undertake an unlimited strategic offensive in the Western Pacific.” To do so

it would have to be strengthened by withdrawing practically all naval vessels from the Atlantic except those assigned to local defense forces. . . . The result of withdrawals from the Atlantic of Naval and merchant strength might well cause the United Kingdom to lose the Battle of the Atlantic in the near future. . . . The only current plans for war against Japan in the Far East are to conduct defensive war, in cooperation with the British and Dutch, for the defense of the Philippines and the British and Dutch East Indies. The Philippines are now being reinforced.

Marshall and Stark reaffirmed that the “basic military policies and strategy agreed to in the United States-British Staff Conversations remain sound. The primary objective of the two nations is the defeat of Germany.”

In this memorandum Marshall and Stark urged that war between the United States and Japan “should be avoided while building up defensive forces in the Far East, until such time as Japan attacks or directly threatens territories whose security to the United States is of very great importance.” Stark and Marshall closed with a clear and unmistakable joint recommendation: “That no ultimatum be delivered to Japan.”^[64]

On November 18 Kimmel was advised that “[u]ntil international conditions on and subsequent to 25 Nov. become defined and clarified . . . any further direct or great circle routing between Hawaii and Philippines should not repeat not be used.” And he was authorized to place a Dutch ship, Bloemfontein, in a convoy with American-flag vessels.^[65]

Ferguson: Do you know why they used the date there “subsequent to November 25”? . . . Did you ever know that we had a message that we intercepted from the Japs showing that the dead line [sic] date [for the Japanese ambassadors to complete their negotiations with the United States] was the 25th of November?

Kimmel: No, sir, I never had anything like that. . . . I do not know what November 25 meant, but I was concerned . . . with the orders I received to put the Bloemfontein in the convoy with American-flag vessels. . . .

Ferguson: Do you think the fact that we put that ship into our convoy would indicate that we were taking parallel action? Did you take it as such?

Kimmel: My memory is not entirely clear, but I think we had some matériel, or personnel, or something on this ship that we wanted to get through, on the Bloemfontein. . . . I do not recall . . . just what it was. On one of these Dutch ships that we used, we had some fliers that were going out to China.^[66]

Ferguson: Well, now, what kind of an order do you interpret that [to put a Dutch ship in an American convoy] to be?

Kimmel: The way I interpret that order is that you would go in betwixt an attacking force and a Netherlands ship and if they shot at you. . . . Why, I would probably shoot back.

Ferguson: Well, then, that would create at least an incident, would it not, an international incident?

Kimmel: Yes, sir, it probably would.

Ferguson: And there would be little use then of talking about the first overt act, wouldn’t there?

Kimmel: Well, the Japs would have shot first.

Ferguson: I see. Even though you would have run between the mark that [they were] shooting at and that wasn’t our mark, that did not belong to this country, you would consider under those circumstances that the Jap shot first?

Kimmel: I would have to know all the circumstances first.^[67]

Ferguson then asked Kimmel if he had ever “been advised what the task of the Pacific Fleet should be in the event of an outbreak of war in the Pacific which did not involve a Japanese attack directly on American possessions.”^[68] This was precisely what Kimmel had been trying to find out for some time—without success.

Ferguson: Well, were you fully aware on November the 27th that the Japanese had concentrated for an attack upon the Malay barrier?

Kimmel: I was so informed. . . .

Ferguson: Well, were you aware that such an attack, even the obvious preparation for it, was a direct defiance of the formal and explicit warning against such movement given by the United States [August 17, after the FDR-Churchill meeting at Argentia]?

Kimmel: I did not know of the formal and explicit warning given by the United States.^[69]

Ferguson: You were advised by Admiral Stark [Stark letter of November 25] after he had a conference at the White House that he was damned if he knew what the United States was going to do should Japan attack the Malay Barrier without at the same time attacking possessions of the United States. . . . Now, between the date of that letter and its receipt you had been instructed, had you not, to prepare to attack the Marshalls after Japan had committed an overt act against the United States. . . . Now, in the manner of ordinary naval strategy, would the Japanese expect an attack by the Pacific Fleet on the Marshalls in the event the United States should implement its direct and specific warning to oppose a Japanese movement against the Malay Barrier?

Kimmel: Yes, I think they probably would expect attacks on the Marshalls.^[70]

Ferguson: Did you know then that the presence of this Japanese force before the approaches to Singapore required the responsible leadership in Washington to act immediately or to back down from the former position it had taken with Japan as of Sunday, August the 17th, 1941?

Kimmel: No, sir; I did not.

Ferguson: Well, if you had known that, would this fact that they were moving toward the Kra Peninsula [have] made a difference with your action? . . . Well, . . . you had nothing before you, had you, that the United States Government intended to back down from any stand or any policy that it had?

Kimmel: No, sir; I did not.

Ferguson: Well, then, if the policy was such that we should have anticipated that if they attacked the Kra Peninsula it would mean war with America, should we not have then at the same time anticipated a co-attack on America?

Kimmel: That would appear to be reasonable; yes, sir.

Ferguson: Well, do you know why no one seems to have anticipated that if they attacked the Kra Peninsula they would not also attack America at the same time?

Kimmel: No, sir, I do not.

Ferguson: Well, at any time after November the 25th, 1941, did the chief of naval operations, that is Admiral Stark, advise you that instead of being damned if he knew what the United States was going to do in the event that Japan attacked the Malay barrier after by-passing American positions, he did know what the United States was going to do? You see, he wrote you that letter on the 25th.

