Does Anyone Still Believe FDR Was Right to Blame Kimmel and Short?

I was honestly surprised to see such blanket acceptance of the Roberts Commission's long-discredited claims in this forum. I had to chuckle when someone cited the ridiculous and contradictory Dorn Report as their reason for accepting the Roberts Commission. If you read the Dorn Report, you discover that it is a mix of lame arguments and some surprising admissions. Here are some of the admissions:

Officials in Washington did not send Admiral Kimmel and General short other information, derived from the *Magic* project that broke the Japanese code, that might have given them a greater sense of urgency and caused them to surmise that Hawaii was a likely target. For example, Washington did not tell them that Japanese agents in Hawaii had been instructed to report on the precise location of ships at Pearl Harbor.

General Sort was ordered to undertake "reconnaissance and other measures ... ", but his instructions were muddied somewhat by advice to avoid actions that would "alarm [Hawaii's] civil population or disclose intent."

Admiral Kimmel and General short had cordial personal relations but felt it inappropriate to inquire into one another's professional domains. This apparently was the standard at the time. General Short's mission was to defend the fleet in Hawaii; Admiral Kimmel apparently never asked in detail about General Short's plans. Admiral Kimmel 's mission was to prepare for offensive operations against Japan.

Admiral Kimmel requested a court martial in order to clear his name, but the request was not acted on. There is an allegation that the government feared bringing charges because a court martial would have put other senior military and civilian leaders in a bad light. This is possible. But it is equally possible that there simply were not sufficient grounds to sustain a successful prosecution.

Historians who write about Pearl Harbor seem to be divided into three camps: those who hold Admiral Kimmel and General short partly (but not solely) responsible; those who believe they were scapegoats; and those who lay much of the blame on bureaucratic factors such as the lack of coordination between the Army and the Navy.

COMMENT: Yes, indeed. Very few historians peddle the Roberts Commission's condemnation of Kimmel and Short. But, wow, a whole bunch of people in this forum do exactly that.

None of the official reports ever held that Admiral Kimmel and General Short were solely responsible for the Pearl Harbor disaster, although the Roberts Commission came close. Later reports exchewed [sic] the [Roberts Commission's] stinging "dereliction of duty" rebuke in favor of "errors of judgment."

COMMENT: Part of this passage is inexcusably wrong, but I quote it to show that Dorn rejected the view that Kimmel and Short were solely to blame for Pearl Harbor. Dorn's statement about "later reports" is erroneous because it ignores the fact that the Navy Court of Inquiry (NCI) strongly exonerated Kimmel and blamed Washington officials for severe failures, and that the Army Pearl Harbor Board (APHB) voiced only very mild criticisms of Short and placed most of the blame on Washington authorities.

Admiral Kimmel and General short did not have all the resources they felt necessary. Had they been provided more intelligence and clearer guidance, they might have understood their situation more clearly and behaved differently. Thus, responsibility for the magnitude of the Pearl Harbor disaster must be shared.

COMMENT: A refreshingly reasonable statement, but this is followed by the following inexcusably false statement:

But this is not a basis for contradicting the conclusion, drawn consistently over several investigations, that Admiral Kimmel and General Short committed errors of judgment.

COMMENT: Total hogwash. The NCI markedly exonerated Kimmel. The APHB cleared Short of any major errors. Both the NCI and the APHB unabashedly pointed the finger at Washington officials. Furthermore, the very first investigative report, written by Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox after he visited Pearl Harbor a few days after the attack, did not accuse Kimmel and Short of any serious failures (the first version of the report, not the revised version issued under pressure from FDR). What's more, the Hart Inquiry did not cite Kimmel for any errors or failures, and it produced a wealth of information that exonerates Kimmel.

 

I read long ago that Kimmel's family has been batting for some kind of rehabilitation of his image; whether some kind of official confirmation, or an official change in his last status as a Naval officer. Not sure. Anything from that? I know Gilbert Hoover had his record improved, if not unsullied.

 

It really comes down to this:

FDR wanted the fleet in Hawaii. The Navy wanted the battleline on the US West coast. That set up the attack on Pearl Harbor. It is likely the Japanese wouldn't have bothered had the US battleline been on the West coast and out of reach.

Short was responsible for the defense of Oahu and the fleet in port. His decisions and actions in that regard were woefully inadequate. That allowed for the surprise attack more than anything else, along with its success. The US Army's air defense measures failed miserably.

Kimmel was following what was SOP for the Navy in terms of training. The fleet went out on weekdays to practice and was in port on weekends to give the crews liberty. Had the fleet been on the West coast, it would have operated the same way.

Of course, there were additional blunders and missteps to that, but that's really what it boils down to. A combination of peacetime complacency and institutional incompetence, mostly on the Army's part, led to the Japanese success. Without FDR's insistence on the fleet being in Hawaii, the attack wouldn't have happened at all.

 

I always thought that there was blame all round. Kimmel and Short were in charge, the man in charge gets either responsibility or blame. It is a system that has been around a long time. One thing that I learned in the Navy was if it happens on your watch, you own it.

I am not the conspiracy type, but I will never be 100% sure that Pearl Harbor was not another Coventry, a sacrifice for the greater good. Many Americans, at the time, were still wanting to sit the war out and let Europe solve its own problems. If Roosevelt designed a program to get all Americans on board, 100%, and instantly, it could not have been any better than having our enemy pull a "sneak attack" on us. The day after Pearl Harbor, it would have been hard to find Americans that were not fighting mad.

