I. A. Commander-in-Chief, U. S. Fleet, and Pacific Fleet
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- Admiral Pye said that he did not think that any of them had felt that an attack would be made before a declaration of war, if ever. (p. 151)
- Admiral Brown said that his erroneous belief at that time was that all Japanese fliers were distinctly inferior to American fliers. (p. 142)
- As Admiral McMorris recalled it, orders to depth bomb submarine contacts were issued after the war warning and orders given to Admirals Newton and Halsey to repel hostile planes. (p. 246)
- Admiral McMorris said that he did not believe that a surprise air attack was likely in the Hawaiian area although he did consider such an attack
Concerning his estimate of the probability of a surprise attack at Pearl Harbor, Admiral Pye said that a primary feature was that he felt that Japan could gain more by delaying our entry into the war than they could possible gain by any damage that they could do at Pearl Harbor. He said further that the Secretary of the Navy when he came to Pearl Harbor after the 7th of December said that no one in Washington had stated to him that there was any possibility of an air attack at Pearl Harbor, even Kelly Turner who 440 CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATION PEARL HARBOR ATTACK was the most aggressive minded of all. Admiral Pye thought that the feeling in Honolulu was influenced by the attitude of the Department in the preceding months in taking forces from the Pacific and indicating that they considered the German situation more serious than the Japanese situation. He also said that they had not been adequately advised of the development of conditions as known in Washington. Admiral Pye said that although an attack against the United States was not expected, they did expect the Japanese to proceed against the Dutch and British. Admiral Pye said that he thought that the general impression then had been that the Japanese naval air pilots were fairly good but that they did not think that these pilots were as good as they appeared to be immediately after Pearl Harbor. (p. 158) Admiral Pye said that they had had no information as to the torpedoes which had actually been developed by other nations. (p. 158) Admiral Pye said that he did not think that any of them had felt that an attack would be made before a declaration of war, if ever. (p. 151) Admiral Brown was not familiar with the security measures such as air search and other matters relating to the internal defense of Oahu except in a most general way. (p. 137) Admiral Brown's Task Force had assigned to it the task of developing the technique and examining the materials for amphibious warfare and during the six months preceding the attack, his energies and the energies of his staff were devoted to that subject. The primary task was training. During the year preceding Pearl Harbor, it was his impression that there must have been at least half a dozen alarms when it appeared that war would break out with the Japanese and each time the question was discussed whether or not defensive measures should be taken or training continued. His feeling was that training should be continued until the moment that war developed. This is what happened to the Fleet. (p. 137) During the last days of November, Admiral Brown participated in conferences with the Commander in Chief. His recollection was that the greatest concern had been as to the security of the outlying islands. They had all believed that Japanese submarines would be in Hawaiian waters when war came and had discussed the possibility of an air raid. His belief was that an air raid was possible but highly improbable; that dispositions should be made for the defense of the outlying islands and he believed that the greatest threat to Pearl Harbor was local sabotage. (p. 137) Admiral Brown believes that during the week preceding December 7, he was in almost daily conference with the Commander-in-Chief. Admiral Brown said he did not remember whether or not he saw the November 27 dispatch. It was his recollection that there was a prolonged discussion of that dispatch. (p. 139) Admiral Brown said that during the last few days prior to December 7, he felt that the chance of an air attack was extremely remote because of his misunderstanding of Japanese air ability. He did not consider the air a menace and was not concerned about the security of the ships in Pearl Harbor. His own estimate in December was that the Japanese would avoid an open break with the United States and confine their first attack to one against the Dutch or the British. He probably banked too much on that estimate of the situation. (p. 145) Admiral Brown's recollection of the conferences which were attended by Army representatives was vague. He believed that the conferences primarily were in connection with internal security on the island and with shortages in defense weapons and various forms of air craft. He