Pearl Harbor Betrayed (53 page)

C. Addison Pound, Jr., then an aviation cadet (at this date a resident of Gainesville, FL), piloted SBU-1 No. 42-S-6 on the Fleet Problem XIX attack of 30 March 1938. SB stood for bomber: the aircraft could carry two 200-pound bombs on its lower wing. The U stood for Chance-Vought, the manufacturer. Pound's VS-42 squadron, lacking oxygen, flew below 13,000 feet. “In the air at 5:00 [
A.M
.],…” he wrote in his diary. “Ahead were the piled cumulus masses marking Oahu, and we ran between two layers, one broken below and a solid above.… The group split, each squadron to its objective, and, as yet unseen—ours, Ford Island and the Patrol Base. We wheeled down into the rain and squared away on the hangers and beached PBY's—perfect—and steamed out to sea on the harbor channel at max[imum] manifold pressure, screaming by a group of A-11s [Curtiss two-seat attack bombers] that the Army [Air Corps] had picketed at low altitude.… These birds were funny as hell today with their coded calls, all names of whiskies:… ‘Johnny Walker'… ‘Hague & Hague'… ‘Crab Orchard.'” Copy of diary page courtesy of Mr. Pound.

88
. Kimmel told the NCI: “I would say that while all sectors are important, if I were restricted, I would probably search the western 180-degree sector first”; PHA, Pt. 32, p. 236. He told the JCC that, right after the attack on 7 December, he had a “hunch” that the Japanese aircraft had flown in from the north. “I did not know why, but I felt the carriers were to the northward, and I put that in a dispatch to Halsey. I did not want to make it much more than a hunch. Subsequently we got information which seemed to indicate the carriers were to the southward, and I had nothing more than this feeling, you might say.” PHA, Pt. 6, p. 2603.

89
. Ibid., p. 2535; cf. p. 2534.

90
. Ibid., pp. 2723–24.

91
. The writer is grateful for this meteorological information to Mark Jackson, of the National Weather Service, Pacific Region Headquarters, Honolulu; and to Henry Luu, meteorologist-forecaster at the National Weather Service Forecast Office, University of Hawaii, who showed the writer surface plots of the Pacific region north of Oahu during the month of December 2000.

92
. Letter dated 13 January 2000, postmarked Julian, California, forwarded by Admiral Richardson to the writer.

93
. NARA, RG 80, PHLO, Box 25, Commander-in-Chief, United States Pacific Fleet [Nimitz] to Commander-in-Chief, United States Fleet [King], Pearl Harbor, T.H., 7 January 1942.

94
. Ibid., and Bellinger to King, via Nimitz, 30 December 1941, same Box 25.

95
. See “Japanese Attack Plan” folder in NARA, RG 80, PHLO, Box 4; and reproductions of the Japanese tracking chart on the endpapers of Dull,
Imperial Japanese Navy,
and in Prange,
At Dawn We Slept,
p. 418.

96
. NARA, RG 80, PHLO, Box 26, Colonel H. W. Allen, Assistant Adjutant General, General Headquarters, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, to Chief of Staff [Marshall], Tokyo, 1 November 1945.

97
. Captain Mitsuo Fuchida, “I Led the Air Attack on Pearl Harbor,” United States Naval Institute
Proceedings,
vol. 78, no. 9 (September 1952), pp. 942, 946.

98
. NARA, RG 80, PHLO, Box 3, Naval Technical Mission, General Headquarters, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, “Pearl Harbor Attack,” Interrogation of Captain Minoru Genda, Summary, 28 November 1945.

99
. Unnamed and undated interrogation report in NARA, RG 80, PHLO, Box 40.

100
. KC, Roll 3, Japanese Plan for the Attack on Pearl Harbor, p. 13.

101
. Rear Admiral Sadao Chigusa (Ret.), “Conquer the Pacific Ocean Aboard the Destroyer
Akigumo
: War Diary of the Hawaiian Battle,” in Donald M. Goldstein and Katherine V. Dillon, eds.,
The Pearl Harbor Papers: Inside the Japanese Plans
(Washington, D.C.: Brassey's [US], 1993), p. 190.

102
. PHA, Pt. 33, pp. 1183–84. Lt. Comdr. Logan Ramsey, chief of staff for Patwing 2, stated in 1944 that, “On the 360-degree circle from the Island, we took weather reports [from PBYs] covering a period of several months and found that approximately 20% in the area for a distance of 700 miles could be expected to have weather conditions where the visibility might go as low as zero.” He was optimistic, however: “We stood an excellent chance of detecting any sizable group of surface vessels on any given day.… We might go out in rain squalls and miss them for a hour and get them on the return leg. If there was a widespread front, we might miss them entirely.” PHA, Pt. 32, p. 447.