Kimmel: If he had informed me that he knew what the United States was going to do and what they were going to do, it would have been of great assistance to me.^[71]

Ferguson: Did you know that the president by direct order [OPNAV message December 2, 7 p.m. Washington time, to CINCAF, Hart, CinC, Asiatic Fleet, Philippines^[72]] had ordered three ships to go into the Gulf of Siam or off the Coast of China to watch for this [Japanese convoy] movement into the Kra Peninsula?

Kimmel: No, sir; I did not.^[73]

Kimmel said he had known “that the commander in chief of the Asiatic [Fleet] had been ordered to send some planes over to scout,” but he had not known about the ships. However, Kimmel thought that was “a perfectly natural thing” to do if “we wanted to know what the Japanese were doing; . . . whether they would come to the Philippines or not.”

Ferguson pointed out that the stations the three small vessels were to assume, as specified in the message were located well to the west of the Philippines, almost directly in the projected paths of the southbound Japanese convoys sighted by our overflights. According to the message, they were “to observe and report by radio Japanese movements in west China Sea and Gulf of Siam.” How would this tell us, Ferguson wanted to know, whether or not the Japanese were coming to the Philippines?

Ferguson pointed out also that the message specified that these three small ships were to comply with “Minimum requirements to establish identity as U.S. men-of-war.” The president had even given exact instructions what that meant: “command by a naval officer and to mount a small gun and 1 machine gun would suffice.”

Ferguson: Now, if you had known of this message of the president, from OPNAV to CINCAF . . . would that have indicated to you an answer to that question as to what we were going to do in case of an attack upon the Malay Peninsula?

Kimmel: It would have been useful information. It would have still been short of any authoritative statement of what our intentions were.^[74]

After receiving on December 3 Stark’s November 25 letter concerning the possibility of a Japanese surprise attack—on the Philippines—or what was more likely, a Japanese advance against the Thailand-Indochina-Burma-Road area,^[75] Kimmel had certainly not visualized U.S. naval action in the Pacific like that in the Atlantic. However, in his testimony Kimmel had to admit that, judging from the intercepts Ferguson was showing him, that Japan might well have expected the United States to follow its Atlantic strategy if the Japanese got into a war with England.^[76]

Ferguson called Kimmel’s attention to a State Department, Far Eastern affairs division, document of December 4, 1941, which told of the British attempt to make arrangements with the Japanese government to withdraw or exchange British and Japanese officials and nationals in the territory of the other in the event of British-Japanese hostilities.^[77] One sentence in this document concerned whether the United States should not also, “while we are not at war” with Japan, try to make a similar agreement with the Japanese. Ferguson, reading:

Such attempt might, at this time, be advisable also in that it would be definite indication to the Japanese Government of the firmness of the American position in the present crisis and would be one means of impressing upon the Japanese Government the seriousness with which we view the present situation.

Ferguson: Now, that being true, that coaction there would indicate to the Japanese government that we were acting with Britain . . . shouldn’t we have anticipated that if they attacked one they would attack both?

Kimmel: I think that is reasonable; yes, sir.

Ferguson: All right. Now we go to the end [of the document] and it is signed by “M.M.H.” who, I understand, is Maxwell M. Hamilton [chief, division of Far Eastern affairs] . . . and they are speaking now about getting [American] nationals out of Japanese territory in China before the declaration of war, before the shooting starts, and I will read:

As the making of such an approach would be interpreted by the American public as a definite indication that this government expects war between Japan and the United States, the Secretary may wish to speak to the president in regard to the advisability of this Government’s making such an approach at this time.

Ferguson (continuing): Now, that is dated on December the 4th, 1941. . . . Now, from all that you have learned, wherein the messages were intercepted, and was known in Washington, have you any doubt that war was imminent and that we knew we were going to war?

Kimmel: I have no doubt, sir.

Ferguson: Well, then, did you get this message . . . [indicating] that we did not want the American public to know that we were going to war?

Kimmel: I received no such message; no, sir. . . .

Ferguson: Well, you were told . . . you were to do nothing that would arouse the population of Hawaii to indicate that we were going to war?

Kimmel: That was contained in messages which came to me; yes, sir.^[78]

Ferguson: Now, would it be correct to say that your first and your chief objective in the event of an American-Japanese war was an attack upon the Marshall Islands to divert the Japanese from the Malayan barrier which comprised vital possessions of the Dutch and the British, who would be our allies?

Kimmel: Yes, sir. . . . That was if and when we got into the war.

Ferguson: Well, now, would the attack on the Marshalls accomplish the chief purpose of the American war plan that you then had, if that attack occurred after Singapore had fallen to the Japanese?

Kimmel: That would have been a little late. . . .

Ferguson: That would have also been late after the Japanese had gone into Borneo and Java, would it not?

Kimmel: Yes, sir.

Ferguson: Well, now, was the Marshall operation and its value contingent upon it being undertaken before the Japanese had breached the Malay Barrier?

Kimmel: Well, certainly before they had had a chance to take those land areas which comprise the Malay Barrier. It had to draw the forces away in time, before they had conquered that country and before they had gone down there really.

Ferguson: Well, now, is that why you were interested in the movement and why the United States was interested in the movement south? . . . And did you also want to know what you were to do in case you were sure that they were going south?

Kimmel: Yes, sir.

