Pearl Harbor Betrayed (5 page)

Recognizing that the aircraft repair facilities of the air depot at Hickam Field would be among the first installations targeted in a surprise attack (as it was), Short sought funds to bombproof it by moving it underground. He was denied. He recommended that funds be allocated to construct splinterproof protective shelters for antiaircraft and mobile seacoast (artillery) batteries and was denied. He requested funds to camouflage batteries at four forts and was denied. He asked for an increase in enlisted men of an antiaircraft regiment (251st Coast Artillery) and was denied. He asked that his overall garrison strength be increased from 58,000 to 71,500 and was denied.
31

On the credit side, Short did receive the antiaircraft armament promised by Secretary Stimson, which brought his AA strength up to 98 3-inch guns, 120 37-mm guns, and 308 .50-caliber machine guns. Grateful as he was for the increase, Short knew that these weapons were relatively useless against fast modern aircraft, particularly bombers and strafers flying at 200 feet or lower. And he did receive thirty-one obsolete Curtiss P-36A pursuit planes promised him by Stimson on 7 February, as well as fifty new Curtiss P-40B Warhawk pursuits with liquid-cooled Allison engines, leakproof tanks, and pilot-protecting armor. The P-40B gave him a sporting chance against the much-touted Japanese Zero, or Zeke. Little would he think before it happened that, on 27 November, just eleven days before the Japanese attack, the War and Navy Departments would suggest sending 50 percent of his P-40 strength to Wake and Midway Islands—which would indicate to both Short and Kimmel that the intelligence services of the two departments did not consider a strike against Oahu to be imminent or likely. (Meanwhile, two hundred P-40s were being shipped to Russia.)
32

Throughout, Short seems to have kept his composure. Though he called the Adjutant General's attention to his rebuffs from Washington,
33
on 14 April he wrote to Marshall: “Everything is going along extremely well, although there is a great deal to be done as rapidly as possible. The Navy has felt very much encouraged by the increase in our Air and Antiaircraft defense.”
34
All during the spring, summer, and fall that followed he drove his men hard with infantry and artillery field exercises. With Bloch he conducted combined Army-Navy air exercises and air raid drills. With Kimmel he directed air and naval maneuvers hundreds of miles out to sea, in which Army bombers located and “bombed” the Navy's carriers. Nor was he unmindful that the Japanese might attempt landings on Oahu. With Kimmel's ships to simulate enemy warships and transports, Short had his 27th Infantry Division, representing the enemy landing force, come ashore simultaneously at widely dispersed beaches on the island, while his artillery and remaining infantry practiced repelling the invaders.
35
Hard, provident, conscientious work seems to have characterized Short's months of Hawaiian Army command. At no point in the record does the picture emerge of a derelict officer. He approached 7 December steadfast in his labors and faithful in his charge.

*   *   *

The purposes of a harbor and a fleet base were to provide upkeep, repair, refueling, and replenishing of ships as well as rest and recreation for crews after strenuous operations at sea. Just as ships could not be kept in continuous operation, so crews could not be kept at peak efficiency in peacetime without regularly scheduled days in port. And since harbors were normally viewed as havens from peril on the sea, it probably was thought by most American citizens who knew anything about Pearl Harbor from
Collier's
or other such sources that the Pacific Fleet when at Pearl was safe as bears snuggled in their den. But this harbor presented some peculiar and alarming exposures to danger. While its lochs provided ten square miles of anchorage, the 140-odd warships and other vessels that ordinarily occupied that space were moored in such congestion that, for an attacking air fleet, it would be somewhat like shooting fish in a barrel.
36
The single, narrow entrance channel, through which all ships must pass, exposed individual ships in slow line ahead to torpedo attack by submarines. Too, a ship or other obstruction sunk in the channel would block all other ships from entry or sortie. Again, because of the single channel, should a warning come of approaching enemy warships, two to three hours would be required for the fleet to sortie. Magnetic and other mines might be laid in the sea approaches to the channel. And, finally, among the major dangers in Kimmel's estimation, the topography of the land surrounding the harbor, e.g., the generally accessible Aiea Heights, made it readily possible for enemy agents from the large Japanese population of the island to keep watch on the berthing and movement of ships. But as long as the President insisted on maintaining the fleet in Hawaii, Pearl Harbor had to be its home. The only suitable alternative, deep-water Lahaina Roads, off Maui, was ruled out by Richardson and Kimmel because of its “extreme vulnerability” to submarine attack.
37

