Robert B. Simpson: Mythic 'history'

Our fiftieth state was still the Territory of Hawaii when the Army sent me there for a 3+ year tour of duty. World War II had ended just a dozen years before, so wartime memories and myths were still fresh. Some of the more seasoned members of my unit filled me in on popular versions of the attack on Pearl Harbor that had plunged us into that war.

They told me how a milk truck driver, of Japanese ancestry, had driven down a parked row of Army Air Corps planes at Hickam Field just prior to the attack, smashing the tails off every aircraft. And how President Roosevelt had known the attack was coming and that Pearl Harbor was the target, but let it happen because he wanted us to get into the war. And how General George C. Marshall, the Army's Chief of Staff, had gone for a horseback ride that fateful Sunday morning, deliberately putting himself out of contact so he couldn't warn the Hawaiian Department in time for them to defend themselves. And how Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, commanding the Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor, and Lieutenant General Walter Short, commanding the Army in Hawaii and charged with protecting the naval forces, had been unfairly blamed for failing to fend off the surprise attack.

All of this was nonsense, of course, and had long since been proven to be such. Which is not to say that controversy has not continued to surround the subject of Pearl Harbor. It probably always will. There were enough errors, complacency, unpreparedness, and faulty organization to provide plausible excuse for the myths of conspiracy and unfairness to be swallowed whole.

Hearings were held to find out what went wrong. Political enemies of President Roosevelt were determined to prove that he had known what was coming, and where, before it happened, yet had deliberately failed to alert the Army and Navy commands in Hawaii. Military enemies of General Marshall, including several general officers he had relieved or otherwise punished, had good reason to sully Marshall's reputation, and they did. Military witnesses at the initial hearings were instructed, on Marshall's orders, not to give any information indicating that the U.S. had broken Japan's major code. Thus many of them, caught between a rock and a hard place, perjured themselves and at the same time were unable to provide information that would have explained away some of the blame General Marshall was absorbing.

A later and more thorough investigation, no longer hampered by the need to keep secret the fact that we had broken Japan's most secret diplomatic code early in the war, was conducted when the dust had settled. This investigation was directed by Secretary of War Henry Stimson.

My interest in World War II history, and especially my later familiarity with Hawaii and Pearl Harbor, led me to study the conduct of and results of the different investigations into the debacle of December 7, 1941. It seems clear to me, and to many others, that while FDR and other senior Washington officials had no doubt that Japan was increasingly likely to attack in the Pacific, and that Pearl Harbor was one of the possible targets, none of them knew that Japan had made that choice. It also seems clear that Washington had provided Admiral Kimmel and General Short sufficient information to cause them to prepare for a possible attack. They were supposed to cooperate with each other. Yet Kimmel, a haughty and stiff-necked character from all accounts, did little coordinating with Short. He and his staff, recipients of the preponderance of intelligence, doled out to the Army only what the Navy thought it should have. General Short had not wanted command of the Hawaiian Department at all, and perhaps more to the point, neither had his wife. Sent by his predecessor a detailed briefing book to read aboard ship on the way over, Short had not bothered to read it but had read a novel instead.

Given the clarity of hindsight, it seems obvious that neither commander used much initiative and common sense in preparing to defend against an attack. Later claiming inadequate information, neither had bothered to query their superiors for clarification. At the same time, with the same hindsight, it seems clear that Washington could have double-checked to make sure their commanders in Hawaii were actually doing what they were expected to do. Possibly it was difficult at all levels to eradicate the prevailing peacetime attitude. But none of these factors, in my opinion, excuse the failures of the commanders on the ground.

One of the results of my years of reading on this subject that has fascinated me most is yet another example of how human nature has not changed. Just as too many of us today are determined to believe what we want to believe, regardless of facts, so were many of the leaders and their staffs in the days leading up to the Pearl Harbor attack. And so were those who had access to full information later and who still believed, and believe today, that leaders in Washington knowingly allowed an enemy attack on U.S. soil, that Kimmel and Short were victims, and that a milk truck driver knocked the tails off our aircraft at Hickam Field.

Robert B. Simpson, a 28-year Infantry veteran who retired as a colonel at Fort Benning, is the author of "Through the Dark Waters: Searching for Hope and Courage."

This story was originally published October 24, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Robert B. Simpson: Mythic 'history' ."