Ferguson: And did you ever find that out prior to the attack on the 7th?

Kimmel: What I was to do? . . . No, sir; not definitely.

Ferguson: Well, now you come back to those words “Not definitely.” Did you ever find any information on it?

Kimmel: No. . . . I wanted to know what we were to do. I did not find out.^[79]

Ferguson then showed Kimmel the message from U.S. Ambassador John G. Winant in London announcing the presence of two Japanese convoys of about 60 ships off Cambodia Point. This dispatch had been received in the State Department on December 6 at 10:40 a.m.^[80] Ferguson asked Kimmel if anyone in Washington had advised him on December 6 “that a Japanese invasion fleet of sixty-some vessels had been sighted and was within a day or 14 hours . . . of striking distance of the approaches to Singapore . . . the so-called Winant message.” Kimmel said he didn’t think he had received that message, although he had received similar information on December 6, through a copy of a message from Hart to OPNAV in Washington. That message pointed out that a 25-ship convoy with cruiser and destroyer escorts had been sighted heading west toward Kohtron [Koh Rong?] on the west coast of Indochina, not very far from the Thai border. Because of what the Navy Department had told Kimmel, he thought the Japanese were probably “concentrating their forces over there to go into Thai.” Thirty additional ships and one large cruiser had been spotted by Hart’s scouting force in Camranh Bay on the east coast of Indochina.^[81]

Ferguson wanted to know from Kimmel

why in the world would they send you that message? That was another power. We were a separate and distinct nation. . . . America is an independent and sovereign power. Why were we concerned if we did not have a war plan in relation to that attack? . . . I realize . . . you were trying to find out what we were going to do? . . . And you told us now that you never did find out. . . . You were positive about that, that you never got an answer as to what we were to do.

Kimmel: The last answer I had on that subject before the attack was . . . Admiral Stark’s letter of November 25, which I received on December 3.^[82]

Ferguson then asked Kimmel if he had known that Hart in the Philippines had gotten word from Singapore on December 6 to the effect that the British had “received assurance of American armed support” under several eventualities—if the Japanese attacked them; if the Japanese attacked the Dutch; or if the Japanese attacked Siam or the Isthmus of Kra and the British and Dutch went to their defense. Obviously this would mean that the United States’s Asiatic Fleet would be asked to assist the British in Singapore.^[83] Hart had been sending out “flying missions” to observe the movements of the Japanese convoys. He had conferred in Manila with British Admiral Thomas S.V. Phillips on how best to coordinate U.S. and British efforts and had reported to Washington their arrangements for cooperating.^[84] However, the news from Singapore that the British had “received assurance of American armed support” was a surprise to Hart. He wired Washington for instructions.^[85] Turner prepared a reply for Hart. “It was still in the process of drafting at the time of the attack,” Turner said. He believed that it “was prepared in the forenoon of the 7th.”^[86]

Ferguson: So someone knew here in Washington before the attack came what was to be sent to Admiral Hart in reply to his inquiry, whereas you had made a similar inquiry and, as I understand it, you had no information sent to you, that you received, or sent to you that you did not receive, prior to the attack. . . . At least, Admiral, you didn’t know of this reply to Admiral Hart?

Kimmel: My recollection is that I didn’t know anything about that until after the attack.^[87]

December 7th Last-Minute Message Didn’t Reach Kimmel Until After the Attack

The “One p.m. Message” had been intercepted and was available in Washington between 7:00 and 9:00 a.m. (1:30–3:30 a.m. in Hawaii). Yet it was not until almost noon that Marshall drafted and sent his last-minute message advising Kimmel and Short of the deadline. For security reasons it was not transmitted by scrambler phone, the fastest means then available, lest it be intercepted by the Japanese. It did not reach Kimmel or Short until hours after the attack. Ferguson referred to this message when questioning Kimmel.

Ferguson: [H]ow could the fact that General Marshall or Admiral Stark would have alerted you on Sunday morning, say between 7:00 and 9:00 [Washington time], that that message was received, how could the intercepting of that message by the Japs have changed the situation? . . . [S]uppose the Japanese fleet had learned at 7:00 in the morning, that is 7:00 our time, on Sunday, which was . . . 5-1/2 hours before their ships came in, their airplanes came into Hawaii? . . . Suppose that they had flashed to that fleet the fact that the Hawaiian Islands were fully alerted and knew that there was something going to happen and our ships would have gone out, how would that have interfered with the Japs other than probably to have stopped them coming in?

Kimmel: I don’t understand how it would have interfered in the slightest degree. . . . I cannot understand why I did not get . . . that information.^[88]

On January 21, 1946, after testifying for six days, Admiral Kimmel was excused by the committee. Kimmel agreed with Vice Chairman Cooper that he had been given a “full, ample, and complete opportunity . . . to present my side of the matter.”^[89]

General Walter C. Short: The Attack Surprised Pearl Harbor—Also Washington

Finally on January 22, General Short was given an opportunity to tell his story. At the time of the attack, Short had been commanding general, Hawaiian department. Like Kimmel, he had appeared before the Roberts Commission and had to appear there alone, without counsel. Also like Kimmel, he had not been permitted to hear or cross-examine other commission witnesses.^[90]Short had not even been allowed to hear or cross-examine witnesses before the Army Pearl Harbor Board (APHB), as Kimmel had before the Navy Court of Inquiry (NCI), the Navy’s counterpart. And he was not allowed to see the Japanese MAGIC intercepts, copies of which the APHB obtained on October 6, 1944, at the very end of its hearings.^[91] Short’s military counsel, Brigadier General Thomas H. Green, was eventually allowed to see them, although not to comment on them to Short; Green’s role was limited to giving Short advice.^[92] The APHB did furnish Short with a copy of its hearings, except for the TOP SECRET parts concerning MAGIC.^[93]