Since the Army alone, even when reinforced by the matériel promised it by Secretary Stimson, and even, for that matter, when shored up by the Local Defense Forces of the Fourteenth Naval District, could not offer a convincing defense of the fleet and harbor against air attack, it fell to Admiral Kimmel's fleet, with its AA guns and carrier aircraft, to make up the difference, if it could. Kimmel did not think it could, fully, and he regretted that he had to try, because constant attention to defense watches in port drew energy and time from the fleet's primary responsibility under war plan WPL-46, which was to train officers and men for far-flung offensive actions in the Central and South Pacific. A
maximum
security effort in port would have made training impossible altogether; it would paralyze the fleet in place; in fact, it would call into question the reasons for having a fleet at all. With adequate personnel and matériel it would be possible to maintain a state of alert for some period of time, but Kimmel did not have (and never would have) sufficient numbers of either. And, even with them, he would have had to consider the deleterious psychological effects on personnel of long periods of peacetime watch standing. His only option was to
balance
security needs, training requirements, and crew rest. In port that delicate balance lay between rest, in order to bring fresh crews into battle, and reasonable provisions for security against surprise attack. That equilibrium had to be carefully maintained, lest the fleet be worn out on the one hand or caught unawares on the other.

It would have been helpful if Kimmel could have delegated the Navy's defense mission entirely to Bloch, but Bloch's resources were grossly inadequate, and the fleet itself had to become directly engaged, with the result that, unlike Short, Kimmel had to prepare simultaneously for both offensive
and
defensive operations. To his credit, without complaint to Washington, he threw all his energies into both tasks. And from Washington he received appropriate encouragement. Very early on, CNO Stark wrote him, praising the wisdom of the President's appointment, which “has the overwhelming approval of the Service,” and adding: “I am thankful that I have your calm judgment, your imagination, your courage, your guts and your good head at the seagoing end. Also your
can do
—rather than
can't
.”
38

On 19 February, Kimmel issued Pacific Fleet Confidential Letter No. 2 CL-41 titled “Security of Fleet at Base and in Operating Areas.” With only one set of minor revisions published on 14 October, this defense plan for security and condition of readiness was operating doctrine through 7 December; and, indeed, after Kimmel was relieved as CINCPAC in that same month by Admiral Nimitz, the latter continued in force the 2CL-41 directive.
39
Prescribed in 2CL-41 were three conditions of readiness for ships moored in Pearl Harbor:

Condition I
—General Quarters [action stations] in all ships. Condition of aircraft as prescribed by Naval Base Defense Officer [Bloch].

Condition II
—One-half of antiaircraft battery of all ships in each sector manned and ready. Condition of aircraft as prescribed by Naval Base Defense Officer.

Condition III
—Antiaircraft battery (guns which bear in assigned sector) of at least one ship in each sector manned and ready. Minimum of four guns required for each sector. Condition of aircraft as prescribed by Naval Base Defense Officer.