recalled that in about November, somebody suggested that there might be a surprise air attack at Hawaii, that at the time Admiral Halsey was present that Admiral Brown expressed the opinion that Japanese fliers were not capable of executing such a mission successfully and that if they did, we should certainly be able to follow their planes back to their carriers and destroy the carriers so that it would be a very expensive experiment. (p. 142) Admiral Brown said that his erroneous belief at that time was that all Japanese fliers were distinctly inferior to American fliers. (p. 142) Admiral Halsey said that the war warning dispatch affected him very seriously. He thought that there was going to be a fight before he got back to Pearl Harbor. He said that when he left Pearl Harbor, he diverted the battleships, cruisers and destroyers and told them to carry out exercises in a certain area and then headed West with the remainder of his task force. He then issued orders to put in war heads in all torpedoes, to regard any submarine as hostile and to sink it, to arm the planes with bombs and to PROCEEDINGS OF HEWITT INQUIRY 441 shoot down any plane that was not identified. When they neared Wake, they went from Condition 3 to Condition 2. He tried to make full preparation for combat and he carried out morning and afternoon searches to 300 miles. Admiral Halsey said that he felt he might be attacked before he returned to Pearl Harbor and thought it might precipitate war. (p. 299) Admiral Halsey said that he did not feel that they were informed on what the Japs were doing and felt that they were operating in the dark. He thought that a good deal more was known in Washington than was known in Pearl Harbor. (p. 300) Admiral Halsey said that they thought the Japanese attack would take place in the Far East except by submarine and that they underestimated the Japanese ability to operate carriers or did not give it enough consideration. (p. 301) Admiral Halsey said that the question of an air attack on Pearl Harbor had been on everyone's mind but that he personally did not expect an air attack. He pointed out that anti‑aircraft drills had been had on many occasions. (p.302) Admiral Halsey said his personal and official relations with Admiral Kimmel were very close and that they conferred every time he returned to port. He said that Admiral Kimmel was principally worried about materiel conditions, the very heavy turnover in personnel and the question of balancing training against security. (p 294) Admiral Halsey said that there was a continuous flow of messages crying "wolf" and consequently the senses tended to be dull but the possibility of the international situation was constantly before their minds. (p. 296) Admiral Newton said that for several months preceding December 7, all hands had felt a tautening up of the situation and he believed that the majority were of the view that submarines were their greatest menace. (p. 332) Admiral Leary said that after their return to port on November 28, 1941, the security conditions existing on the ship were the same as on the previous stay in port which had ended about November 21. Admiral Leary said that the question of training is always a paramount one and that it was not possible to carry out the required training and maintain entirely satisfactory security measures. (p. 365) Admiral Leary said that in the few weeks prior to December 7, he had thought in a general way of the possibility of a surprise attack, and that they all felt that the contingency was remote and that the Intelligence Services would give adequate warning. (p. 365) He said that his estimate was that a surprise attack would be an air attack. (p. 366) He recalls no specific discussion along that line. Admiral Bunkley said that on October 15, the CALIFORNIA was at Long Beach and received orders to be ready to sail at 24 hours' notice. He received the drastic change of orders without being taken into the confidence of Admiral Pye as to any messages received which caused such a change in plans. (p.415) Admiral Bunkley had no idea of any warnings having been sent in November and December indicating that the situation was dangerous. His opinion at the time was that there was no danger of an air attack on Pearl Harbor. He did think that an attack would come in the Philippines. (p. 415) D. ADMIRAL SMITH Admiral Smith testified that Admiral Kimmel kept him informed of everything (page 530). He saw the "War Warning," but though the press or radio learned that negotiations were resumed (page 531). Each day the War Plans Officer and the Fleet Intelligence Officer gave CincPac an estimate of what was happening. He remembered. the November 28th message mainly because of the emphasis therein not to alarm the civilian population (page 531); but this did not. affect his estimate. It seemed odd to him to take Navy and Marine planes off Midway and Wake in accordance with the November 26th dispatch and to put Army planes there. The Army planes had to be transported by carrier (page 532). It would take two weeks to deliver these planes, and this meant the absence of carriers in the direction of Japan, and while not fully prepared for war (page 533). Admiral Smith testified that he considered this dispatch a directive, despite its language (page 543) . He said that the inference from Exhibits 15 and 17 was plain that the warning was directed against an attack on the Philippines or Guam (page 545). The