Short was not a West Pointer; he had gone into the Army after graduating from the University of Illinois in 1901. He served in the Philippines and Alaska. From March 1916 to February 1917 he was in Mexico with the Pershing expedition, and he served in France and Germany for two years during World War I. Back in the States, he held various positions—on the Army general staff and at Forts Leavenworth and Benning. He also held several command positions, organizing and commanding Army brigades, divisions, and corps, and directing soldiers and National Guard troops in maneuvers. When he took over as commanding general of the Hawaiian department on February 7, 1941, he was promoted to lieutenant general. He served until after the December 7 attack, when he was relieved of his command (December 17). When he retired on February 28, 1942, he was reduced to a major general.^[94]

Like Kimmel, Short began his testimony before the JCC with a lengthy prepared statement. His remarks paralleled Kimmel’s to some extent in that he testified that he had received neither the equipment he had requested nor the information to which he, as commanding general, felt he was entitled.

Short said he had had only a brief conference with Marshall before he assumed command of the Hawaiian department. Marshall had not then told him of any of “the probable dangers in the Hawaiian Department” although he had written him “a long letter on the day that I assumed command detailing his idea of my mission.”^[95] Marshall wrote on February 7, 1941:

The fullest protection for the Fleet is the rather than a major consideration for us, there can be little question about that. . . . Please keep clearly in mind in all your negotiations that our mission is to protect the base and the Naval concentrations

at Hawaii.^[96] In this letter, Marshall also discussed the personal characteristics of Kimmel, who was then taking over command of the fleet.^[97]

Short’s primary responsibility had been different from Kimmel’s. Kimmel’s task had been to prepare the fleet for offensive action. Short’s principal task, he testified, was defensive,

to defend the Island of Oahu from surface attacks, air attacks, sabotage, internal disorders such as uprisings, with particular attention to the defense of Pearl Harbor and of the fleet when in harbor,

always of course with the support and assistance of the Navy.^[98]

During his tour of duty in Hawaii, he and Marshall exchanged letters (26 pages in the printed hearings), cables, telegrams, and radiograms (eight pages).^[99] Their correspondence was relatively brief, compared with that of Kimmel and Stark during the same period—113 pages of letters in the printed hearings and 14 pages of cables, telegrams, and radiograms.^[100] In his communications Short reported shortages of men,^[101] planes, B-17s, interceptors, fighters, torpedo bombers, antiaircraft guns, machine guns,^[102] and radar equipment.^[103] Marshall’s letters dealt primarily with military “housekeeping” details—the construction of airfields, roads, trails, a recreation camp, antiaircraft artillery, the aircraft warning service (radar), preparations for air and ground defense, etc; they contained little information concerning the international situation. It was the War Department’s responsibility to keep Short informed, and he said he did receive department messages from time to time.^[104] But those messages were often conflicting and confusing, especially compared with those sent to Kimmel by the Navy during this period and then relayed by Kimmel to Short.^[105] One charge made against Short was that the attack had taken him by surprise because he had not been prepared. He pointed out that even the officials in Washington who had had access to the Japanese intercepts had not expected the attack; rather they had expected the Japanese to aim at the British and Dutch in the southwest Pacific. When the news reached Washington, top officials from FDR, Hull, and Stimson on down all expressed surprise.

Army Judge Advocate General (JAG) Myron C. Cramer was forced to admit that Short had not been alone in failing to anticipate an attack. His

nonfeasance or omissions were based on an estimate of the situation which, although proved faulty by subsequent events, was . . . made or concurred in by all those officers in Hawaii best qualified to form a sound military opinion. That estimate was that an attack by air was in the highest degree improbable.^[106]

Short quoted Cramer’s November 25, 1944, comments on the APHB report:

[S]ince the War Plans Division had received substantial information from the Intelligence Section, G-2, the Board argues that had this additional information been transmitted to Short it might have convinced him not only that war was imminent but that there was a real possibility of a surprise air attack on Hawaii.^[107]

The JAG went on to blame Gerow for “Failure to appreciate the significance” of the intercept messages which were available in Washington and for “a lack of the type of skill in anticipating and preparing against eventualities which we have a right to expect in an officer at the head of the War Plans Division.”^[108]

From time to time G-2 issued special estimates of the military situation. The Far Eastern parts of these estimates were always prepared initially by Bratton in the Far Eastern section of the military intelligence service. Information from the service’s other geographic sections was incorporated and discussed. Then the estimate was presented to General Miles, chief of military intelligence service, for approval or revision.^[109]

On November 29 the intelligence branch prepared such an estimate (I.B.159), which the whole division, including Miles himself, considered “perhaps the most important we had ever gotten out,” not so much because of

the danger that we saw from Japan, although danger in that field was pretty thoroughly discussed, but primarily because Gen. Miles wished to focus War Department thought on the defeat that could be administered to the Nazi powers.^[110]

This estimate, Short testified, contained no mention of “Japan’s potential capability against Pearl Harbor” because neither General Hayes A. Kroner, chief of the intelligence branch, G-2, “who [according to Short] was responsible for maintaining information and for the preparation of estimates as to probable action,”^[111]nor others in his branch “had any information which would lead [them] to believe that they [the Japanese] were capable of or planned” such an attack.^[112] Apparently the Army’s military intelligence service (G-2) did not expect an attack on Hawaii any more than had the top Washington officials. In other words, Pearl Harbor was omitted from G-2’s estimates not because it was too “obvious” to mention, as Miles testified before the committee,^[113] but because, even with all the information it had, it did not believe Japan was capable of making such an attack.