It was the responsibility of the Naval Base Defense Officer (Bloch) to advise the Senior Officer Embarked, normally the Commander Battleships, Battle Force, which condition the fleet should maintain. But the Senior Officer Embarked would give the order. Kimmel ordered that in port there must be
at all times
on board each ship at least 50 percent of the enlisted men and 25 percent of the officers. Furthermore, all ships must have a sufficient number of officers and men trained for the job in each watch to man all AA batteries. Ships were to be moored by sectors in such a way as to provide each a clear arc of fire. There also must be at all times a sufficient number of men on board to get the ship under way, to go to sea, and to fight the ship. After 29 April, each battleship at anchor had two machine guns continuously manned, with two cases of .50-caliber ammunition, and crews standing by two 5-inch AA guns with fifteen rounds of ammunition for each. This was a higher standard of security than prescribed in condition III. No guns in either cruisers or destroyers were manned, but, by Kimmel's order, ammunition was in the ready boxes at the guns and the gun crews normally lived near the guns at all times. It was more difficult to mount continuous peacetime watches in cruisers and destroyers because of their smaller crews, whereas with the larger number of men in battleships watches could be maintained continuously without hardship.

On Sunday morning, 7 December, it may be noted, among the battleships
Arizona
(BB-39) had 37 officers on board and all of her enlisted men with the exception of about 40;
West Virginia
(BB-48) had 80 percent of

her officers and 95 percent of her crew;
Tennessee
(BB-43) had her duty watch and 38 other officers, together with all but 111 of her complement of 1,700 enlisted men;
California
(BB-44) had 49 officers and all but 6 of her enlisted complement.
Maryland
(BB-46) had all officers but one of her AA battery and all her enlisted men except a few on patrol, leave, and special liberty;
Nevada
(BB-36) had 6 of her 9 AA officers and 95 percent of her enlisted personnel; and
Pennsylvania
(BB-38), in dry dock, had 40 officers and all enlisted men except 32 petty officers on liberty. There are no figures for
Oklahoma,
whose logs and other documents were lost in the sinking. Other classes of ships showed the same high rates of personnel on board. The light cruisers
Honolulu
(CL-48) and
Helena
(CL-50), for example, had 50 percent of officers and 98 percent of crew on the former and 78 percent of officers and 98 percent of crew on the latter. Although 50 percent of crews on all ships were permitted to go ashore, few did so. And there was no noticeable evidence of alcohol abuse among either officers or crews on shore during Saturday night through Sunday morning.

On all types of vessels daily and nightly AA exercises were carried out when in port, utilizing every type of armament, 5-inch, 3-inch, 1.1-inch quadruple mounts, and .50-caliber machine guns. Unluckily for the fleet, these were wretchedly inadequate weapons for defending against low-flying aircraft moving at speeds in excess of 250 miles per hour. The .50-caliber machine guns lacked heft; the 3-inch gun was not rapid fire; and the 1.1-inch was subject to overheating and jamming after a few rounds. The Department of the Navy was slow in adopting and deploying two rapid-fire antiaircraft weapons that provided other Western navies the capacity to destroy fast modern aircraft. The first was a 20-mm gun manufactured by the Swiss Oerlikon-Bührle Company. Firing an explosive shell with a cyclic rate of fire of 600 rounds per minute, it proved particularly useful for repelling low-flying aircraft. The British Admiralty, which purchased 1,500 before the outbreak of war, and manufactured many more under license, produced a documentary film on the Oerlikon, which it showed in the United States in 1942 as part of an effort to persuade the U.S. Navy to adopt the gun, which it eventually did, but too late for Pearl Harbor. The second weapon, a Swedish-designed 40-mm antiaircraft gun, was even more effective. Called the Bofors, from AB Bofors, the company that developed it in 1929, the gun gave warships the ability to put up heavy saturating fire at a rate of 140 rounds per minute. Its projectiles were high explosive. Maximum practical range was 12,500 feet. Most European countries adopted the gun before the war. The U.S. Navy dawdled and finally came around to it late in 1941, again too late for Pearl Harbor. What it might have accomplished there on 7 December was demonstrated in its first use on board the carrier
Enterprise
(CV-6) and the battleship
South Dakota
(BB-55) during the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, on 26 October 1942, when the quadruple-mounted Bofors cleared the skies. With a more provident ordnance program at Main Navy its first successful use might have taken place eleven months sooner.