103
. The Latin language maxim may be translated as: “In extreme circumstances extreme measures must be taken.”

104
. 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, Chief of Naval Operations to the Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet, 10 February 1941. On 23 June Stark mentioned sampans again to Kimmel: “It is also anticipated that at least five (5) sampans, recently condemned, will be available in the District”; KC, Roll 3.

105
. Mitsuo Fuchida and Masatake Okumiya,
The Battle That Doomed Japan
(New York: Ballantine Books, Inc., 1955), pp. 68–71; Spector,
Eagle Against the Sun,
pp. 154–55.

106
. PHA, Pt. 4, p. 2045.

107
. Ibid., Pt. 36, p. 550.

108
. NARA, RG 80, PHLO, Box 5, Statement of Evidence, p. 204, Ingersoll to Kimmel, 13 August 1941.

109
. Morison,
Battle of the Atlantic,
pp. 275–76. A picket-ship line would have to be sustained on station by one or more tankers. The old destroyers, for example, required refueling every three days at sea. Kimmel had four tankers capable of refueling at sea. One could have operated to the north of Oahu, a second to the south. A third could be held in reserve. Even a fourth would be available up to 5 December, when it would be needed by Task Force 12, built around
Lexington
. Halsey on
Enterprise
did not take a tanker with TF-8. Carriers were fully capable of refueling their accompanying ships. The writer is indebted to Vice Admiral David C. Richardson, USN (Ret.), former deputy commander in chief, Pacific Fleet, for these additional details.

110
. PHA, Pt. 4, p. 2045.

111
. KC, Roll 3, “Outline of Testimony Given Before Army Board Wash D.C., August 1944,” p. 3.

112
. PHA, Pt. 39, p. 308.

113
. KC, Roll 20, “Additional Security Measures Taken November 27, 1941 and Thereafter,” p. 1.

114
. Ibid.

115
. PHA, Pt. 6, p. 2537.

116
. Ibid., p. 2538. The order was issued on the twenty-eighth with a copy sent to OpNav on that date. On 2 December Kimmel personally wrote Stark: “You will note that I have issued orders to the Pacific Fleet to depth bomb all submarine contacts in the Oahu operating area;” NARA, RG 80, PHLO, Box 29, Kimmel to Betty, 2 December 1941. Cf., Pt. 6, p. 2662.

117
. KC, Roll 20, “Additional Security Measures,” p. 2.

118
. Ibid., p. 2.

119
. PHA, Pt. 6, p. 2532.

120
. Ibid.

121
. KC, Roll 20, “Additional Security Measures,” p. 1.

122
. See exchange of letters, Kimmel to Ramsey, 6 December 1945, and then Captain Ramsey to Kimmel, 25 December 1945, in KC, Roll 28.

123
. PHA, Pt. 6, p. 2534. Also see Lt. Comdr. Baecher to Mr. Seth W. Richardson, 4 April 1946, communicating Operation Plan No. 9-1, Section (a), Search Squadron, dated 15 November 1941, signed by Bellinger. NARA, RG 80, PHLO, Box 18.

124
. An oral report presented to the JCC on 15 November 1945 by Rear Admiral T. B. Inglis, who had never been stationed at Pearl Harbor, contained the statement that these three patrol planes were scheduled to take off at 0527 but did not take off until 0640. PHA, Pt. 1, pp. 37 and 41. But the group leader of that flight, Ensign William P. Tanner, stated that “It was just after 0600 when we got up on the step and lifted off the water in Kaneohe Bay.” Quoted in Mel Crocker,
Black Cats and Dumbos: WWII's Fighting PBYs
(Blue Ridge Summit, PA: Tab Books, Inc., 1987), p. 2.

125
. PHA, Pt. 36, p. 550; Pt. 6, p. 2530. NARA, RG 80, PHLO, Statement of Evidence, pp. 578–80. From the immediately foregoing paragraphs in this chapter 6, it would be difficult to sustain a charge that Kimmel did nothing by way of stiffening his defenses after 27 November. Such a charge was made at a Colloquium on Pearl Harbor and the Kimmel Controversy, held in Washington, D.C., on 7 December 1999, by professor of history Robert W. Love, of the U.S. Naval Academy. “Why was Kimmel unready?” Love asked, when other commanders in the Asiatic Fleet, the Philippines, the Western Defense Command, Alaska, and the Caribbean Defense Command put their forces on alert or took other defensive measures. “Kimmel's counterparts moved,” Love asserted. “They acted, whereas in Gordon Prange's memorable phrase, Kimmel failed to cease polishing the sword and pick up the shield.” (Audio tape with the writer.) The evidence is to the contrary.

126
.
Chicago Tribune,
Monday, 27 October 1941.