Kroner, who had helped prepare this estimate, remembered it distinctly because “when the word came through the radio on that fateful Sunday, December 7, that Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor, I was sitting in my office in the Munitions Building reading from this paper.” He felt “that Japan’s potential capability against Pearl Harbor was left from this estimate because neither Col. Betts nor I had any information which would lead us to believe that they were capable of or planned” such an attack.^[114]

The imminence of crisis was becoming apparent in Washington. Yet the War Department, Short said, failed to relay that sense of urgency to him. And he had received no intimation from Washington that Hawaii might be attacked. He explained that he had been led to think that the Japanese were not going to attack Hawaii in that he had received no warning such as had been sent his predecessor in June 1940. At that time, Short explained in a statement, Marshall alerted then-Commander General Herron of a possible “trans-Pacific raid” scare.^[115] Herron had then taken all necessary precautions. After a month Marshall authorized Herron to relax the alert provisions except insofar as they pertained to sabotage and the maintenance of readiness.^[116] Short said he had expected that “if the Chief of Staff once again had information causing him to expect a ‘trans-Pacific raid’ against Oahu, he would follow the course he had previously set as an example.”^[117]

Short’s Attention Directed Westward

It was obvious that Japan’s forces were heading south around Indochina and toward southeast Asia—Singapore, Malaya, and the Dutch East Indies. The information sent Short by the War Department, he said, had always pointed in that direction, toward “an attack to the Southwest Pacific, and including the Netherlands East Indies.”^[118]

Short had been told that the Philippines might be threatened. He knew the United States was doing its best to build up its Philippine defenses. B-17s were being flown there from the States via Hawaii. The planes were being outfitted in Hawaii, and crews were being trained there. Then guns and crews, he said, were being sent in the B-17s on their way to the Philippines.^[119] At times, some of Hawaii’s own Army B-17s had even been flown out there, thus depleting the Army’s fleet of planes in Hawaii. “We had 21 B-17’s at one time,” Short said,

and 9 of those were sent to the Philippines and we were down to 12, and had to rob 6 of those of parts to keep the others going through. . . . They were ferrying in the last few months everything to the Philippines they could.

Still other types of planes “were shipped through [to the Philippines] on transports.”^[120] But it was not only planes that were being sent out there. Short said that

a few days before December 7, I had a wire from the War Department asking me if I would be willing to ship forty-eight 75-millimeter guns and 120 30-caliber machine guns to the Philippines.

Short had agreed. The War Department said the planes and guns would be replaced very soon.^[121]

He quoted the few telegrams or cable “warnings” he had received from Washington after assuming command.^[122] A War Department dispatch on July 8 advised him that

deduction from information from numerous sources is that Japanese Govt has determined upon its future policy . . . one of watchful waiting involving probable aggressive action against maritime provinces of Russia. . . . Opinion is that Jap activity in the south will be for the present confined to seizure and development of naval army and air bases in Indo China, although an advance against the British and Dutch cannot be entirely ruled out.^[123]

Short thought that July 8 message, “when they were pointing out action of the Japanese against Russia, was a rather definite prediction, and was the only prediction that the War Department ever made direct to me.”^[124] Short said that “at no time after July 8 did I ever have an Army message that indicated any probable line of action by the Japanese.”^[125]

He said he was advised on October 16, through a Navy message to Kimmel, that “hostilities between Japan and Russia are a strong possibility. Since the U.S. and Britain are held responsible by Japan for her present desperate situation there is also a possibility that Japan may attack these two powers.”^[126] On October 20 Short had a message from the War Department that appeared to conflict. “Tension between United States and Japan remains strained,” it said, but according to the War Department’s estimate of the Japanese situation, “no repeat no abrupt change in Japanese foreign policy appears imminent.”^[127]

Short also testified that on October 17 one of Short’s intelligence officers, Lieutenant Colonel George W. Bicknell, had prepared a report on the situation. “Following the principles of defeating one opponent at a time,” he had written,

it is believed that Japan, if faced with certain British military resistance to her plans, will unhesitatingly attack the British; and do so without a simultaneous attack on American possessions, because of no known binding agreement between the British and Americans for joint military action against Japan, and that the American public is not yet fully prepared to support such action. However,

Bicknell continued, “it must be evident to the Japanese that in case of such an attack on the British, they would most certainly have to fight the United States within a relatively short time.”^[128]

“What do you understand by ‘binding agreement?’” Ferguson asked. “To be binding,” Short said, “it should be approved by the Congress.” He thought Bicknell “might have meant simply any agreement that had been made and approved by the president, and not made public, something that the president expected to set forth in the Senate.”^[129]

