Pearl Harbor Betrayed (52 page)

36
. PHA, Pt. 32, p. 185; Pt. 22, p. 85; Pt. 27, p. 412; Pt. 28, p. 1497. On 20 December 1941, at Hickam Field, Lt. Col. Mollison gave an affidavit that included this language: “As this [sending Army pursuit planes to Midway and Wake] would unquestionably weaken the defenses of Oahu, Admiral Kimmel asked a question of Captain McMorris, his War Plans Officer, which was substantially as follows: Admiral Kimmel: McMorris what is your idea of the chances of a surprise raid on Oahu. Captain McMorris: I should say
none
Admiral [emphasis in the original].” In 1981, Rear Admiral Edwin T. Layton (Ret.), (a lieutenant commander in 1941), gave a more extended version of McMorris's reply: “Kimmel then sent for Captain Charles H. McMorris, his head of war plans, and I can still almost quote what he said: ‘Soc…, Layton here and I have been discussing the chances of the Japanese making an attack on us here.' And McMorris replied, ‘What's that?' ‘We were discussing something that was written in Japanese about a Japanese carrier task force making a strike on Pearl Harbor. Do you think there would be a chance of that?' McMorris answered him, ‘Well, maybe they would; maybe they would, but I don't think so. Nope. Based on my studies, it is my considered opinion that there are too many risks involved for the Japanese to involve themselves in this kind of an operation.'” Layton, “Admiral Kimmel Deserved a Better Fate,” Paul Stillwell, ed.,
Air Raid: Pearl Harbor!
(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1981), p. 279.

37
. PHA, Pt. 6, pp. 2519 and 2520. In the end, a squadron of Marine F4F fighters was sent to Wake and Midway in place of the P-40s.

38
. Ibid., Pt. 7, p. 2922.

39
. Ibid., Pt. 14, p. 1406. The writer has used the copy of the original message found in NARA, RG 38, Strategic Plans Division Records, Box 147J: Plans, Strategic Studies, and Related Correspondence (Series IX), Part III: OP-12B War Plans and Related Correspondence, WPL-46-WPL-46-PC. Cf. PHA, Pt. 14, p. 1406.

40
. Ibid., Pt. 4, p. 2026.

41
. Ibid., Pt. 14, p. 1405.

42
. Vice Admiral George Carroll Dyer,
The Amphibians Came to Conquer: The Story of Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner
(Washington: Department of the Navy, 1969), p.191; Dyer interviews with Turner, March 1960.

43
. The texts of the first four of these messages are given in PHA, Pt. 6, pp. 2512–13; the 16 October text is given in ibid., Pt. 14, p. 1402.

44
. KC, Roll 4, Extracts from Secret Letters Exchanged Between the Commander in Chief and the Chief of Naval Operations, p. 11. Stark's reference to Russia recalls Turner's warning in August that the Japanese would likely invade the Maritime Provinces. But, by 27 November, his biographer tells us, Turner had backed off from that prediction. Dyer,
Amphibians,
p. 182.

45
. “There is a certain sameness of tenor of such information as Admiral Stark sent to Admiral Kimmel”; King's second endorsement to the Record of Proceedings of the Naval Court of Inquiry, 6 November 1944, Pt. 39, p. 344.

46
. This is according to Stark's biographer; Simpson,
Stark,
p. 269. Confirmed by the writer in a telephone conversation with Simpson, 13 November 2000.

47
. PHA, Pt. 6, p. 2524.

48
. Ibid., Pt. 3, p. 1434.

49
. Ibid., Pt. 32, p. 52. See WPPac-46, Annex II, Phase IA, Task Force Nine; ibid., Pt. 37, pp. 863–66.

50
. Ibid., Pt. 39, p. 321.

51
. Ibid., Pt. 33, p. 877.

52
. Ibid., Pt. 5, p. 2125.

53
. Edward P. Morgan, “Confidential Report. An Approach to the Question of Responsibility for the Pearl Harbor Disaster. Respectfully Submitted at the Suggestion of the General Counsel for the Consideration, Assistance, and Sole Personal Use of the Joint Congressional Committee on the Pearl Harbor Attack. (Not to be released to the press, quoted from, published, or paraphrased in any way.)” (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, June 1, 1946), p. 125. Copy with the writer.

54
. Ibid., Pt. 14, p. 1407.

55
. KC, Roll 3, Kimmel, “Memorandum as to Cooperation and Coordination Between General Short and Admiral Kimmel,” 17 July 1944, p. 9: “My own primary concern was the paralysing [
sic
] orders I had from the Navy Department to await an overt act by Japan.”

