PROCEEDINGS OF ROBERTS COMMISSION 761

TESTIMONY OF LIEUTENANT COMMANDER WILLIAM E. G. TAYLOR, U. S. NAVAL RESERVE

(The oath was administered in due form by the Chairman.)

The CHAIRMAN. State your full name.

Commander TAYLOR. William E. G. Taylor.

The CHAIRMAN. Commander Taylor, you had something to do with the installation of the detector device on the island of Oahu, did you not?

Commander TAYLOR. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. I understand that you had some contact with this device in England?

Commander TAYLOR. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. And the Army borrowed you to aid them in setting up the system here?

Commander TAYLOR. Yes, sir, that is correct.

752 CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATION PEARL HARBOR ATTACK

The CHAIRMAN. In what state of preparedness or readiness was the interceptor command here or the warning system or the warning net and the rest of the paraphernalia on or about December 7, 1941?

Commander TAYLOR. It was not ready by any means, sir, for air warning, for air interception, and we were still trying to pull the last threads of it together and to get the information center mounted. I think we had something in the neighborhood of two or three more weeks work before we could get them functioning.

[1230]

The CHAIRMAN. AS I understand it, it would ultimately have in this information center a naval liaison officer?

Commander TAYLOR. Yes, sir, it would have several liaison officers-to have a regular watch of naval liaison officers.

The CHAIRMAN. That wasn't instituted for the practice drills that had taken place?

Commander TAYLOR. NO, sir. We had asked for them.

The CHAIRMAN. You had asked for them?

Commander TAYLOR. They were forthcoming from the Commander-in-Chief and we expected to have them within a week. They were being withdrawn from the fleet pool. We were going to get the reserve ensigns and get them trained to do the job there, but it would have taken a week or ten days to train them to do the job properly.

The CHAIRMAN. But no such thing had been instituted on December 7?

Commander TAYLOR. No, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Were you cognizant of the fact that when Alert No. 1 was ordered on November 27, General Short also ordered the interceptor command or the air warning system to be in operation from 4 a. m. to 7 a. m. each day?

Commander TAYLOR. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. Did you have any conference with General Short about the purpose of that order?

Commander TAYLOR. No, sir, I have not seen the General. I never have seen the General.

The CHAIRMAN. You never saw the General?

Commander TAYLOR. No, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. What was your understanding as to the reason why that was put into effect?

Commander TAYLOR. We had the place operated from 6 o'clock in the morning until 11:30, as the equipment was breaking down occasionally; the auxiliary power equipment was breaking down, and then I believe it was General Short's order that the [1231] operations should be from 4 to 7 o'clock in the morning. They didn't install the commercial power.

We were planning as soon as possible to get the full operations resumed and to go on a 24-hour basis. At the time, on December 7, and up until that time, the information center was functioning under two departments. under the Hawaiian Department and under the interceptor command; so we had a little bit of confusion as to which was going to operate it.

The CHAIRMAN. The interceptor command and the Signal Service were both busy with it?

Commander TAYLOR. Yes.

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General McCOY. There were no permanent stations operating at that time, though?

Commander TAYLOR. Detector stations?

General McCOY. No. permanent stations.

Commander TAYLOR. NO, sir, there were no permanent stations here at all. We had mobile detector stations. We still have them on the island. They are the only ones we have.

As I understand it, the permanent radar systems that are to be put in will be practically the same equipment but will be housed instead of on truck.

General McCOY. But with different power?

Commander TAYLOR. It would eventually be commercial power, yes but it would be some time before it would be put in.

The CHAIRMAN. I understand that the warning net connecting the mobile stations at the different places with the information center that you have in now is a temporary affair.

Commander TAYLOR. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. And what are the lines? Are they just temporary lines?

Commander TAYLOR. Yes, sir. Some of them are temporary, but they are all in cable.

The CHAIRMAN. They are in a cable?

Commander TAYLOR. Yes, it is all in a cable, but the [1232] temporary is the best equipment that we could get and get it in a hurry. It is to be installed in bombproof.

General McCOY. Has it been installed in bombproof yet?

