Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire December 7th...

Different times…my father was 17 and so pissed that my grandmother made him finish high school before enlisting. He was youngest of three. The oldest went Army and the other two Navy.
My godfather was in the USAAF. When, as a kid, I asked him, “What did you do in the war Uncle Richard?” he’d just say, “Oh, I was just a test pilot.” After he and my aunt were both gone and I was left with all their stuff to go through and sort out I learned he’d been an a number of major air battles and was highly decorated. He was a squadron maintenance officer so I assume he probably would test flight stuff they worked on, thus “..just a test pilot.” A far cry from all today’s REMFs turned Rambos in their reminiscences.

I've been told FDR was onto it?

They were humble about their accomplishments.
That is a big part of what made them the Greatest Generation.

By Fred L. Schultz
February 2004
Naval History Magazine
Volume 18, Number 1


Michael Gannon presented “new evidence” in support of the Pearl Harbor commanders recently at the National Press Club, but political expedience may be the factor that tips the scale...

The Kimmel family and its supporters refuse to surrender. On 6 November 2003, the only living son and three grandsons of Husband Kimmel staged a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. The event sustained their efforts to persuade the President of the United States to issue a proclamation, posthumously nominating Kimmel and Walter Short, respectively the U.S. Navy and U.S. Army commanders during the 7 December 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, for retirement at their highest wartime ranks—Admiral and Lieutenant General—under the Officer Personnel Act of 1947.

According to Admiral Kimmel's son, Edward R. "Ned" Kimmel, supporters of this effort "are at war with the Department of Defense." After what he refers to as being "stonewalled at every turn" by the bureaucracy in the Pentagon (and in the White House, including a snubbing from Chief of Staff Andrew Card), he said, "I am now seeking assistance from the Press."

As part of the Armed Forces Spending Authorization Act of 2001, both houses of Congress voted unanimously in September 2000 to exonerate Admiral Kimmel and General Short and to ask the President for the elusive restoration of rank. But congressional action apparently is not enough. When asked exactly what the family and its advocates are seeking, grandson Manning M. Kimmel IV replied, "It's real simple. We need one sentence from the Commander-in-Chief."

Grandson Thomas K. Kimmel Jr. drew a parallel between the numerous Pearl Harbor investigations and the Kean Commission's current investigation of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States. "You might call the comparison tenuous," he said. "Actually, the parallel is frightening. . . . [B]y declining to determine true accountability for the disaster at Pearl Harbor, an entire parade of administrations may have laid the groundwork for the success of the 9/11 attack. . . . And now, those same dynamics, which block accountability for the 9/11 disaster, may unwittingly lay the foundation for the next attack." In fact, Admiral Kimmel's son Ned volunteered to testify before the Kean Commission after reading about Chairman Thomas H. Kean's wish for more success than the "much criticized panels created after the bombing of Pearl Harbor."

The featured speaker was Dr. Michael Gannon, Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of History from the University of Florida and a respected World War II historian, who presented "new evidence" that Kimmel and Short supporters claim bolsters their case. One of the key pieces of information, according to Gannon, comes from recently discovered documents indicating official Navy knowledge that the Japanese had developed successful shallow-water torpedoes, a fact never passed on to the Pearl Harbor commanders.

The second key element in what the Kimmel family calls the vindication "smoking gun" points to Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Ernest King's charge of dereliction of duty in 1944, based on Admiral Kimmel's choice of sectors in which long-range aerial reconnaissance would be conducted. Some sectors had been identified as "more dangerous," according to Admiral King, and Admiral Kimmel chose the wrong ones. But Gannon says that "recent research" (the basis of which he acknowledged using for a December 1994 article in the U.S. Naval Institute's Proceedings) indicates no such "more dangerous" list. Furthermore, Admiral Kimmel did not have sufficient numbers of patrol aircraft (49 PBY Catalinas) to conduct full-range surveillance over any one sector for more than four or five days. "Thus," said Gannon, "if following the so-called 'war warning' of 27 November Kimmel had thrown all his patrol aircraft into a single-sector search, the entire force would be down for repair or overhaul by 2 December, leaving the balance of days prior to 7 December unattended."


Had the shallow-water torpedo information not been withheld from Admiral Kimmel at Pearl Harbor, said Gannon, "alarm bells would have sounded insistently in Kimmel's staff offices. But the knowledge was deep-sixed until found by a researcher 60 years later. Where now is the dereliction?"

According to the Kimmel family and retired Naval Reserve Captain Vincent J. Colan, the matter remains mired in the Department of Defense, apparently in the office of Under Secretary for Personnel and Readiness, David S. C. Chu. The department allegedly has drafted two memoranda: a "Do" recommendation, with evidence to support the restoration of rank, and a "Don't" recommendation, with arguments against such an action. Efforts by Captain Colan to obtain copies of their contents have thus far proved futile.

"It's totally political," said former Chief of Naval Operations retired Admiral James Holloway. "We have to find a way that the President could make this judgment and politically benefit from it." As of press time, neither the Department of Defense nor the White House has made a further move on what has become known as "The Kimmel Case."

Published: Dec. 3, 2016 at 11:25 PM CST|Updated: Jan. 9, 2018 at 1:18 PM CST

HENDERSON, KY (WFIE) - December 7, 1941, is a day that has changed the course of the Kimmel family's life.

Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, originally from Henderson, oversaw the U.S. forces during the surprise attacks by the Japanese imperial navy at Pearl Harbor.

"This is the first time I've seen my grandfather, a likeness of him when he was alive and that was 50 years ago almost," said Kimmel's grandson, Manning.

