[From the Times-Herald, Washington, D. C., Thursday, September 28,
1944]
THE TRUTH OF PEARL HARBOR
(AN EDITORIAL)
By Basil Brewer, Publisher,
The New Bedford (Mass.) Standard-Times
...
Should the Pacific battle
fleet have been at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7?
And, if it should not, why
was it there, and by whose orders?
...
(Reprinted in PROCEEDINGS
OF CLARKE INVESTIGATION, p. 141 (Clarke)[1])
Proof of a
conspiracy by person or persons in the United States is frequently provided by
the comment, "Well, it's a fact that the carriers were hustled out of
Pearl just hours before the attack, and the old battleships were jammed in to
become targets." To examine the
facts surrounding the mystery of the missing carriers and the presence of so
many battleships, we need to review the original documents and have the
principle players tell the story themselves.
On Nov. 26th,
1941, Adm. Kimmel received a message from the Navy Dept. It advised that an agreement had been
reached with the War Dept. concerning reinforcement of Wake and Midway.
The message
started off, “In order to keep the planes of the Second Marine Aircraft Wing
available for expeditionary use OPNAV has requested and Army has agreed to
station twenty five Army pursuit planes at Midway and a similar number at Wake
provided you consider this feasible and desirable. It will be necessary for you
to transport these planes and ground crews from Oahu to these stations on an
aircraft carrier.” (Navy Court of Inquiry, p. 1177 (Navy)) Adm. Kimmel, upon
learning that the Army planes were allowed to fly no more than 15 miles from
land, decided to reinforce the two islands with naval aircraft.
Notice the
phrase “provided you consider this feasible and desirable” is included. The trips would be made only if Kimmel thought
them possible. When Adm. Kimmel was
asked if he considered this message “a directive or a suggestion”, he replied,
“I considered it as a suggestion, …” (Navy,
p. 238) He reiterated that thought in Admiral
Kimmel's Story, stating "...I would have rejected the Navy
Department's suggestion to send carrier to Wake and Midway..."[2]
When asked about this
Adm. Stark, Chief of Naval Operations, testified, “The dispatch was not a
directive of execution. It distinctly
puts up a proposition and states, ‘Provided you consider it feasible and
desirable.’ ” (Navy, p. 32)
Adm. Kimmel
responded to the Nov. 26th message on Nov. 28th. “…in this letter I also stated the
arrangements I had made for handling material for planes and ground crews at
Wake and Midway and of the fact that I was sending the Enterprise and the Lexington to Midway.” (Navy,
p. 239-240)
The Navy
Court asked Adm. Kimmel if he felt the Nov. 26th dispatch was an
order:
“120. Q. Do you consider the
matter of stationing these twenty-five pursuit planes at Midway and a
considerable number at Wake to be a directive or a suggestion? How do you consider that?
A. I considered it as a
suggestion, and in my letter of December 2, 1941, to the Chief of Naval
Operations, which I request be read to the court and placed in evidence, you
will the steps that we took and that we recommended.
...
“129. Q. About how many days would you estimate for the trip to
Wake?
“A. My recollection is that
Wake is some 2,000 miles from Pearl Harbor.
Midway is about 1,100 miles. Halsey, in the ENTERPRISE, left on the 28th of November
and would have arrived back in Pearl Harbor on 7 December.
(Navy, 239)
The timing of
the trips depended on several factors, first being logistics.
"...We had very limited facilities on these islands to maintain the planes at that time. And that was the reason we had delayed sending the planes out there until the last minute. ..." (Navy, 239)
Also of importance was the
need to not telegraph the absence of the carriers. Enterprise was not doing anything surprising by sailing on
the 28th, this was her scheduled departure date as given in the
quarterly employment schedules. Those
schedules had been promulgated in August and their accessibility by
unauthorized persons was a question raised during the Investigations. Copies of the schedules are printed in the
Investigations and show that Enterprise was indeed due to be out Nov. 28th
through Dec. 5th, then due for 10 days of Upkeep in Pearl. (Exhibits
of the Joint Committee, p. 2517 (Exhibits))
36. Q. Admiral, do you feel
that the dispatching of Marine planes to Wake was a consequence of this
dispatch that you have had before you or had that been decided before the
dispatch arrived?