Ferguson recalled that “we weren’t consulted on the question of the shooting orders in the Atlantic. . . . Congress didn’t say anything about that.”^[130] Short said he knew that the Navy Basic War Plan, Rainbow No. 5, had been “drawn up with the idea apparently that when it went into effect we would be allied with Britain and the Dutch.”^[131] However, Short said he “felt at that time that the American public would not have been willing to have an agreement ratified that we would go to war to defend the Netherlands East Indies or Singapore.”^[132]

On November 24 he said he received, through Kimmel, a Navy Department message stating that “a surprise aggressive movement in any direction including attack on Philippines or Guam is a possibility.”^[133]

Then on November 27 Short said he received War Department radiogram No. 472 notifying him that “Negotiations with the Japanese appear to be terminated to all practical purposes. . . . Japanese future action unpredictable but hostile action possible at any moment.” Short was told that “If hostilities cannot comma repeat cannot comma be avoided the United States desires that Japan commit the first overt act.” Short was “to undertake such reconnaissance and other measures as you deem necessary . . . so as not comma repeat not comma to alarm the civil population or disclose intent.”^[134] In response, he alerted for sabotage and so notified Washington. Otherwise he received no Army warning of likely Japanese action or message giving diplomatic or military background that would have enabled him to judge the situation in the Pacific for himself.

Short Not Advised of Available Evidence of Imminent Crisis

Short said he was convinced that the

War Department was aware of the fact that I did not have this information [regarding the mounting U.S.-Japanese crisis] and had already decided that I should not get this information. . . . A definite decision had been made by the War Department that neither the Japanese intercepts nor the substance of them should be given to the commanding general in Hawaii.^[135]

He quoted Miles’s testimony before the committee: “There were no steps taken to distribute these messages to that General [Short].” This decision was in line with

the general policy laid down by the Chief of Staff that these messages and the fact of the existence of these messages or our ability to decode them should be confined to the least possible number of persons; no distribution should be made outside of Washington.^[136]

Not only was Short denied the intelligence derived from MAGIC, but the information he did receive was confusing. “Navy messages were habitually rather more aggressive than the Army,” Short said.

On October 16 [Kimmel] had a [Navy Department] message in which they said Japan would attack. On October 20 I had one from the War Department saying they didn’t expect any [attack]. My message said nothing about a war warning and [Kimmel’s] did.

Short thought “the Navy messages were inclined to be more positive, possibly . . . more alarming, in the context” than the Army’s.^[137]

The War Department had sent Short no information concerning any U.S. military commitments arising out of the United States-British Staff Conversations and the Joint Canada-United States Defense Plan, which might have led him to expect U.S. involvement in the Far East. If he had known that Singapore had been alerted and that the Governor of the Netherlands East Indies had ordered “comprehensive mobilization of his armed forces,” Short testified, he would have realized that “they considered war very imminent out there. . . . It would have meant possible hostilities on Hawaii, but not necessarily an attack.”^[138]

He was asked about two December 3 Navy messages sent to Kimmel. One had announced that Japanese diplomatic and consular posts at Hong Kong, Singapore, Batavia, Manila, Washington, and London had been instructed to destroy codes, ciphers, and secret documents.^[139] The other reported that Tokyo had ordered London, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Manila each to destroy its “Purple” machine; the Batavia machine, it said, had already been returned to Tokyo.^[140] Short denied having known about either message.^[141]

Like Kimmel, Short did not expect a break in U.S.-Japanese relations as long as the representatives of the two nations were still talking in Washington. Neither man knew, as Washington officials had learned from the intercepts, that the Japanese considered the negotiations “de facto ruptured” and that the Japanese ambassadors were only keeping up the pretense of negotiating. From what Kimmel and Short could glean from newspaper accounts, the negotiations were continuing, supposedly in good faith.

Short, again like Kimmel, had been led to believe that an attack on Pearl Harbor, although possible, was not probable. In view of Hawaii’s large population of Japanese aliens, sabotage and subversion seemed much more likely than an attack from outside. He reiterated that messages from the War Department (see above) had led him to the view that the “prime desire” of the U.S. government was “to avoid war and to not let any international incident happen in Hawaii that might bring on war.”^[142]

Short’s task, as he interpreted No. 472, was to guard against “hostile action” in the form of sabotage and subversion. Thus Short had responded by reporting that he had alerted for sabotage. Several other messages from Washington at about the same time also advised him to guard against sabotage, reassuring him in his decision. Hearing nothing further from Washington during the nine days between his November 27 sabotage alert report and the attack, he could only assume that his action had been appropriate.

Short mentioned two messages in particular that had been available in Washington and that would have been “more important than those that were sent” to Pearl Harbor—the ships-in-harbor bombing-plan intercepts and the December 7 “One p.m. Message.”^[143] He said that had that message been relayed immediately by scrambler phone—both he and Marshall had such phones and it took only about ten or 15 minutes to get a message through—it would have reached him four hours before, instead of seven hours after, the attack.^[144]

Short said Marshall’s last-minute message, concerning the “One p.m. Message,” was marked:

Delay in deciphering due to not being marked “Priority” in Washington. . . . If this message had been sent by scrambler telephone there would have been time to warm up the planes and put them in the air. . . . The fact that the War Department sent this message by radio in code instead of telephoning it in the clear . . . indicates that the War Department, even as late as 6:48 a.m., December 7th, Honolulu time, did not consider an attack on Honolulu as likely enough to warrant drastic action to prepare the islands for the sneak attack.^[145]

Short quoted the War Department’s Field Service Manual on the importance of “adequate and timely military intelligence” to enable the commander “to draw logical conclusions concerning enemy lines of action. Military intelligence is thus an essential factor in the estimate of the situation and in the conduct of subsequent operations.”^[146] Asked if he was complaining because he had made an error and Washington hadn’t corrected him, Short replied: “[I]f you are not furnished information you in all probability will make an erroneous estimate.”^[147] Also in the War Department’s Field Service Regulations:

The best information will be of no use if it arrives too late at the headquarters for which it is intended. . . . Important and urgent information . . . is sent by the most rapid means available to all headquarters affected, without regard to the usual military channels.^[148]

Committee Chairman Barkley was skeptical that more information would have enabled Short to judge the situation any better than he had.