The "war warning" message, he said, would have been more effective if it had stopped with the word "warning" (page 534). Admiral Smith stated that in the Pacific Fleet they were not thinking of the defense of Pearl Harbor, but about the Fleet and readiness of the Fleet. The ships were ready for anything, but they were thinking mostly of how soon they could get out into battle, not the defense of Pearl Harbor (page 548). He stated that the Roberts' Report was correct in stating they were aware of the possibility of hostile action without declaration of war (page 556), but they expected that the Japanese might hit the Philippines, Midway, or Guam, but not Pearl Harbor. Admiral Smith said that the basis for his estimate that a surprise air attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor was possible but not probable was as follows (p. 374‑375): "There was a great deal of doubt in our minds that Japan would go to war with us unless Germany did so also. Our information from all sources, including the Navy Department, and our intelligence did not indicate that the Japanese fleet had any intentions or was on the way to attack Pearl Harbor. The Japanese fleet, as located, indicated no move in this direction, and, I believe, most important of all, we doubted whether the Japanese would dare send a large force as far to the eastward as Hawaii. The possibility that they might be located even by a neutral ship existed. They might have been located several times before their arrival there, in which case they would have been at a great disadvantage. I believe that all of these things existed in the back of our minds and it was for this reason that we did not fear an air attack." They did regard a submarine attack in the Hawaiian area as a sure thing (page 557). Admiral Smith said that they were very submarine conscious, and one reason for that was that they had had several sound contacts; perhaps all of them were false. On one occasion, in the month of February 1941, they had a contact by two destroyers south of Diamond Head which occurred again a month later. They never found out exactly what it was, but after investigation came to the conclusion that the contact was due to two different levels of water temperature although the destroyers had claimed that they had heard propeller noises. At one time, Admiral Kimmel, about six o'clock in the morning, told him to issue orders to bomb this contact. Before the order went out, however, he canceled it and reported the fact to CNO saying that he had no authority to do this except within the three‑mile limit around Pearl Harbor; a reply of the CNO was to the effect that it was a good thing that such orders had not been issued. So, Admiral Smith said, probably all of the contacts were false, but they were submarine conscious more than air conscious and everyone in the Fleet believed that if an attack came it would be by submarine rather than by aircraft. Admiral Smith believed that the officers of the Fleet felt that there was little danger of an air attack. (p. 42) Admiral Smith said that the warnings sent to them mentioned attacks in the Far East, and this probably resulted in a state of mind where they did not believe that they would be subjected to an air attack on Pearl Harbor, although they did expect submarine attack. (p. 64) Admiral Smith said that he thought there had been too much "crying wolf" and that such warnings had been received not only during Admiral Kimmel's administration but also previously by Admiral Richardson. (p. 64) Admiral Smith said that his thought was at the time, and still was, that they spent too much time in worrying about the outlying islands. They had large forces of civilians working on Wake and Midway, and the Commander-in-Chief spent a great deal of time, more than he should have spent, in efforts to complete the defenses of the outlying islands. He even went to the extent of personally auditing the records of the number of rounds of ammunition of all sorts on each island. He was much more concerned about the outlying islands than about Oahu, as the estimate shown in the Pacific War Plan would indicate. Looking back on it, Admiral Smith thinks that they probably gave too much thought to these islands and not enough to the larger things. (p. 64) PROCEEDINGS OF HEWITT INQUIRY 443 E. ADMIRAL McMORRIS Vice Admiral McMorris testified that the "war warning"dispatch of 27 November 1941 occasioned no surprise and did not convey any considerable amount of additional or