Someone had to take the fall for those attacks.

"He was wrongly blamed for the success of that attack and the devastation of the American men there."

Admiral Kimmel was singled out, being relived of his command and demoted from a four-star rank to two stars.

He was cleared of any failures in 1944 but didn't have his rank restored even after his death in 1968. That left his grandchildren, Manning and Thomas Kimmel, to continue the fight in the form of a statue, erected on the Henderson riverfront.

They say if Admiral Kimmel saw this statue today, he would only view it as a glorious exercise.

"He would, though, encourage to the sky, our effort to get the full Pearl Harbor story to the public," says Kimmel's grandson Thomas. "The reality is that admiral Kimmel and the men under his command were grossly let down by military men and political officials in Washington D.C."

On December 7, they will bow their heads for the 2,500 dead servicemen and women.

The only way a general can have his rank restored is if he gets an official pardon from the president himself.

Copyright 2016 WFIE. All rights reserved.

The Pearl Harbor attack launched many official investigations. Blame has been spread from on-scene military commanders to President Roosevelt himself.

By Peter Grier Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

December 10, 2009 | Washington

Days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox arrived in Hawaii. He'd been sent by President Roosevelt himself, with simple instructions: find out what happened, and how.

On December 16, Secretary Knox – a former journalist – issued a report that was full of vivid tales of US heroism to a still-grieving nation. He talked about the battleship captain who had refused to be evacuated from the burning bridge of his ship; the motor launch skipper who pulled those blown overboard from the flames of the burning harbor; and the mechanics who pulled machine guns from burning planes, and fired back.

Knox's secret report to FDR was more bracing. It counted up US losses and noted that US forces had been taken completely by surprise.

"Neither the Army nor the Navy Commandant in Oahu regarded an air attack on the Army air fields or the Navy Stations as at all likely," Knox wrote privately.

Investigations began immediately

In the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, investigations began immediately. In some ways, they continue today, as historians, journalists, and ordinary citizens debate the meaning and causes of what remains, despite September 11, the most shocking surprise attack in the nation's history.

Knox's trip was the first official probe. His public comments minimized the damage, so as not to give information away to the Japanese. His secret findings emphasized, among other things, the "meticulous detail" of the Japanese military's plans of attack, and "their courage, ability, and resourcefulness".

Knox's report caused FDR to order a commission, headed by Supreme Court Justice Owen Roberts, to carry out a more thorough look at the attack's circumstances.

The Roberts Commission report, issued in December, 1942, exonerated major political figures in Washington, and laid much of the blame for ill-preparedness on the top commanders on scene in Hawaii: Army General Walter Short and Admiral Husband Kimmel. Both were demoted, and both retired from the military within months.

Subsequent investigations began to spread blame for the debacle more widely. Six more probes were held during the war years, counting separate efforts from the Army and Navy, and associated spin-offs.

For instance, a Naval Board of Inquiry held in 1944 blamed Admiral Harold Stark, chief of naval operations at the time of Pearl Harbor, for not adequately advising Kimmel of the critical situation between the US and Japan in the weeks prior to the attack.

Wartime secrecy needed

All these investigations were hampered in some manner by the need to maintain wartime secrecy, particularly in regards to US code-breaking efforts.

At war's end the US Congress launched a final, thorough investigation of Pearl Harbor that included a review of all relevant classified documents, including translations of intercepted and decoded Japanese messages. This Joint Congressional Committee effort issued a 40-volume report in mid-1946.

Blame all around

In this report, blame for the disaster was laid at the feet of everyone from Secretary of War Henry Stimson to commanders on scene. A minority annex censured the behavior of President Roosevelt, as well.

In sum, the Congressional committee found that Washington-based officials failed to give proper notice to a series of intercepted messages from Tokyo to its consulate in Honolulu that indicated keen interest in the harbor berthing plan and other dispositions of the US fleet.

Nor did Washington react quickly enough to the "one o'clock message" – the last of a 14-part message series sent from Tokyo to Japanese diplomats in Washington – the congressional probe found. This message ordered the destruction of code books and indicated that hostilities of some sort would begin at 1 pm, Eastern Standard Time.

"If properly appreciated, this intelligence should have suggested a dispatch to all Pacific outpost commanders supplying this information," concluded the Joint Committee report.

In the decades since the war's end, family members and proponents of Gen. Short and Adm. Kimmel have pushed to overturn the general conclusion that the two on-scene commanders should shoulder the burden of the blame.

In 1999, the Senate passed a non-binding resolution exonerating both Kimmel and Short, and asking President Clinton to posthumously restore their ranks. Clinton did not respond. President Bush similarly declined to take such an action.

Revisionists blame FDR

Revisionists have long pushed the notion that a true examination of the evidence would show the FDR knew the attack was to occur and that he allowed it in order to rouse the nation for participation in the war.

For instance, the 1999 book "Day of Deceit", by Robert Stinnett, held that FDR's effort to provoke Japan into war was a principal policy of his administration throughout 1941. FDR must have known that war was imminent from intercepted messages, according to Stinnett. Nor did the Japanese fleet maintain strict radio silence as it steamed towards Hawaii.

But the mere existence of such information does not indicate that it was speedily understood and used, noted the New York Times in its 1999 review of Stinnett's book.

It may be disturbing in hindsight to see that commanders in Hawaii weren't told of all that was contained in the intercepted messages, but "that failure by itself does not prove Mr. Stinnett's contention of a conspiracy to deprive commanders of the information they needed," wrote reviewer Richard Bernstein.