Barkley: Everybody in Washington, all the high officers in Washington—Navy, Army, Intelligence, War Plans, General Staff—all saw these intercepted messages. . . . They all have testified that, notwithstanding those messages, they did not really expect an attack at Pearl Harbor and were surprised when it came. Do you think that if you . . . or if the admiral . . . or both of you together had gotten them, you would have reached any different conclusion from that reached by everybody in Washington?

Short: I think there was a possibility because Pearl Harbor meant a little more to us. We were a little closer to the situation and . . . would have been inclined to look at that Pearl Harbor information a little more closely. We might not have made the correct decision, but I believe there was more chance that either we or someone on our staffs would have had the idea. . . .

Barkley: If that is true, why did you rely for the action you took upon some definite instruction from Washington instead of exercising greater judgment and discretion in doing what you could do with what you had?

Short: Because they were my only sources of information. I had no source of information outside Hawaii, except the War Department. . . . [T]he War Department had many sources of information. They had military attaches. They got reports from the State Department and the Commerce Department. They had a certain number of agents scattered around in the Far East. If they were in a position to get information that I had no access to at all, I had every reason to believe that their judgment would be better than my just . . . reading the newspapers.^[149]

Short Defends Army’s Efforts During Attack

Immediately after the attack, Short said he made several reports by telephone to Washington. Then he sent a radiogram giving a succinct account of the event from the Army’s viewpoint:

Japanese enemy dive bombers estimated number sixty attacked Hickam Field Wheeler Field Pearl Harbor at eight am Stop Extensive damage to at least three hangars Wheeler Field three hangars Hickam Field and to planes caught on the ground Stop Details not yet known Stop Raid lasted over one hour Stop Unconfirmed report that the ships in Pearl Harbor badly damaged Stop Marine air field EWA also badly damaged Stop Details later.^[150]

Before the last raid was completed, Short said, a total of 14 U.S. planes got in the air. “They shot down 10 enemy planes.” Senator Lucas was impressed: “So it is a pretty safe assumption that if the planes had been warmed up and ready to go that, considering what you did with the 14 planes . . . the damage would have been minimized considerably?”

Short: No question about that. I think our pilots showed that they were superior to the Japanese pilots in individual combat that day.^[151]

When Navy Secretary Knox visited Pearl Harbor immediately after the attack, Short said,

He went completely through my field headquarters and spent, I would say, probably 2 hours, in which we had officers detailed from every section to explain everything that had happened. He got a very complete picture not only of our headquarters but how we were functioning and exactly what happened, and at the end of the time he was so impressed with our headquarters that he directed the Navy to make arrangements to move over into an underground headquarters right alongside of us.^[152]

Representative Keefe said to Short, summarizing:

[A]s commander at Pearl Harbor prior to December 7, 1941, and subsequent to your appointment to that important position, you did everything within your power to provide the physical things necessary to provide for the defense of the Hawaiian Islands.

Yet, Keefe said, Short had testified “as to many items of physical property, such as guns, installations, radar equipment, air strips, buildings, and so on,” that he had not received “but a small part of the material that you had requested prior to December 7, 1941.” But according to Marshall’s testimony,

the material which you did have at Pearl Harbor on December 7, if alerted and effectively used, would have given a good account of itself and perhaps enabled you to repel the attack, or to severely minimize the damage that was caused. Do you agree with that?

Short said he “could have given a better account” of himself if he had had more equipment. For example, the “best antiaircraft defense against low-flying planes,” the armaments that had done the most damage in the attack, were .50 caliber machine guns. At the time of the attack, he had had only 109, although the program at that time had called for 345. The number of .50 caliber machine guns in Hawaii had actually been increased by December 1, 1942, to 793, showing how many the War Department considered necessary. “[A]nd keep in mind that that date is after the Japanese had been seriously defeated at Midway.”

Keefe pressed on. “The fact of the matter is, is it not, that except for the possibility of getting a few more guns into action and possibly minimizing, to a small extent, the damage that was done . . . this attack would have come in by surprise, isn’t that true?”

Short: With the information . . . we had from Washington, it was bound to be a surprise.”^[153]

Short Claims His Retirement Handled by General Staff, Made Him a Scapegoat; He Defends Himself Against Roberts Commission Charges

After the attack, Short had been relieved of his command. According to him, Marshall’s testimony “conveyed the idea” that Short’s retirement “had been handled entirely by the Secretary of War [Stimson] and that he [Marshall] had had nothing to do with it, in fact he was not cognizant of what was being done.” However, that apparently was not the case; the correspondence, Short said, “did not agree with that.”^[154]

Ferguson quoted from Short’s prepared statement to the effect that he did not feel he had been “treated fairly, or with justice by the War Department.” In that statement, he said he thought he had been “singled out as an example, as the scapegoat for the disaster.”^[155]

Ferguson: I wish you would be specific and tell me whom you had in mind [by saying] the War Department?