Commander TAYLOR. NO, sir, the bombproof is not ready, and the telephone equipment has not arrived from the mainland. I think it will probably take two weeks or a month to get it installed in there when the equipment arrives.

General McCOY. So it is still a very sketchy performance?

Commander TAYLOR. It works very well, but it is not bombproof. It is in a pretty vulnerable place, although it is fairly well guarded, but it is very easy to sabotage it if anybody wants to.

The CHAIRMAN. It is still subject to these local break-downs?

Commander TAYLOR. Occasionally, yes, sir. It is very crude equipment.

Admiral STANDLEY. Has the operation been satisfactory since December 7 considering the state of preparedness of the personnel?

Commander TAYLOR. In some respects, yes, sir, because we do think they are good for air warning. It is pretty good for interception, but we can't get height when they get back there from the land just offshore. We can't make interception with it.

General McNARNEY. Do you believe there is need for a system of ground observers to supplement the radar?

Commander TAYLOR. We have ground observers, but unless we can get a very good observer system with trained people we find that they are more of a hindrance than a help because we get so many false reports coming in.

On the day of the raid we had the Coast Artillery-which we are using-and they sent in very queer reports.

General McNARNEY. Is there any attempt to filter those out?

754 CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATION PEARL HARBOR ATTACK

[1233]

Commander TAYLOR. Yes, we filter those out now, which means rechecking and rechecking, because they are not well trained observers.

General McNARNEY. But it could be better?

Commander TAYLOR. Yes.

General McNARNEY. As time goes on?

Commander TAYLOR. Yes, sir, it is getting better, yes.

General McNARNEY. How long do you think it will be before you have an efficient service?

Commander TAYLOR. I think it is almost as efficient as can be made with the best equipment. I do not think there is any better equipment being made on the mainland.

General McNARNEY. So far as you know, there is no equipment being made which will give you altitude?

Commander TAYLOR. Nothing I know of that is in production, no, sir.

General McNARNEY. Do you know about the I. F. F. equipment?

Commander TAYLOR. Yes.

General McNARNEY. Is any scheduled to come out?

Commander TAYLOR. The I. F. F. equipment I do not believe will work in this case because the I. F. F. will only show up on the detector station on the proper frequency. The I. F. F. and the detector station have to be on the same frequency. These stations are on the same frequency, but the carrier planes have a different frequency; so the I. F. F. may work on the carriers and won't work when it comes into port, and vice versa.

We improvised this after December 7. We made an improvised system for the planes, which was to keep track of every plane at sea and when they came in, and we used the approach procedure so that nothing could come in until we had a chance to look it over carefully before it got to port. When anything not identified came in against the approach procedure [1234] we deemed it hostile and sent fighters off to intercept them.

General McNARNEY. With the information you have, can you identify them for interception purposes?

Commander TAYLOR. Well, we can't depend on getting the fighters at the proper height. With the proper detector equipment you could send out one or two planes to intercept a raid because you could put them at the proper height; but with this thing you have to send out a couple of squadrons to find them.

The CHAIRMAN. You mean there is no equipment available in the United States which will obtain height for you?

Commander TAYLOR. Nothing. The only equipment I know which does obtain height is the equipment used aboard ships. We borrowed one of those sets and installed it here in our system, but unfortunately it won't work in these mountains.

The CHAIRMAN. It will not work?

Commander TAYLOR. No, sir. We are trying to find something to make it work now.

The CHAIRMAN. You do not know why it will?

Commander TAYLOR. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. You do know why?

Commander TAYLOR. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. You are not very hopeful?

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Commander TAYLOR. Yes. We do not think we will have any success.

General McNARNEY. Why won't it work?

Commander TAYLOR. It has, in addition to this beam, which heads out straight, it has two side lobes which pick up the mountain range so you can't pick up anything in any direction. That is, we can pick up beyond that, but we have a 20- to 30-mile blind area in the mountain range, and it shows up on the screen 360 degrees around

General McNARNEY. You cannot locate it?