A. I believe it was
precipitated by this dispatch and the fact that the air fields were just ready
at that time. In other words, it was a hurry-up move. One more reason for that
was the fact that my task force was due to proceed to sea on the 28th of
November and in order not to violate security, they wanted to make it appear a
perfectly natural move.
36. Q. In other words, under
the published employment schedules, you were due to go out on the 28th?
A. Exactly.
(Proceedings of the Hart
Inquiry, page 323 (Hart))
Lexington
was due to sail on the 5th, but still be in the immediate area. Kimmel understood the principle of
concentration of forces, but this was offset by the need to reinforce the
outlaying bases. Kimmel discussed the
requirements of War Plan Rainbow 5 on his command:
72. Q. You mean that you
were not to undertake offensive operations after a declaration of war or start
of war?
A. To amplify: Our plan
called for reconnaissance, including attacks in force, on Marshall positions.
We felt that we should not move within easy striking distance where we might be
sighted and possibly disturb any remote chance that still remained of averting
war. As a consequence, our forces were held in close proximity to Hawaii where
they could be kept fully fueled and ready to move toward the Marshalls. Two
groups, each of which included a carrier that had been carrying aircraft
reenforcements to Wake and to Midway, were exceptions. They were to return to
Pearl Harbor as soon as possible after completing their assigned task. (Hart,
257)
Captain Vincent R. Murphy, Assistant to the War
Plans Officer on Admiral Kimmel's staff told the Hart Inquiry:
That idea, as well as I
recall, was to get Admiral Halsey's forces, which had been at Wake and which
were or would be, out of fuel, back into Pearl Harbor and get them fueled ready
to conduct the first operation of the War Plans. Admiral Brown's force was then
at Johnston Island, as I recall, getting ready to conduct a practice landing
operation. Another force under Admiral Newton, I think it was a task group
under Admiral Brown, was delivering planes, or on the way to deliver planes at
Midway. The general plan was to get all those ships back and fueled and proceed
with our War Plans. (Hart, p. 322)
With Saratoga
coming out of overhaul at Seattle, and returning to Pearl via San Diego, was important
was to cover the fact that the carriers on-hand were going somewhere
with a load of fighters. Unless they
was going to Guam or the Philippines there were really only two places they
would take those planes, Wake or Midway.
This bit of information was not something to hand to the (potential)
enemy, if it could be avoided.
The need for secrecy in the
movement of major units was known by the Task Force Commanders. Adm. Halsey was questioned about the
"mysterious" nature of his trip to Wake. He stated that security was a consideration, as was the hazardous
nature of his trip:
"The Marine planes were
finally selected and for security reasons it was necessary to get those planes
on board the ENTERPRISE at sea the next day without anyone knowing where they [298]
were going. This required a tremendous amount of planning and subterfuge before
we hit on a scheme for flying these people aboard. We told them they were going
out for two or three days' maneuvers. At the same time, to show the Army that
it was possible to fly Army fighter planes off carriers, it was arranged to
take two Army fighter planes aboard from the dock and fly them of at sea to
land in Honolulu. This again required much planning so as not to excite people
and break the security."
...
“Admiral Standley: You were asked a question in the beginning of your statement as to why radio
silence. Would you please answer that,
the reason for radio silence?
“Admiral Halsey: Because we
were on a very secret mission, to land these Marine fighting planes on Wake
with the then possible enemy learning of it.
I might say, the results—I saw a report the other day of what those 12
fighting planes accomplished on Wake, and despite the fact there was no Radar
on Wake—it hadn’t been landed—it was little short of remarkable.”
“Admiral Standley: Then,
then the reason for radio silence was that you suspected or you thought it
possible that there might be a Japanese attack?
“Admiral Halsey: Exactly.”