Chapter Seven: Climb Niitakayama

1
. The foregoing information is given in Agawa,
Reluctant Admiral
, pp. 214–26. Agawa states that he relied on Volume 10,
Hawai sakusen
[Hawaii Operation], in the Japanese Defense Agency's series,
History of the War
. This would be the 102-volume
Senshi sosho
[War History] edited by Boeicho Boei Kenshujo, Senshishitsu (Asagumo Shinbunsha, 1966–1980).

2
. NARA, RG 80, PHLO, “Reconstruction of Jap Attack Plan for the Attack on Pearl Harbor,” Box 18; “The Japanese Plan for the Attack on Pearl Harbor,” Box 4. Also see Agawa,
Reluctant Admiral,
p. 228.

3
. Ibid., p. 229.

4
. Fukudome, “Hawaii Operation,”
Proceedings,
p. 1322.

5
. See the newly published Herbert P. Bix,
Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan
(New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2000),
passim
.

6
. Quoted in Bix,
Hirohito,
p. 422.

7
. Ibid., pp. 425–26.

8
. Fukudome, “Hawaii Operation,”
Proceedings,
pp. 1322–23.

9
. Quoted in Prange,
At Dawn We Slept,
p. 330

10
. The Operational Order No. 1 is given in PHA, Pt. 13, p. 431 ff; also in NARA, RG 80, PHLO, Box 36. A copy of the order was recovered at war's end from the Japanese cruiser
Nachi,
sunk in Manila Bay.

11
. Quoted in Prange,
At Dawn We Slept,
p. 332.

12
. Agawa,
Reluctant Admiral,
p. 236.

13
. Rear Admiral Walter C. Ansel, USN (Ret.), “The Taranto Lesson,” in Stillwell, ed.,
Air Raid, Pearl Harbor!,
p. 74. After the war, some curious remarks about the attacks at Taranto and Pearl were made by Admiral William V. Pratt, USN (Ret.), a former CNO as well as a former CINCUS: “Didn't the Taranto sinkings, which happened in November 1940, mean anything? There three Italian battleships and two cruisers, lying in an enclosed harbor, with a water depth of 42 feet and less, were sunk in a British air torpedo attack. The water depth at Pearl Harbor was 45 feet. And now [it is said] it was not thought a successful torpedo attack could be made in that depth of water. What is a Commander-in-Chief for?”
Newsweek
, 10 September 1945. (In 1933, the reader will remember, Pratt called Kimmel “a humdinger.”) One should have thought that a former CNO would have access to nautical charts. The writer consulted a chart of the Port of Taranto and Mare Grande, with soundings in meters, in the Map Library, University of Florida Libraries (D5.356.54061/1997).

14
. The best recent analysis of the Type 91 modification 2 torpedo is De Virgilio, “Japanese Thunderfish,” pp. 61–68. The writer is grateful to Daniel A. Martinez, National Park Service historian at the USS
Arizona
Memorial, at Pearl Harbor, who explained to him the aft section of a Japanese torpedo that was recovered from the harbor bottom. See also Prange,
At Dawn We Slept,
pp. 160, 324, 332–33. The 17.7-inch Type 91 had a 2,200-yard range, 42-knot speed, and a 452-pound warhead (explosive charge).

15
. PHA, Pt. 33, p. 1283.

16
. Ibid., Pt. 23, p. 1138. In the attack at Taranto torpedoes were dropped at distances of 400, 600, 700, 800, 1,000, and 1,300 yards from targets. The water allowances for aerial torpedo runs against the battleships and cruisers at Pearl Harbor were 1935 yards from the navy yard to berths off northeast Ford Island, measured from Merry Point Landing, and 800 yards from Pearl City Peninsula southeast to berths off northwest Ford Island.

17
. Ibid., Pt. 33, p. 1284.

18
. NARA, RG 80, PHLO, Box 5, “Statement of Evidence,” p. 226.

19
. Ibid., p. 227. NARA, RG 80, PHLO, Box 8, “Information Derived from Alusna London Confidential Dispatch to OPNAV, 22 November 1940.”

20
. Ibid., p. 228; and PHA, Pt. 23, p. 1138.

21
. NARA, RG 80, PHLO, Box 5, “Statement of Evidence,” pp. 229–30.

22
. PHA, Pt. 39, p. 362.

23
. NARA, RG 80, PHLO, Box 5, “Statement of Evidence,” pp. 230–31.

24
. Ibid., Box 8, untitled and undated list, probably drawn up by Lt. Comdr. Baecher.

25
. Ibid., Box 8, Intelligence Report, from Naval Attaché, London, No. 855 (Secret), issued by the Intelligence Division, Office of Chief of Naval Operations, 15 May 1941, no. 8 of 9 copies.