Short: I had in mind the General Staff in particular [headed by Marshall], because they were primarily responsible for the policies pursued by the War Department. . . . General Gerow as head of the War Plans Division had the direct responsibility for keeping me informed. General Miles, the head of G-2, had a very direct responsibility.

Ferguson: What about the Secretary of War? . . .

Short: . . . 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.

Ferguson: Now, when you use the word “scapegoat,” will you give us the meaning that you want to convey to us in that word?

Short: It seems to me that may be a slang expression, but it is a word in very common usage, and I meant just exactly what the common usage meant, that it was someone that they saddled the blame on to get it off of themselves. . . . That is exactly what I want to convey.^[156]

The same two basic accusations made against Kimmel by the Roberts Commission had also been made against Short: “dereliction of duty” and “errors of judgment.” Under date of April 20, 1942, the War Department formalized the Roberts Commission accusations against Short into 11 specific charges, each of which was considered a violation of the 96th Article of War.^[157] When Ferguson questioned Short, he pleaded “not guilty” to each of the 11 charges.^[158] He explained that his actions in every case had been limited by equipment shortages and shaped by the limited information supplied him. He had done the best he could, he said, given the resources and information available.

1. Failure to provide an adequate inshore aerial patrol.

“Not guilty,” Short said. He “did have an adequate patrol. The air people were satisfied and had full control. . . . [I]t was not designed for air defense.” He was using all the equipment he had.

2. Failure to provide adequate antiaircraft defenses.

Not guilty. We would have had an adequate antiaircraft defense if the War Department had given us the equipment and had given us the information which indicated imminent attack. Or, if they had replied to my [sabotage alert] report and indicated any desired modification.

3. Failure to set up an Interceptor (radar) Command.

Not guilty. We were training personnel as fast as we could to operate an effective interceptor command, and it was set up and operating as effectively as it could.

Short told of considerable delay encountered not only in getting the needed equipment, but also in obtaining Department of Interior permission to erect the radar towers on national park land.^[159]

4. Failure to provide a proper aircraft warning service.

Not guilty. We were training our personnel as fast as we could to set up an effective aircraft-warning service. It was in operation.^[160]

5. Failure to provide for the transmission of appropriate warnings to interested agencies.

Not guilty. We were restricted by direct order from Marshall, from transmitting the November 27 warning to any other than the minimum essential officers. . . . If I had set up an aircraft-warning service and gotten it to everybody we would have had to give it to all the enlisted men.

6. Failure to establish a proper system of defense by cooperation and coordination with the Navy.

Not guilty. We had full, complete plans for defense by cooperation with the Navy, which had been approved by General Marshall and Admiral Stark. . . . It would have been carried out 100 percent if they would have given us the information they had.

7. Failure to issue adequate orders to his subordinates as to their duties in case of sudden attack.

Not guilty. I could not tell “subordinates” to expect a sudden attack which neither I nor the War Department nor anyone else expected. Our information regarding impending hostile action was, by direction of the chief of staff, limited to the minimum essential officers. Our standard operating procedure of 5 November 1941 prescribed fully the duties of all personnel in event of any sudden attack.

As to the civilians,

We had a number of alerts and blackouts. We had had definite training of the surgical teams and of the first-aid people and of the ambulance corps. . . . And I think that the civilian agencies that had to act not only knew but they performed their duties extremely well on December 7.

8. Failure to take adequate measures to protect the Fleet and Naval Base at Pearl Harbor.

Not guilty. I took every measure I thought necessary to protect the fleet and naval base against sabotage. I so reported to the War Department. Marshall testified that I was reasonable in assuming that I was doing exactly what he wanted, because otherwise he would have notified me that he wanted more measures taken.

9. Failure to have his airplanes dispersed in anticipation of a hostile attack, after having been warned of the danger thereof.

Not guilty. I was never warned of any imminent danger of an air attack. The planes were therefore grouped for more adequate protection against hostile action in the form of sabotage.

10. Failure to have his airplanes in a state of readiness for an attack.

Not guilty. My aircraft were not in a state of readiness for a surprise attack, but were protected against sabotage as directed by the War Department in the sabotage-alert messages of 27th, of 28th November 1941, and as reported to the War Department by me. If they had been equipped with ammunition, grouped as they were, and a sabotage attack had been made, there would have been much more damage by exploding ammunition.

11. Failure to provide for the protection of military personnel, their families, etc., and of civilian employees on various reservations.

We made a quite elaborate plan for evacuating the families of civilians on the military reservation. We asked the War Department for money to establish a camp some 4 miles east of Schofield. I wrote a personal letter to the Chief of Staff and told him that we were asking for the money to establish these camps on the basis of recreation camps. . . . [B]ut our real purpose was to get ready for a possible attack. . . . He answered my letter and stated that guns were needed worse for other purposes.

Thus Short pleaded “not guilty” to number 11 also.^[161]

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As the committee wound up its questioning of Short, Barkley asked him if he wished to make any further statement. Short said,

As a matter of the interests of the country and as a loyal soldier, I maintained a steadfast silence for 4 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.

He said he was “very appreciative of the opportunity [I have been given] to make a full and frank statement of my point of view.” Short thanked the committee members for their attitude and assured them that he had “tried to give them fully and frankly all the information” he could on the subject.^[162]