(Proceedings of the Roberts Commission, pp. 619-620 (Roberts))
Halsey also
testified that he had given the orders that resulted in three of the eight
battleships being in port that morning. “Immediately after clearing the
channel, I diverted the battleships...( Nevada, Oklahoma, and Arizona)”
(Hart, 323-324) and those ships returned to Pearl Harbor at the time Enterprise
was originally due to return, Dec. 6th. No Washington plan to have all the old and “expendable”
battleships in port to be sacrificed would have been possible without Halsey’s
cooperation.
The carriers
were thus “safely” out of port, but were they safe? According to Adm. Kimmel,
no:
“236 Q. Would not the
sending of a carrier over 2,000 miles to the westward, within 600 miles of a
Japanese base as proposed by these dispatches from both CNO and the War
Department, have been a rather dangerous operation if war was expected
immediately?
“A. Yes, and when we sent Enterprise
to the westward—this affected my estimate—that is, to Wake, we covered our
advance by a couple of squadrons of patrol planes operating between Pearl,
Johnston, Midway and Wake.” (Hart, 266-267)
Adm. Newton
led the force to Midway, departing on Dec. 5th. His orders were similar to Halsey's. In his book on this topic Edwin P. Layton,
Adm. Kimmel's Intelligence office, states:
"…Rear Admiral John H.
Newton who sailed in the morning in Chicago to provide the heavy cruiser
escort for carrier Lexington in Task Force 12. The mission of this task force was to ferry the marine fighter
reinforcements to Midway and carry out extensive reconnaissance sweeps of the
northwestern approaches to the Hawaiian Islands…."
As the Kido
Butai was approaching the Hawaiian Islands from the north and, it seems strange
that anyone would send a carrier into that area to be safely out of the way of
that fleet. Testimony of Adm. Brown:
“30. Q. Do you recall having
any particular concern over the fact that the mission was advancing your force
over a thousand miles toward Japan?
“A. I considered that I was
going into waters that had not been frequented by our ships for some time and,
as there might be more danger from submarines than we had considered in the
past, I set a speed of 17 knots in day light and zig-zagged. Also, I had scouting flights made by planes
to cover our advance.” (Roberts, p. 343)
The need for
the undetected absence of the carriers is even clearer when we consider that
Toshikawa Hideo was making regular reports to Japan regarding the ships in
port, and dates of sailings and returns.
He made a "ships in port" report on the 6th,
indicating no carriers in the harbor.
This message was in the PA-K2 code and translated on Dec. 8th
by the Army. We could speculate that,
given the knowledge that Pearl Harbor was being watched, we could have
"baited the trap" with the carriers, and actually hustled them out
late on the 6th, rather than risking the enemy's calling the whole
thing off because the carriers were gone.
This presupposes that someone would have known about the attack in the
first place.
“The Chairman: In the event
of a hostile air attack, the effort would be to sortie the battleships?
“Admiral Halsey: A great
deal depends, sir. We might have had a
very much worse catastrophe here if these vessels had been in the process of
sortieing when this happened. For
instance, my ship, my task force had planned to be off Pearl Harbor about seven
o’clock in the morning, and by the grace of God we had bad weather out there
that held us up and I could not have gotten in until about four o’clock in the
afternoon.
“It might have happened that
I would be in the middle of the channel when this thing happened, and that
would have been very serious, because we would have been sunk, and then we
would have had something.
“Admiral Reeves. What is
your flagship, Admiral?
“Admiral Halsey. The USS
ENTERPRISE.
“The Chairman. The USS
ENTERPRISE, a carrier.
“Admiral Halsey. Yes.”
(Roberts, p. )
The
objection may still be made that it doesn’t matter why the carriers were
out of port, they were still out of harm’s way. For this to be true we would have to assume that the carriers
were in no way going to be exposed to possible damage from enemy action. Did the admirals think so?:
44. Q. As regards your own
task force, upon putting to sea, did you institute any security measures
advanced over those which had been in effect while at sea for some time
previously?
