Posted on 12/07/2016 11:30:08 AM PST by Cecily
Pearl Harbor was attacked 75 years ago on December 7, 1941. As President Franklin D. Roosevelt famously predicted the following day, the date has lived in infamy.
That is especially true for one South Carolina man, the third generation of a family that has fought to restore the reputations of two men initially held responsible for the attacks on the naval base and nearby U.S. Army facilities.
A quick history lesson: Without provocation or warning, Japan launched a surprise attack on the U.S. bases early on Dec. 7, killing 2,403 Americans and wounding 1,178. The raid brought the United States into World War II.
Navy Adm. Husband Kimmel, commander-in-chief of the Pacific Fleet, and U.S. Army Gen. Walter Short were the men in charge at Pearl Harbor and nearby Army facilities at the time. Kimmel was relieved of command 10 days after the attack. His family says he was shamed into retiring in March 1942 as a two-star admiral rather than at the four-star rank he held before the attack.
Since then, Kimmel and his family have worked diligently to restore not only Kimmel’s and Short’s reputations, but also the ranks they held prior to Dec. 7, 1941.
(Excerpt) Read more at thestate.com ...
He did nothing dishonorable so his honor doesn’t need restoring. Next, he sucked in his performance of protecting the base. So he joined the legions of prewar flag officers fired when the shooting war began.
Next case.
A very good book on this subject is “Day of Deceit”, which basically outlines the lead up to Pearl Harbor. Kümmel and Short were denied information and materials which would have prepared them for the attack.
“So he joined the legions of prewar flag officers fired when the shooting war began.”
So why didn’t Macarthur get the same fate?
from what I have seen they were both doing about what they should have been.
The threat of sabotage was very reasonable and there was in fact an active Japanese spy organization on the island.
Also McArthur got a bad rep in the Philippines for having his planes on the ground. He was going to great lengths to protect the planes and was expecting an attack. He had established outposts to report any Japanese planes. He was keeping as many as possible in the air.
Luck just was against them. They got a single report of Japanese planes and tried desperately to confirm it but were unable to do so. The outposts had just been formed and were giving a lot of false reports. The planes were low on fuel and they finally had to bring them down, just as the Japs attacked it turned out.
An important note to this continuously arguable case was brought forward in the History Channel 75 Anniversary documentary about the Pearl Harbor attack. The American commander in the Philippines Islands was ALERTED after the Hawaii attack and still was blind-sided by the well-planned Japanese attack on his facilities. He was not relieved of command (in part because he was in continuous defense) and ended up with a five-star rank!
General of the Army Douglas MacArthur!
“He was going to great lengths to protect the planes”
Not so much:
“http://www.pacificwar.org.au/Philippines/Japanattacks.html";
What he was previously ordered to do was to send his B-17’s to attack Formosa.
Major General Brereton was aware of the Japanese propensity to launch surprise attacks at dawn, and he wanted to persuade MacArthur to mount a bombing attack on the Japanese airbases on Formosa. While waiting to see MacArthur on this morning, Brereton was informed by Admiral Hart that Japanese carrier aircraft had bombed the American seaplane tender William B. Preston in Davao Bay on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao. This was clearly a hostile “first overt act” by Japan of the kind referred to in General Marshall’s war warning of 27 November 1941. In response to this direct hostile act against an American warship in Philippine waters, Brereton again asked Sutherland to permit him to see MacArthur or approve bombing of the Japanese airbases on Formosa himself. Sutherland refused both requests.
Fearing that his aircraft would be caught on the ground by the Japanese and destroyed, Brereton finally ordered them aloft to circle their airfields. Shortly after 9.00 a.m., Brereton was told that Japanese aircraft had attacked southern Luzon, and he pressed Sutherland again for permission to attack the Japanese airbases on Formosa. Again Sutherland refused. It was not until 11.00 a.m. that MacArthur finally approved a bombing attack on the Japanese airbases. Brereton ordered all of his aircraft to land so that they could be refuelled and the bombers armed.
For that matter it's hard for me to see lower ranked personnel having deserved punishment either.
The book and movie contain dialogue about being "caught in the vacuum between a peacetime Navy and a wartime Navy. ... reacting to the Pearl Harbor disaster, and punishment is order-of-the-day", and so on. Bassett had some close familiarity with the people in this drama; his opinions and writings were very likely colored by things he heard from Halsey and other high-ranking officers.
Overall, Admiral Kimmel has not been judged that harshly by history.