startling information, because the situation with reference to Japan had been tense throughout the year of 1941 (p. 325). Admiral McMorris said that he had thought that sabotage or a submarine attack was a distinct possibility (page 887). Up to the time of the attack he considered the possibility of an air torpedo attack very remote (page 888) and gave as reasons therefor: (a) increasing evidence of Japanese movements toward Kra Peninsula; (b) concentration of troops in South China Area; (c) movement of combatant ships from the Empire to the South; (d) Navy warnings indicated the possibility of hostilities in that area, attack on Philippines, or movement of Japanese forces in Halmahera; (e) distance involved and logistic problem; (f) despite British attack on Italian Fleet in southern Italy—here the depth of water and short distance for run of torpedo was important; (g) confidence in antiaircraft defenses against torpedo planes. Vice Admiral McMorris testified that he considered sound the views expressed by the Secretary of the Navy in his letter of 24 January 1941 (Naval Court Exhibit 9), though he had not been completely in accord as to the elements of danger as listed in importance by the Secretary (p. 325‑327)* Vice Admiral McMorris further testified that he had considered an air attack possible but not probable and further than he considered the Fleet should not take as its sole object of existence the defending of itself against a surprise attack and that it should carry on other fundamental duties, including training and readying itself for operations (p. 327). He felt that the attack would be on the Philippines with a possible raid on Wake and Midway, and Guam would be seriously endangered (page 889). He felt that a submarine attack on Hawaii was probable. Vice Admiral McMorris testified, with reference to his estimate of the situation and possible courses of enemy action during the period of 27 November to 6 December 1941, that substantially he estimated the Japanese were on the point of commencing a war against Great Britain by operations in Malaysia. His early estimate was that the Japanese would act with the expectation that the United States would not enter the war with Great Britain unless it was itself attacked, but later he came to the conclusion that the Japanese might be unwilling to leave the line of communications abreast the Philippines exposed to attack in which case the United States would come into the war, and therefore, he estimated that heavy attacks on the Philippines had become not only a distinct possibility but were probable. He further estimated that the Japanese would seize Guam when they initiated the war, because of the negligible defenses there, and that, because the defense of Midway was stronger, with which the Japanese were probably familiar, it was initially a probability that Midway would be subjected to heavy raids but that it was less likely that there would be any Japanese effort towards seizing Midway. Vice Admiral McMorris testified that he further estimated that there were likely to be heavy Japanese submarine concentrations in the Hawaiian area and the approaches thereto; that submarine attacks would be directed primarily at our task forces operating at sea, and that there was a likelihood of attempts being made to sink a ship an the Pearl Harbor channel, in order to block ingress and egress. He also expected that there would be enemy submarine activity along the Pacific Coast. (Page 303‑304.) After receipt of the message of November 27th, a discussion was had as to whether or not any general message should be sent to the Fleet, particularly those in training and operating areas, and it was felt that the situation was already well in hand and it would, in effect, be a message to continue what they were doing: The only message was an injunction to be particularly alert for submarines (page 895). *NOTE.—This was the letter in which the Secretary envisioned the initiation of a Japanese war by a surprise attack on the Fleet at Pearl Harbor, and listed the dangers in order of importance as air bombing attack, air torpedo plane attack, sabotage, submarine attack, mining, and bombardment by gunfire. The Secretary further stated that the countermeasures to be considered in order of importance, were the location and engagement of enemy carriers, and supporting vessels before an air attack could be launched pointing out that these were largely functions of the Fleet, though Perhaps not possible of being carried out in the event of an air attack initiated without warning prior to a declaration of war (p. 3,26). 