..they were given a war warning, but they did not act like it.........
.....they acted as if they were in peacetime --all major ships in the harbor/no long range--[ any sort ] of air recon ....no type of air detection/alarm/warning system like they had in England
.....Sunday--a real military man [ someone with military sense ] would think Sunday a perfect day for an attack--especially after given a war warning
.....one military axiom is you don't act on what you think the enemy will do, but what he is capable of --so if you are stationed at Pearl, you should think ''can the Japanese attack Pearl?'' YES
...but many professional police/military/CIA/etc are not ''street'' smart---prime example is the Camp Chapman attack where the CIA brought a ''good'' foreigner into the circle---which is one of the most basic no-nos of spying
Despite the fact that so many in positions of command anticipated a Japanese attack, especially given the failure of diplomacy (Japan refused U.S. demands to withdraw from both the Axis pact and occupied territories in China and Indochina),
no one expected
Hawaii as the target.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/a-war-warning-is-sent-to-commanders-in-the-pacific
It was a failure from the top down, everyone believed Hawaii was too far away and too strong to be attacked.
Kimmel and Short were scapegoats.
Now one commander that was guilty as hell was MacArthur, he was told of the Japanese attack on Pearl and ordered to prepare his air forces accordingly and expect an attack from the Japanese. He acknowledged those orders then did nothing, the Army Air Corps in the Philippines was caught on the ground the same way (and in the same parked configurations) as in Hawaii but obviously he did not suffer the same fate as Kimmel and Short.
Also, specifically in Africa the main ground commander, Fredendall was still "stuck" in WWI with his thinking and also tended to play his subordinate commanders off against each other while making no real decisions. Things obviously changed when Patton replaced him.
We were litterally "An Army at Dawn" as Atkinson wrote about in an excellent book with the same title.
We also had a lot of learning to do in the pacific in all branches of service specifically with moribund attitudes and ideas at the upper echelons of military command and control.
they had ''peacetime'' mindset--after a war warning --after Taranto
.....--I remember reading in the mid 80's about how the Israelis defended against airplanes used as weapons ......but then after 9-11, many professionals never even thought of it ---well, I knew about them in the mid 80's as an mere E2 in the military....the professionals should've been thinking about that--just as Short and Kimmel should have known about Taranto = and know Pearl was vulnerable
Kimmel and his Predecessor knew all about the problems of Pear Harbor, but were let down in several ways, they were not given access to the
Ultra information, were given vague even contradictory statements from Washington on how to determine threat assessment. They were pushed into FULL alert a number of times with ZERO results.
Admiral James Richardson was removed by President Roosevelt because he didn't like what Richardson was saying about Pear Harbor and more, from
WIKIPEDIA:
"He held this position during a stressful period marked by Presidential orders to deploy the Pacific part of the fleet to
Pearl Harbor from its traditional naval base in
San Diego, California. Richardson noted that:
... In 1940, the policy-making branch of the Government in foreign affairs – the President and the Secretary of State – thought that stationing the Fleet in Hawaii would restrain the Japanese. They did not ask their senior military advisors whether it would accomplish such an end.
[2]
Richardson protested this redeployment to President
Franklin D. Roosevelt and to others in Washington. He did believe that advanced bases like Guam and Hawaii were necessary but that insufficient funding and efforts had been made to prepare them for use in wartime. He also believed future battles in the Pacific would involve aircraft carriers and more scouting forces would be needed to locate them. Richardson recognized how vulnerable the Fleet was in such an exposed and remote position, a logistical nightmare only made worse by the slim resources, and lack of preparation and organization.
[3] Richardson argued such a forward defense was not practical or useful, despite
Japan's attack on
China and whatever promises had been made to
Britain to come to their aid if attacked. According to journalist
John T. Flynn:
[1] The fleet had little in the way of housing, materials, or defensive mechanisms at Pearl Harbor. Richardson wanted to return to the West Coast, prepare the fleet, and then perhaps return to Pearl Harbor.
It was Richardson's belief – and indeed generally supported by the Navy – that the Fleet should never be berthed inside Pearl Harbor where it would be a mark for attack. This was particularly true in such troubled times when the airways of the East were hot with rumors of approaching conflict. What is more, Richardson held the belief that Pearl Harbor was the logical first point of attack for the Japanese High Command, wedded as it was to the theory of undeclared and surprise warfare. For ten years the U.S. Navy held "attacks" on the Army defenses at Pearl Harbor, and were always successful. Defending the base was rather hopeless, in his mind.
"
=========================================================================================================
Ooops you were wrong since Richardson and Kimmel KNEW it was not an ideal base for the fleet, that Richardson tried to convince the President to keep the fleet at San Diego, was fired eventually. Kimmel and Richardson knew about Taranto too, they knew that even with the shallow bay, the ships were sitting ducks and they knew it, but the President and other government officials ignored it.
The movie TORA, TORA, TORA, accurately showed how the two men Kimmel and Short were never given important intelligence reports from ULTRA. The base was poorly sited for the Fleet where they become sitting ducks when the attacks came.
Kimmel and Short were scapegoated.