The best answer I’ve heard about MacArthur is that his mom was very politically connected. He deserved firing. I’ve always thought he was incredibly over-rated. He only gets a little love here sometimes because he went against a dem president later.
MacArthur deserved to be fired after his shameful performance driving out the Bonus Army! All show and very little else IMO.
The China Marines were withdrawn from Shanghai in November 1941.
For four years the Marines were surrounded by and had close dealings with the occupying Japanese and were well regarded.
The China Marines were well aware of the rumors of a coming Japanese attacks and passed on the intel to Pearl Harbor.
My Dad was a Marine and the forward sentry on the USS Phoenix on the morning of December 7th, 1941.
Three days earlier he and the Marine Detachment onboard were ordered to fill all the ammunition boxes for the .50 caliber deck guns and padlock them. The Marine NCO’s were also issued sidearms and Thompson SMG’s. They knew what was coming.
My Dad saw the original recon flyover, shot the lock off the ammunition box and began firing the forward .50 cal. Browning. He said that he heard no other firing before he opened up.
The Phoenix was already making steam as they were to tow a target for gunnery practice that morning. The Japanese made their turns over the Phoenix allowing the Phoenix gunners to shoot down three aircraft. There were no Phoenix casualties and they made it out of the harbor safely.
We had plenty of warning.
The recent new book, A MATTER OF HONOR Pearl Harbor: Betrayal, Blame, and a Family's Quest For Justice by Anthony Summers & Robbyn Swan basically proves that Kimmel and Short were doing even more but couldn't overcome the the actions of bureaucratic asshats in Washington who denied them the tools they required to protect the base. Kimmel and Short were not only denied access to critical intelligence but were fed misleading information which left them totally in the dark. They were scapegoated by their immediate superiors who had undeniable proof the Japanese were planning the attack including how and when the action was to take place. Kimmel and Short had to bear the weight of guilt for the rest of their lives. The record has to be changed to reflect the truth and the guilt passed on to those ultimately responsible.
There was more than just their wrong headed deployment. Kimmel was warned two weeks before that war was imminent and was told to deploy his fleet accordingly. One can disagree with that or not. But a worse problem was that the Army general responsible for protecting the fleet when it was in Pearl Harbor and Kimmel had almost no communication.
And as for MacArthur, he was beyond incompetent. He had 8 hours warning of pearl harbor. Jap weather planes were detected over the area 12 hours before. And incredibly the Jap raid was detected 130 miles out from Clark field and they were still able to surprise them.
Even more fun, MacArthur then took his force of 120k plus and put them on the Bataan peninsula where they were pinned down by the Jap force of 75k.
Bataan was about the only place they could have been pinned down by a small force, so Doug put then there and holed up in Corregidor fortress. That might be partially explained by his air force being wiped out, but he had a hand in that anyway.
In any case, MacArthur was barely adequate and was left in the pacific under the Europe first strategy.
The real test, can anyone imagine him lasting a week in WWII Europe?
MacArthur was influenced by The President of the Philippines, Manuel Quezon who didn’t want Mac to use the his American forces against Japan even after Pearl Harbor.
Agreed about the bonus army. But Mac has his small but devoted fanclub. Odd to me, but it’ll never end. And we had guys like General Krueger in the Pacific. He was one of the best generals we produced in WWII. Many thought his German heritage banished him to the pacific. He was born in East Prussia and immigrated here with his family when he was young.
He was basically the mentor of what Patton became famous for. When Patton became famous for a deep sweeping maneuver in the prewar Louisiana war games, he was executing a Krueger plan. He was 10 times the General of Mac.
Lots of odd decisions were made in those days.
Sounds accurate. Mac was a political creature.
I feel for the relative of Kimmel. But seriously, he should feel no shame about his grandfather. He was a good guy with a long respectable service record. But that one day prewar performance wasn’t enough.
But in all the Pearl Harbor talk lets remember the USS Ward. Used its 4” gun to sink a Jap minisub 2 hours before the planes arrived. They reported it but nobody believed them. Decades later in 2002, they found the sub on the bottom, with a neat 4inch hole in the conning tower.
There is so much about that battle that will never be truly understood by us today.
All that is left is to respect everyone who was there that day. Including Kimmel.
very interesting, thank you for posting!
.......I think our 250 year Navy tradition is that the Commanding Officer is responsible NO MATTER WHAT!
That’s brutal yes, and many disagree, but it does cause CO’s world wide to have sleepless nights worrying about “have I done this or have I done that??
If you agree that the safety of personnel is the TOP order of business for a CO, then you won’t likely have much problem with the concept.
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