Judgment Day

The judgment was harsh. It was also measured. It made clear that the U.S. was not hunting a scapegoat for a defeat. The report of the President's five-man investigating commission told finally how the disaster occurred at Hawaii (see cols. 1-2) and it placed the blame, for "dereliction of duty," squarely upon Admiral Husband E. Kimmel and Lieut. General Walter C. Short, the commanders on the spot.

A civilian, Justice Owen J. Roberts of the Supreme Court of the United States, headed the commission and gave its report a judicial tone. The rest of the commission was well equipped to supply professional understanding: Brigadier General Joseph T. McNarney, Major General Frank R. McCoy (retired); retired Admirals Joseph M. Reeves, himself a onetime CINCUS, and William H. Standley, onetime Chief of Naval Operations.

No morning was ever more crowded with errors than that sunny dawn of Dec. 7. There was no reconnaissance patrol in the sky. Planes were huddled together--the better to be guarded from sabotage but the more convenient for enemy bombing. The aircraft warning system had been shut down, according to orders, at 7 a.m.*

But the report teemed with instances of courage and devotion to duty of Army and Navy personnel at Oahu. It revealed that headquarters in Washington were alive to the danger. The blame was placed on the two commanders for two common military failings: 1) complacent disbelief in the danger of which they had been warned; 2) feeling that Navy was Navy and Army was Army and never the twain should cooperate.

Just what the future held for Admiral Kimmel and General Short was still a matter for speculation at week's end. The White House indicated that Secretaries Knox and Stimson would decide on what awaited them.

*But a noncom, who was practicing at one of the stations, "at about 7:02 a.m. . . . discovered what he thought was a large flight of planes slightly east of north of Oahu, at a distance of about 130 miles. He reported this fact at 7:20 a.m. to a lieutenant of the Army who was at the central information center. . . . This inexperienced lieutenant . . . assumed that the planes in question were friendly planes, and took no action with respect to them."

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