56
. The story of how Turner arrogated to himself the functions of naval intelligence is told in Jeffrey M. Dorwart,
Conflict of Duty: The U.S. Navy's Intelligence Dilemma, 1919–1945
(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1983), pp. 157–161; Dyer,
Amphibians,
pp. 182–87; and Layton,
“And I Was There,”
pp. 97–99, 100–01, 142–43, 256. In Layton's phrase, Turner tried to turn ONI into “nothing more than an intelligence drop-box.” He recounts, from a McCollum oral history, that when, in May 1941, the then director of ONI, Captain Alan C. Kirk, stated in handwriting on an intelligence summary, “In my view the Japs will jump pretty soon.” Turner scribbled back his own prediction, “I don't think the Japs are going to jump now or ever!” p. 100.

57
. PHA, Pt. 4, pp. 1975, 2029; Pt. 8, pp. 3388–90, 3412.

58
. Ibid., Pt. 4, p. 1970.

59
. Ibid., p. 2007.

60
. Dyer,
Amphibians,
p. 189; and Dyer, interviews with Turner, March 1960, p. 193.

61
. NARA, RG 38, Station US papers, Box 6, folder 5750–15. The memorandum is reproduced by Robert B. Stinnett, who discovered it, in his book
Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor
(New York: The Free Press, 2000), Appendix A, pp. 262–67.

62
. Ibid., p. 9.

63
. Ibid.

64
. McCollum's memorandum, so far as is known, elicited only a “Do-Don't” response from Captain Dudley W. Knox, chief of the ONI library. He commented, “Be ready” and “We should not precipitate anything.” Ibid., p. 6.

65
. PHA., Pt. 8, pp. 3447–48.

66
. Ibid., Pt. 26, p. 463.

67
. Ibid., Pt. 4, pp. 1950–51.

68
. Ibid., Pt. 26, p. 280.

69
. Ibid., Pt. 5, pp. 2149–50, 2152; Pt. 32, p. 236.

70
. Ibid., Pt. 32, p. 52.

71
. See ibid., Pt. 37, Hewitt Inquiry, pp. 837–71, which includes WPPac-46 with four annexes and the following exhibit No. 36:

72
. Ibid. WPPac-46 was executed against Japan on 7 December 1941, J-Day.

73
. Ibid. WPPac-46 provided a Phase I: “Initial Tasks—Japan not in the war,” which did not include distant reconnaissance.

74
. Ibid., Annex II; and Pt. 6, p. 2530. Task forces built around the carriers
Enterprise
and
Yorktown
would raid the Marshalls in late January 1942.

75
. Ibid., Pt. 36, pp. 298–99.

76
. Ibid., Pt. 33, pp. 1183–84. Cf. Pt. 8, pp. 3454–55. The Martin-Bellinger estimate was prepared “practically in toto” by Bellinger and his staff of Patrol Wing 2; Pt. 26, p. 140.

77
. Ibid., Pt. 6, p. 2534.

78
. Ibid., Pt. 17, pp. 2721–22, Memorandum, Bellinger to Kimmel, 19 December 1941. Kimmel told the JCC that 250 aircraft would be required for distant reconnaissance (ibid., Pt. 6, p. 2533); Bellinger said “approximately 200” (Pt. 26, p. 124). On the number of flyable patrol bombers available to him at Oahu on 6–7 December, Bloch testified, “There were 72 patrol bombers available and two squadrons of 24 were at Midway, leaving 48, and 12 under overhaul, leaving 50. I meant 36” (Pt. 22, p. 487). Kimmel testified that 49 Navy patrol planes were in flyable condition (Pt. 6, pp. 2532, 2722; Bellinger also said 49 [Pt. 22, p. 558]). Bloch had been promised an additional 108 patrol planes “at the earliest possible date,” but none had arrived (Pt. 36, p. 550). The United Kingdom had first priority claim on the PBYs. On the operational B-17s see Pt. 27, p. 419; Pt. 12, p. 323; Pt. 7, p. 3203. Six long-range Army B-17D bombers, the only ones in operating condition on the island, were being used to train crews for the Philippine Air Force, but they were available in an emergency. The Army was also prepared to make available twenty short-legged B-18 medium bombers, but they were useful only for inshore patrol; even there, General Martin's chief of staff, Lieutenant Colonel James A. Mollison, “complained bitterly” that the B-18 was “a very bad airplane for that purpose.” Pt. 27, p. 423.

