Honest question: please explain, what I missed about NCI's conclusions, if I did miss something?

I'm going to take some of the posts one at a time. By quote mining, I assume you mean, that I have been taking material
out of context, to deliberately mislead members of this or any forum. Thinking this through to its rational conclusion, when
would it be okay, to copy and paste, or type out the same thing, I find in material, that helps prove my point? I can't put
the entire book in a post. At some point, a poster has to make a decision about how much material to post.

It seems to be that when you disagree, with what I have said, that is when you claim I am quote mining. People on this and other forums, do spend more time at this than I do and have developed effective techniques like this. I feel I have
read and understood enough material on the events to Pearl Harbor, to explain this on posts. I did ask the question what
am I missing. I really did not get an answer, other than the NCI passed the buck, for the disaster on to the army. That
seems to be a logical possiblity. This is probably true to some extent. Anyway, I will try and reply to as many posts as
I can.

 

My opinion is that the army's failures, on Dec 7th were far greater than the navys. Army AAA did not have
ammo, it was locked up. Kimmel's ships did have ammo and were firing back in 5 mins, after being attacked. The army was responsible for the saftey of the fleet, while in port. A letter from Marshall to Short, said defense of the fleet at Pearl
Habor was not just a concern, it was the main concern of army forces on Oaho.

The AWS (radar on Oaho) should have given some warning of the attack, but failed in this respect. This was an
army function and responsibility. The lack of CAP over the island, was also an army responsibility and failure.

Kimmel's alert status was at the highest it could be, while army alert status was lower.

I have read books and other material on Pearl Harbor, with many different points of view. I feel that after thinking
some of these things out, I have come up with my own point of view. I understand you disagree, that's fine. But, I
don't feel my views are a CT. I feel that the Pearl Harbor Attack did more damage, as result of failure to follow naval
doctrine, that is also common sense. Like not taking unnecessary risks with a battlefleet. Basing the fleet at a location
that should have been considered a combat zone, but was not and other factors like that.

My understanding has been, that the Knox report, to FDR in Washington, about 5th columnist's activity, right after the
attack, was accurate. However, later he lied and claimed some of the damage was caused by sabotage. This behavior
by Knox, in my view, would be part of the cover-up, that took place after the attack.

I am going to go ahead and post this. I hope it is not confusing, and I am able to address you point by point.

 

I'm a little confused here but don't have the cultural familiarity behind Pearl arguments. I always thought the conspiracy theories about Pearl were more along very generalised lines sort of like, "if only the international political climate was more easy going the general motions over preceding years might've been redirected so as to have allowed greater diplomatic influence" which I suppose sounds kind of reasonable if you view the whole Pacific War as an evolution of late 19th century western colonial interests in asia, one man's colony being another man's invasion, Japan did after all present itself to the LoN in the thirties as representative of "an asia alliance," and the main issue of contention was the western sovereign treaty ports they claimed were raping local industrial resources for foreign profiteering.
I don't know, the whole thing starts to get pretty convoluted.

But seriously, there are the proverbial alien conspiracy theories about Pearl? This is, would hilarious be the right word?

 

Every military, political and economic debacle must have someone to blame. They almost always occur for muliple reasons, but human beings want simple answers, not complex facts. The hubbub is predominately about, who knew what, when did they know it, whow did they tell or not tell and why they did or not did. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. We got schlacked, The Japanese were smarter and bolder than we gave them credit for.

 

No wonder you surround yourself with wolves!

 

That's good about the felony and all. Keep up the good work and be careful out there.

 

And it's such a depressing thought too, because it just makes you say to yourself, "this is going to happen again."

 

I ran across a quote the other day, don't ask me where. Anyway, as best I remember it; "Every time we fail to learn the lessons of the past, the price goes up."​ I thought that was quite true, and getting more so year by year.

 

Profound way of putting the classical wisdom. It fits very well when you watch the international scientific community discuss nuclear threat, then watch politicians discuss the same subject. Makes those words stark and boldfaced, but yet so obvious you know it simply isn't ignorance, it is irresponsibility.

But thankfully, whilst there is a lag between progressive human socialisation and political reform, if we can just manage to hold out so that the relatively minor changes of each subsequent generation find home, there has to be hope we can all come good. Eventually. Slowly these lessons have to sink into established authorities as they are retired and fresh ones groomed, perhaps by fractions. Sadly there are still quite recognisable 19th century political memetics in play today, but their tethers ever weakening. Slowly.

 

Yes, I have been here 2 of yrs. I just never used the method, called the bracket & quote function by Takao. There is a multi-quote the message icon, that some people use. I just had not used it in a while.

I was told my posts were confusing, thinking that might be the case and seeing some other posts that
did get kind of long. And perhaps a little confusing, I was looking for a different way to post and keep
it short.

Anyway, I was hoping to get back to my OP. Let me ask the question a different way. What mistakes or
errors in judgement, did Adm Kimmel make, that were not in the NCI. Some of my research and thinking,
for whatever some of you think. Leads me to the conclusion, that the NCI was correct on things like a
carrier raid being difficult to detect and stop, when you have no idea when it is coming. How long-range recon, may or may not have found the IJN Strike Force, and how naval aircraft were needed to sweep areas where the fleet operated. Because a safe area was needed for the training mission Kimmel had.

