Warbird Information Exchange

What are your thoughts on this? Was it worthy of such action?

December 17, 1941

Commander at Pearl Harbor canned

On this day, Rear Admiral Husband E. Kimmel was relieved of his command of the U.S. Pacific Fleet as part of a shake-up of officers in the wake of the Pearl Harbor disaster.

Admiral Kimmel had enjoyed a successful military career, beginning in 1915 as an aide to the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He served admirably on battleships in World War I, winning command of several in the interwar period. At the outbreak of World War II, Kimmel had already attained the rank of rear admiral and was commanding the cruiser forces at Pearl Harbor. In January 1941, he was promoted to commander of the Pacific Fleet, replacing James Richardson, who FDR relieved of duty after Richardson objected to basing the fleet at Pearl Harbor.

If Kimmel had a weakness, it was that he was a creature of habit, of routine. He knew only what had been done before, and lacked imagination-and therefore insight-regarding the unprecedented. So, even as word was out that Japan was likely to make a first strike against the United States as the negotiations in Washington floundered, Kimmel took no extraordinary actions at Pearl Harbor. In fact, he believed that a sneak attack was more likely at Wake Island or Midway Island, and requested from Lieutenant General Walter Short, Commander of the Army at Pearl Harbor, extra antiaircraft artillery for support there (none could be spared).

Kimmel's predictability was extremely easy to read by Japanese military observers and made his fleet highly vulnerable. As a result, Kimmel was held accountable, to a certain degree, for the absolute devastation wrought on December 7. Although he had no more reason than anyone else to believe Pearl Harbor was a possible Japanese target, a scapegoat had to be found to appease public outrage. He avoided a probable court-martial when he requested early retirement. When Admiral Kimmel's Story, an "as told to" autobiography, was published in 1955, Kimmel made it plain that he believed FDR sacrificed him-and his career-to take suspicion off himself; Kimmel believed Roosevelt knew Pearl Harbor was going to be bombed, although no evidence has ever been adduced to support his allegation.

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I don't see how FDR could have had prior knowledge of the PH attack and keep it secret enough that no one else knew. He would have had to get his information from the military or state department and if someone there knew of the attack it would have come out by now. I don't see Marshall and his Navy and State counterparts ever colluding to allow an attack or not responding if they knew it happened.

As for Kimmel the ultimate responsibility was his and he deserves the blame. Hawaii was a territory 1,000 miles from the mainland. The Japanese could easily strike there as anywhere else in the Pacific as they proved. Anyone who studied modern Japanese warfare would no they tended to fight first and declare war later. After Taranto and with tensions rising in the Pacific someone charged with protecting from and responding to an attack could have figured what the Japanese did; after the oil embargo they had oil reserves for about 6 months. They had to fight or give in. No way they would ever give in.

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"I can't understand it, I cut it twice and it's still too short!" Robert F. Dupre' 1923-2010 Go With God.

Rear Admiral Husband E. Kimmel was relieved of his command of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.
He failed to do his job, and was relieved of command. This sounds fine to me. However, he did not cause the War nor did he assist in the starting of it.
I am sure if he had a time machine he would do different. But would anyone else?

Was he at "fault" because the Japanese decided to do a sneak attack? No.
It was a tragedy of errors. Many events happened, and no one picked up on the disaster to come.
He did not cause the disaster, nor did he want it to come about.

Where do you draw the line at blame?
If he was that incompetent, then why did he get placed into that command?
Who did the promoting? I would imagine that “they” could see that he would fail in the future if the Japanese attacked.

It is human nature to find fault in someone. But it really is just one of those things that happen.
People and groups loose all the time. Coaches loose football and soccer games.
Sometimes it is a lack of effort. Sometimes it is … because it is…

So the question was. Did he do his job to achieve success? No. So he was fired.

Did he lack the skill? Perhaps or perhaps he didn’t.

Did he deserve the blame? I don’t know about that.
There were several people that let the ball drop. And the real blame should go to the Japanese empire.

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Well, it happened under his watch. A lot of CEOs get canned, not for doing anything bad, but for allowing a culture to exist that doesn't identify and mitigate risks that were forseeable. Was it forseeable that the Japanese would attack Pearl Harbor? I think so. This was a military installation after all and the Japanese were starting wars throughout Asia. The aircraft were supposedly lined up in the middle of the field to guard against sabateurs, so they must have known that something was up. They had radar, why? Maybe to locate incoming traffic, but certainly even a casual observer would think it might be useful for discovering and tracking interlopers.

If the ship runs aground and the Captain was down taking a whizz on the keel plate at the time, his answer to the Maritime investigations board as to who was in command at the time is alway 'I was'

It may not have been 100% his fault, but he was driving the bus and certainly ignored several suspiscious things prior to the attack, no one cares if the Private gets jail time, but the big dude better take his hits too-it comes with all the farts and darts on the hat-

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Does it matter any more? Some one had to take the hit for Pearl Harbor. Kimmel, King, or Roosevelt. The Japanese got some payback.

I can't remember the specifics, but there were several alerts in the preceding month. There was a lot of speculation on what would get hit when and how. Radar was an unknown asset and its worth was suspect. The radar contact reports didn't get far enough up the chain fast enough to make any difference.

There was lots of blame to go around and has already been stated, Kimmel was the guy at the top. If the attack had taken place elsewhere, it would have been some one else. IIRC, the Philippines or Singapore weren't any more prepared when they got attacked.

Ultimately, it was the fault of the Japanese. And they screwed up. Didn't get the repair facilities, tank farms or submarine base. Through fortunate circumstances they didn't get the carriers.

That's four good things on the American's side that often get overlooked. As bad as it was, it could have been worse.

Y'all know what they say about hindsight. The Allies didn't have the Axis playbook. They had to be prepared for lots of scenarios.

And here we have the first of the "Black helicopter" theories.


Sorry John, not trying to highjack your thoughts, but the made me do it.

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Steve Turner, USAF aircraft refueler 54+ years ago.