Then again, it may have been just a simple giant cluster****. We may have totally dropped the ball from the White House to Pearl Harbor. I will never know, but, those carriers being at sea for the big event....

 

No Pearl Harbor was not a "Coventry", since Coventry was never a sacrifice for the greater good. The notion that Churchill, via ULTRA. "knew about Coventry" and took no action is a simple falsehood and has no more basis in reality than the notion that FDR "Knew about Pearl Harbor" and let it happen to get Americans "fighting mad".

 

For that to be true, it would have to be shown that there was certain foreknowledge of this specific Japanese attack. Obviously that's not the case. The messages asking for PH ship dispositions, and dividing it into sectors, weren't decoded until after the attack.

Additionally, there's no reason to declare against Germany, and not only was that already deemed the biggest danger, FDR wanted to help the UK. The fleet's defeat at Pearl Harbor does nothing to advance those motivations, as it in no way guaranteed our involvement against Germany. Hitler did FDR a solid on 11 Dec.

Put shortly, it simply makes no sense to allow the attack to occur (so successfully, too!) if one has specific foreknowledge.

 

Those certainly are not the only two choices.

What we know about Pearl Harbor, and the events leading up to Pearl Harbor is exactly what we were allowed to know, during a war where the truth was so precious that she was always attended by a bodyguard of lies. All of the theories, all of the stories come from the same data set. If you choose to believe that it is all cut and dried, we know the whole truth about all of the politics that were happening behind the scenes, then I can understand why alternative suggestions seem to be heresy. If you read my post carefully you will see that I claim that I am not 100% sure that the story is complete. Are you 100% sure that you know the exact series of events?

"Obviously, that is not the case."

Why do you think that the attack was "so successful" for the Japanese? The main thing that they accomplished was to sink a bunch of obsolete battleships, and all but two of them returned to the war effort. They did not destroy the fuel dumps, or the submarine facilities. They did not follow up the attack, but cut and ran when Pearl Harbor was in shock and on the ropes. What they did do, as Yamamoto admitted, was to awaken a sleeping giant. (Yamamoto got it) That attack guaranteed that Imperial Japan would not survive the war intact. If you had the honor of knowing any Pacific Veterans, you will know that very few of them ever got over the Pearl Harbor attack or the hatred of all things Japanese.

Tactical "victories" do not win wars. Strategic errors do lose wars. Pearl Harbor was a huge mistake for the Japanese. In just six months, four of the carriers that attacked Pearl Harbor became deep-water reefs. That is what success looks like.

 

Not sure what your point is here, so I won't bother until you clarify.

In their own view it was a stunning success. Your criticism, while apt, is also based on hindsight which no one at the time could access. It's pretty easy to be a good admiral after the fact. But to answer your question directly, it hamstrung any meaningful USN response for six months, which was exactly the Kido Butai's mission.

Not only were neither of those planned objectives, the Japanese didn't really have the weaponry to destroy the tank-farms. 551-lb HE bombs just aren't going to do much to set that oil alight, and they didn't have a bunch of the converted 800-kg bombs laying around after hitting battleship row already.

They didn't follow up the attack because they didn't know where the American carriers were, and probably didn't want to tie 6 CVs to within 200 miles of an island absent that knowledge. Additionally, a third wave would have gone in against an alerted base (remember, most Japanese planes were lost in the 2nd wave), and would likely have had to land at night. Losses would've been probably quite bit larger, for the small likelihood of setting alight bunker-oil with HE?

I have had that honor, so you should probably not be condescending, thanks.

Hey, thanks. I would never have considered that point had you not in your wisdom presented it here.

Unfortunately for your "point", such as it is, none of this -- not one word -- addresses my point that not only is there no evidence for your "suspicion", but there are reasonable counter-arguments that rather undermine it. Might you address my points rather than elide them? Thanks in advance.

 

Christ wept.

"What we know about Pearl Harbor, and the events leading up to Pearl Harbor is exactly what we were allowed to know,".

Do you imagine the U.S. Government is Big Brother or just your nanny? I suppose FDR was the Machiavellian mind orchestrating all this? No, wait, since you are quoting - completely out of context by the way - Churchill, then he must be the Machiavelli that led FDR down the primrose path.

"All of the theories, all of the stories come from the same data set."

No, they do not, and it is lunatic to believe so. The "data set" includes the records of the U.S. State Department, Navy Department, and War Department, the Japanese Foreign Ministry, Navy Ministry, and War Ministry, the British Foreign Ministry, Navy Ministry, and War Ministry, the White House, the Imperial Privy Council, the British Cabinet Ministry, the hundreds of individual memoirs and unit records, newspaper and magazine accounts, newsreels, and 82 years of superficial and in depth analysis of what happened.

But, sure, "someone" made sure that only the parts "we were allowed to know" were included and all the different accounts meshed to carefully conceal the Machiavellian activities of FDR. Or was it Churchill?

"If you choose to believe that it is all cut and dried, we know the whole truth about all of the politics that were happening behind the scenes, then I can understand why alternative suggestions seem to be heresy."

Do you know what a "straw man" argument is? No? Never mind.

What "whole truth about all the politics" do you think is missing? What happened "behind the scenes" that you think was concealed, and how? What is your "alternative suggestion"? All I see is innuendo, assumptions, and uncritical thinking.