It has also been said already, that the raid was very well planned and executed. And that pre-war intel
did not suggest, Japanese abilty to accomplish a raid that far away. I realize the navy did, kind of
absolve themsleves of really any wrong doing, which may be a little selfserving. But Kimmel was in a difficult position and did the best he could with what he had, at least in my view.

 

I was hoping for once, I might get an idea of discussion, from somebody other than you and your group thinkers.
Maybe just once I could have a normal discussion. Which often takes place, on forums where you don't go. But,
since you follow me to other forums, that gets harder to do.

 

The main failure, shared equally by Kimmel and Short was a lack of cooperation in the defense of the Fleet. Each marched down their different path in seeing to the defense of the Fleet, instead of marching "lockstep" down the same path. Kimmel was more concerned with his own offensive plans for going into the Marshall Islands and Short was focused on defending against sabotage. Even though Kimmel was well aware of how vulnerable the fleet was when it was in the harbor, at no time did he get with General Short to look over the Army defense.

Only the Army's mobile AA guns were without ammunition, the stationary AA guns had been provided with ammo.

The Navy was not flying long distance reconnaissance as it was required to be doing under their agreement, nor did it inform the Army that it was not doing so, and further, did not ask for Army aircraft to participate. Ironically, following the attack, aircraft of both services were out in force flying recon. It is also important
to note that the Army defensive plans relied on this long-distance recon to provide them with advance notice of an impending attack. Thus, without it being flown, Army plans essentially collapsed, and since the Army was not told that the patrols were not being flown, they could not take steps to mitigate the loss.

The AWS, was failed by both the Army and Navy, since neither Kimmel nor Short saw this system as a high priority. Kimmel was to have released 6 naval officers to help setup the AWS, however, it was not until mid-November 1941 when one was released. One officer, and not the 6 requested. Then, you have Short, who testified that he was "doing it for training more than any idea that it would be for real." As a result of each commander's lack of interest in the project, it's performance, or lack thereof, should not have been unexpected.

Kimmel's "Alert Status" was not at the highest it could be, if it was he would have had the PBYs in the air doing their recon bit. That being said, it was not at it's lowest either, when the Fleet was in the harbor, a slightly elevated "Alert Status" was SOP.

How is your statement

not CT?

"...part of a cover-up,..." means more than one person was involved, if there is more than one person involved, it is a conspiracy, ergo, your unsupported statement that Knox lied, is a Conspiracy Theory.

Could you elaborate on this? What failure of naval doctrine? Who are you implying failed, Kimmel or FDR? Why?

What were the "unnecessary risks"?

Hawaii should have been a "combat zone", even though it is thousands of miles from the nearest major enemy naval base, when, at the time, it was believed that Japan was not capable of carrying out long distance naval operations and no combat was actually taking place? This must be like all those "Work Zone"s that you drive by on the roads, even though nobody is around doing any work.

By you very loose definition of a "combat zone", it would also include both coasts of the United States. Where do you intend to dock the Fleet? the Arctic or Antarctica? Are they far enough removed for you?

Forgive my sarcasim, but it sounds like you are really grasping at straws on this one.

I have already asked you for a source on this, yet, you have not provided one. Even Stinnett does not make this outrageous claim in his book.

Pics(source, anyway) or it didn't happen!

 

Thank you for your thinking on some of the issues in the NCI. This is really what I was asking for in my OP.

I showed you the web site, that says Knox lied to the public, after the disaster took place. Do to the
issues involved in this part of my post, I felt it was better to just drop this part, because some people
might take offence to it.

Deploying the fleet to a base that was more difficult to defend and closer to the only real enemy we
had in the PTO. Fleet security always being a high priority in battlefleet command. This deployment
being of questionable military value, because of the inability of those battleship to keep up with the
faster moving more modern carriers. That being the reason, none of them went with the carrier task
forces, sent on supply missions, in the week before the PH attack took place. The training mission
Kimmel was given, could have been done at the fleets tradition home in San Deigo. Where there was
less danger, to the fleet from sub and other types attack.

The fleets forward deployment to PH was insisted on by FDR. Despite attemps by Adm Richardson to
keep the fleet back in San Deigo. I have found the issues that concerned Richardson, were a result
of his trying to follow naval doctrine and were very legitimate concerns. After the disaster took place,
SecNavy Knox suggested the same thing Richardson did before the attack. Not to keep any large
concentration of naval vessels at PH.

The Magic messages being read by Marshall and Stark, were sufficient to place Oaho on full combat status. The base being part of US Military capablity to support operations, toward the SW Pacific, were
Japan would try and concur terrritory, to obtain the raw materials needed for her war machine, and were being denied her by the US and our allies. I read this info, I believe in the APHB. Training is not done in
a comabt zone, as a normal rule. This is because you don't want green troops being in combat. Instead
only full trained personal would be in a combat zone.