Responding to an inquiry from Navy Secretary James Forrestal, JCC liaison officer Lt. Comdr. Baecher, USNR, wrote to him on 28 March 1946, communicating a draft report from Mr. Seth W. Richardson, the second chief counsel of the committee. Richardson wrote:

It was well known and recognized in Washington for at least a year prior to 7 December 1941 that adequate protection of the fleet in Hawaii, where Washington ordered it to base rather than on the west coast, depended on having an adequate number of patrol and bomber planes with which to maintain reconnaissance and to defeat any approaching attacking force; that during the year 1941 there were manufactured in the United States a very large number of patrol and bomber planes, of which only a few were sent to Hawaii while a large and disproportionate number were diverted by Washington to Great Britain, in many instances under lend-lease; that if Washington had not so diverted these planes … the probability of the success of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor would have been greatly reduced; therefore, for such reasons, Washington must bear a large share of the burden of the blame for what occurred on 7 December 1941. (NARA, RG 80, PHLO, Box 23.)

In a handwritten aide-mémoire written in 1944 or 1945, Kimmel considered the fact that he had pleaded for additional patrol aircraft (PBYs): “In a conversation in the Navy Department with Admiral [John H.] Towers, then Chief of Bureau of Aeronautics, and Admiral Nimitz, then Chief of the Bureau of Navigation, in June 1941, I urged that additional patrol planes be supplied to the fleet.” He referred to testimony he had given earlier:

Both Admiral Bloch and I had been continually making such requests. I referred to the various requests of the Commandant of the 14th Naval District for patrol planes which I strongly and favorably endorsed. Had the Commandant been able to secure patrol planes for the 14th Naval District, it would have materially strengthened the base defense. The Chief of Naval Operations on November 25, 1941, wrote to the Commandant that the Department had no additional airplanes available for assignment to the 14th Naval District. 36 of the patrol plans which I had in Oahu arrived on November 23 and November 28, 18 arrived on October 28. They were all new planes experiencing shakedown difficulties and requiring substantial installations to get them into war condition. The Navy Department knew just how many patrol planes I had and knew that the number was not adequate for distant searches from Oahu. (KC, Roll 3.)

79
. PH, Pt. 32, pp. 570–71. In March 1944 then Captain Vincent R. Murphy testified during the Hart Inquiry: “The question of patrol plane, all-around search, had come up many, many times. Much thought had been given to it. It was a question of wearing out our planes over a considerable period of time, weakening out our pilots, and not knowing when to expect a declaration of war, to find ourselves completely worn out by practicing for war, including the psychological aspects thereof, and unable to fight it when it came.” PHA, Pt. 26, p. 207.

80
. Ibid., p. 307.

81
. NARA, RG 80, PHLO, Box 5, Statement of Evidence, p. 405.

82
. Ibid., Pt. 39, pp. 308–09.

83
. Fleet Admiral William F. Halsey and Lt. Comdr. J. Byran III,
Admiral Halsey's Story
(New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1974), p. 71.

84
. PHA, Pt. 6, p. 2756. Elsewhere in the same hearings, Kimmel said: “I knew what Admiral Bellinger was doing. I didn't consider it necessary … to discuss it with a great many other admirals that I had in Pearl Harbor with me. The ones that I discussed it with were by no means all the admirals that we had out there.” Ibid., p. 2652.

85
. Ibid., pp. 2723, 2727.

86
. Ibid., Pt. 39, p. 376.

87
. Quoted in Paolo E. Coletta,
Patrick N. L. Bellinger and U.S. Naval Aviation
(Lanham, MD: University Press of America, Inc., 1987), p. 212. NARA (Washington, D.C.), RG 38, 80, 313, Records Relating to U.S. Navy Fleet Problems, I–XXII, 1923–1941, M964; Fleet Problem XIX in March–April 1938, Roll 24. Ernest J. King and Walter Muir Whitehill;
Fleet Admiral King: A Naval Record
(New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1952), p. 281. Pearl Harbor had been “attacked” successfully three times before by U.S. Navy carrier-borne aircraft, in 1928, 1932, and 1933. In 1937 Lt. Comdr. Logan Ramsey published his
Proceedings
article, “Aerial Attacks on Fleets at Anchor,” cited above. In it, among other points made, Logan emphasized that an attacking force had the advantage of choosing the time of attack; that the near approach could be made under cover of darkness; and that the immobilized fleet could not maneuver to avoid bombs.