Commander TAYLOR. From where our blind spot is.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the objection to the blind spot if [1235] it is only 20 miles from the system?

Commander TAYLOR. That is on the net we can pick up things at a distance, but we can't make interception. We can't get height to get interception, but we hope we will be able to direct our fighters and to see our fighters as they go out.

The CHAIRMAN. This blind space prevents you from seeing your fighters as they go out?

Commander TAYLOR. Yes, we never know where our fighters are.

General McNARNEY. Do the British have the same trouble?

Commander TAYLOR. NO, sir. They have got four different types of detector equipment. Theirs is working very well, but ours is very obsolete and crude equipment.

The CHAIRMAN. In other words, to make this a real information station means that we have to get the British plans and to get instruments constructed in accordance with them?

Commander TAYLOR. Yes, sir, at least as good as their equipment is and it would take perhaps two types of equipment to work the island here.

Admiral STANDLEY. Haven't we got any of the British types?

Commander TAYLOR. TO my best knowledge we have the information on the British radar equipment, but we do not have any of the equipment in production.

General McCOY. Do you have reason to think that the enemy has the radar?

Commander TAYLOR. I was told the enemy has a low-frequency detector unit. I know the Germans have had it for fighter control and they also started to use it for fire control in France this last March. When we sent our raids over there, France, we could see their fighters come up to intercept them, and they used the same sort of detector, the fighter detector system, that the British use.

The British knew the Germans were working on the equipment before the war started.

[1236]

The CHAIRMAN. The Germans developed it originally?

Commander TAYLOR. No, sir, the Germans and the British were both working on it before the war started. They talked very freely about it. Before the war the British had a very good detector system and operations room and that was all set up before the war started.

The Germans apparently didn't have the system working, but now they are using the same equipment for fighter control, and I assume that they have passed it on to the Japanese.

General McCOY. I understood they had it on the BISMARCK.

Commander TAYLOR. Yes, sir, and it is very evident in their antiaircraft defense and they are accurate on heights.

756 CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATION PEARL HARBOR ATTACK

The CHAIRMAN. When did you enter the regular service, sir?

Commander TAYLOR. Sir

The CHAIRMAN. When did you enter the regular naval service?

Commander TAYLOR. I never had been in the regular Navy; I was in the Naval Reserve since 1920, and after that the Marines, and when the war began I joined the British air corps and then came back to do this work.

The CHAIRMAN. What is your profession, sir?

Commander TAYLOR. I have been in naval aviation most of my life

The CHAIRMAN. Naval aviation

Commander TAYLOR. Yes.

Admiral STANDLEY. With respect to the information about the operation of the radar, did you communicate particularly with the Commander-in-Chief and his staff in regard to your work?

Commander TAYLOR. I worked very closely with the Commander-in-Chief's staff, and I found them more helpful than anyone else.

Admiral STANDLEY. Can you tell me how this training and this station operated? That is the one we saw the other day.

[1237]

Commander TAYLOR. Yes.

Admiral STANDLEY. That is the warning station where you have the big board and the various operators there?

Commander TAYLOR. Yes.

Admiral STANDLEY. That is under the interceptor command?

Commander TAYLOR. It is now, yes.

Admiral STANDLEY. Was it under the Signal Corps?

Commander TAYLOR. It was the Signal Corps's responsibility to develop the information center and train the personnel.

Admiral STANDLEY. And then turn over to the interceptor command?

Commander TAYLOR. The interceptor command, I think, was the one to put in the controller and do the interceptions.

The CHAIRMAN. And the Signal Service was still to do the maintenance?

Commander TAYLOR. Yes.

Admiral STANDLEY. What was the kind of training that was given there before December 7? What was the process of operator training?

Commander TAYLOR. The first thing to do was to put out the detector station and to train the operators around the island to read the screen and to pass the information to us. It takes a long time to train these operators, and we did not have anywhere near enough.

The next thing was to train the plotters on the board, who are at the other end of the direct telephone line from the detector operators.

We got the detector stations and the plotters functioning together.