444 CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATION PEARL HARBOR ATTACK Admiral McMorris said that the dispatch of November 26th from the Chief of Naval Operations regarding the transfer of planes to Wake, of which CincPac was an addressee, probably influenced whatever ideas or views resulted from the series of dispatches, but the question of moving Army planes there was given extensive consideration and the determination was made to send defensive planes to Midway and Wake, preferably Marine, and they felt it imperative to have protective fighters there because they anticipated operating a number of patrol planes from Wake if war should start (page 891). A squadron of patrol planes searched in advance of the carrier and was withdrawn after she had discharged the planes at Wake (page 892). When Halsey and "Newton" moved to Wake and Midway for delivery of Marine aircraft, they were well aware of the fact that hostilities might commence before they again entered port (page 894). As Admiral McMorris recalled it, orders to depth bomb submarine contacts were issued after the war warning and orders given to Admirals Newton and Halsey to repel hostile planes. (p. 246) The proposal to send Army troops and planes to Midway and Wake did not, so far as he was concerned, weaken the "war warning." He thought those places would be weakened in defense by such a change; that they were important; and might be subject to attack so that the time was inauspicious (page 896). Admiral McMorris recalled that at not a great while before the commencement of war, there was a suggestion to replace the marines at outlying islands with Army forces and that this was discussed with General Short. It was concluded not to send them. They felt that the Washington proposal was badly timed. He did not feel that it vitiated the war warning dispatch. (p. 247) Those dispatches (Exhibits 18, 40) were proposals and not directives and the recommendation was against the proposals and recommendation was accepted (page 896). He believed from the limited knowledge he had that the danger from enemy aircraft was not great (page 896). He did not consider that the Japanese would make a surprise air attack; he felt that the only serious danger was sabotage or submarines (page 900). With reference to testimony given by him in previous investigations to the effect that in his opinion the island defense was adequate. and that the chances of an air attack inflicting damage were small, Vice Admiral McMorris testified generally that the bases of that opinion were as follows: (a) That the anti‑aircraft guns and the fighters would destroy a large proportion of attacking planes; (b) That bombing by enemy planes would not be sufficiently accurate to obtain a large number of hits; (e) That notwithstanding the success of the British air torpedo attack at Taranto, which he believed was attributable to peculiar conditions that existed at Taranto, he did not believe there was any serious hazard in an air torpedo attack at Pearl, because: (1) the attacking planes would have to fly very low, thereby exposing themselves to anti‑aircraft fire and fighter interception, and (2) the shallowness of the water and the short distance available for torpedo runs would operate to reduce the effectiveness of this type of attack. He stated that manifestly his conclusions were entirely wrong, but that they had been reached by reading available information as to torpedo performance an our own Navy; (d) He admitted that he did not have any knowledge as to whether the Army anti‑aircraft defenses were actually alerted nor as to their condition of readiness, but he assumed that they were in a state of readiness. "Perhaps I was remiss in not acquainting myself more fully as to what they were doing. We knew that our own establishment was fairly good. Actually they proved not to be as good as I felt. We were a bit too complacent there. Nonetheless, I was not directly acquainted or indirectly acquainted with the actual state of readiness being maintained or the watches being kept with respect to the aircraft defenses of Hawaii (p. 330-332). Admiral McMorris said that he saw the November 28th dispatch and considered the directive for reconnaissance to mean search by aircraft for submarines or a raiding cruiser. Admiral McMorris said that he did not believe that a surprise air attack was likely in the Hawaiian area although he did consider such an attack PROCEEDINGS OF HEWITT INQUIRY 445 possible in the Philippines and even against Midway or Wake. Probably he said, some discussions along those lines may have taken place but he had no specific recollection of such a discussion. (p. 236) He personally never considered an air attack as more than a remote possibility and he is certain that Admiral Kimmel was not anticipating such an attack. Directory: pha pha -> Security Education Narrative Database Patterns of Professional Education pha -> Northern health centers, inc pha -> Pharmacy Section II pha -> Pprd east Programme Final Conference and 3rd Steering Committee Meeting Brussels, 13 June 2014 pha -> Correct Answer c chlorothiazide D pha -> Document Number: V1/C/alc2/7 Submission by: United States, Government pha -> When to submit to the dna database pha -> Gordon L. Amidon Download 1.58 Mb. 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