A. Immediately on clearing
the channel, I diverted the battleships, three in number, cruisers and
destroyers, under Admirals Draemel and Kidd, and told them to carry out
exercises in a certain area. I then headed West with the remainder of my task
force. As soon as we were out of sight of the remainder of the task force, I
sent a signal (324) to put war heads in all torpedoes; to regard any submarine
seen as hostile and sink it; armed the planes with bombs; gave orders to shoot
down any plane seen in the air that was not known to be one of our own. We went
into Condition 3, as I remember it, and kept that the entire way out until we
got close to Wake and then I went into Condition 2. In other words, I tried to make
full preparations for combat. I also ordered ready ammunition for all guns. I
might add one other thing. I carried out morning and afternoon searches to
three hundred miles, as I remember it, for any sign of hostile shipping. I kept
a combat patrol over the ships at certain times. (HART, 323 )
This
would further require us to believe that Adm. William Halsey would have heard
about the attacks on so many U.S., British and Netherlands’ territories and not
wish to take any action. It if far more
likely that Halsey would have raised Caine about such orders during the several
inquiries that followed.
What
actually happened was that the carriers were ordered to seek out and engage the
enemy, at odds of 1-to-6. Adm. Brown
testified:
About 1000 or 1100 that
morning, I received a message from Admiral Halsey to the effect that I was to
assume enemy carriers about 200 miles South of Oahu at that time and retiring
on the Marshalls. My orders were to
intercept and destroy. I, thereupon,
changed course to take me to the east- (pg. 345) ward of Johnston Island and
attempt, that afternoon, to contact enemy by planes and to make an attack by
planes that afternoon in order to slow him down so that I could make physical
contact during the night or the following day. (Navy, 344-345)
Adm.
Halsey was closer to the Islands and thus in a better position to engage. Unfortunately (or perhaps not unfortunately)
Hawaiian naval staff analysts made an assumption based on radio direction
finding data that the enemy forces were south of the Island, not north. Therefore, Enterprise was directed to
sail south by Adm. Kimmel. Halsey
thought they were actually to the north, but followed orders.
Every
pertinent log, message, or other document shows that Enterprise and Lexington
were ordered to seek out and engage the enemy forces. These carriers were separated by a considerable distance and
unable to support each other. They
would have faced considerable opposition and in all likelihood would not have
survived the encounters, but they were ordered to find the enemy and they made
determined efforts to do so.
The
accompanying map shows the course of the Kido Butai, Enterprise Group
and Lexington Group. It a big
ocean and the relative locations of each US group would render it difficult, if
not impossible to support the other if an emergency arose. The carriers were escorted by a few cruisers
and some destroyers. If one or both of these carriers had encountered the six
carriers of the Japanese Striking Force the results would have been perfectly
predictable. The thought of loosing
William Halsey in the first week of the fighting should send a chill through
any serious student of the Pacific War.
No man is irreplaceable, but some men are priceless.
To
recap the facts: Enterprise and Lexington
were out of port on Dec. 7th under orders of Adm. Kimmel, not anyone
in Washington D.C. Enterprise would
have made it back into port on Dec. 5th if the weather hadn't
delayed her. No human being prevented
her from being there on the 7th.
It was widely known that she was scheduled to be there on that
date. After the start of hostilities
both carriers were directed to locate and engage the enemy, despite facing
unknown odds. It cannot be said, then
that the carriers were "safely out of port" if they are just going to
be sent to look for trouble when the shooting starts.
Given
the above information it is clear that there was no "grand strategy"
to save the carriers by someone who "knew" that the next war would be
dominated by flat-tops. It is also
clear that there were 8 "old and useless" battleships in Pearl that
day because one of our most respected and talented admiral ordered three of
them to proceed under normal schedule and return to harbor on the 6th. And finally, it is also clear that the
carriers, instead of being wrapped in cotton and stashed away in a box like
fragile Christmas ornaments, were being used as warships with orders to seek,
locate and destroy. If there was any
conspiracy surrounding Pearl Harbor it did not include carrier conservation in
its plans.
[1] Sources will be cited by name and page number. After the first use they will be mentioned by the one word name in parentheses.
[2] "Admiral Kimmel's Story", Pearl Harbor: Roosevelt and the Coming of the War, Third Edition, Edited by George M. Waller, D. C. Heath and Co., Lexington, Massachusetts, 1976, p. 226.