The thing was to get the detector station connected up with the system of plotting and sending in the instructions and the pursuits-we were working on the fighters and pursuits at Hickam Field, giving the technical information and working on the radar station.

[1238]

Then the next thing was to try to get the anti-aircraft guns and to control them. We were just getting the officers in the positions in the information center at the time that war was declared. We did not get them all in, and it takes time getting the men trained in the different types of equipment, but we had gotten a few anti-aircraft people and had gotten control of the guns.

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The Navy personnel were forthcoming, and we had gotten the bombers and I think we had only two from them. That is about all we asked for up to that time.

The only other person we had on training-we had one officer on watch, and on the morning of December 7 we had one officer who had no experience as a controller and was there trying to learn as much as he could about the information center.

Admiral STANDLEY. Was this a case where you felt you were responsible for setting this up or rather forcing this on the organization, or rather that it was up to you to push the thing and get the officers?

Commander TAYLOR. Yes.

Admiral STANDLEY. And you were having a little difficulty getting the personnel?

Commander TAYLOR. Yes. I do not think most of the people realized the importance of the thing until they actually got in and looked at it. It sometimes does take a little time and sometimes a conference to get things going.

Admiral STANDLEY. There was nothing whatever reliable about your warning service that morning of December 7?

Commander TAYLOR. No, sir, nothing, nothing at all. That raid coming in might have been the Army or Navy planes or they might have been ferrying planes going to Australia or might have been anything. On that morning we could not have identified those planes.

Admiral STANDLEY. Someone said that after the attack that station was more or less manned and that these planes [1239] were tracked on the detector?

Commander TAYLOR. I did not get there until 9:30 that morning sir. and the station was going. We were trying to man all stations as fast as we could. We are using our crews, but there was a large amount of unworthy information coming in and going out as to what was going on, and I could just barely remember what went on. I spoke to the sergeant who was the man at the phone whether he passed any information to the Navy, and he said he did. He did give the information that the raid was coming from the southwest, which still may be true, but we were working on a 24-hour basis for three or four days until we got the thing going, and it is pretty hard to tell that in particular.

The CHAIRMAN. You think that due to the untrained personnel and the confusion going on that it is pretty hard to depend or to put any dependence on what happened after 9:30 that morning?

Commander TAYLOR. Yes, sir. I saw the historical plot afterward. There is one man who keeps a plot of everything that shows up on the board. It was analyzed, and I could not be sure what went on.

Admiral STANDLEY. Did you see the plot that was made of the supposedly oncoming Japanese ships?

Commander TAYLOR. Yes. If it had come in on the board when I was there it would not have meant anything to me with the stage of development of this information center here at the time. We would have a pretty difficult time finding out. We would have to go to Kaneohe Bay and we would have to go to those at Pearl Harbor and all the bombing squadrons and the carriers which never warn us when they come in.

758 CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATION PEARL HARBOR ATTACK

It may have been a carrier group or it may have been a ferrying flight which was coming over.

Admiral STANDLEY. If you had been there and had seen it on the screen, what would you have done?

[1240]

Commander TAYLOR. I don't think I would have done anything.

General McCOY. You would have thought they were friendly planes coming in?

Commander TAYLOR. Yes.

General McNARNEY. You are probably the most experienced controller on the island at this time?

Commander TAYLOR. I was the only one, so far as I know, but I do not think anybody could have said what they were. We have times when a whole carrier group of 72 planes may come in from a distance at sea.

General McNARNEY. What experience have you had as controller?

Commander TAYLOR. I haven't had very much at controlling, but I worked in the operations room with the air force and I was a squadron commander, and occasionally-very infrequently-I would go over and control my own planes; but I had no actual experience as a controller. I would just take over the control just for the fun of it.

General McNARNEY. What squadron did you have?

Commander TAYLOR. I had the First Eagle Squadron.

General McNARNEY. How long did you have it?

Commander TAYLOR. I had it from October until June this year.

General McCOY. I congratulate you on being here.

Commander TAYLOR. Thank you, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Anything further?

General McCOY. No.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. Do not discuss with anyone what has gone on in this room.

Commander TAYLOR. Yes.