PROCEEDINGS OF NAVY COURT OF INQUIRY 461
[609] EIGHTEENTH DAY
NAVY DEPARTMENT,
Washington, D. C.
The court met at 9:30 a. m.
Present:
Admiral Orin G. Murfin, U. S. Navy (Ret), President.
Admiral Edward G. Kalbfus, U. S. Navy (Ret), Member.
Vice Admiral Adolphus Andrews, U. S. Navy (Ret), Member.
Commander Harold Biesemeier, U. S. Navy, Judge Advocate, and his counsel.
Frank M. Sickles, yeoman first class, U. S. Naval Reserve, reporter.
Counsel for Admiral Harold R. Stark, U. S. Navy, interested party.
Admiral Claude C. Bloch, U. S. Navy (Ret), interested party, and his counsel.
Rear Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, U. S. Navy (Ret), interested party, and his counsel.
The record of the proceedings of the seventeenth day of the inquiry was read and approved.
No witnesses not otherwise connected with the inquiry were present.
A witness called by the judge advocate entered, was duly sworn, and was informed of the subject matter of the inquiry.
Examined by the judge advocate:
1. Q. State your name, rank, and present station.
A. William E. G. Taylor, Commander, U. S. Naval Reserve, attached to the staff of the Commander Fleet Air, Quonset Point, stationed at Charleston, Rhode Island.
2. Q. Will you stated what duties were assigned you between October 1, 1941, and December 7, 19412
A. I was assigned to temporary duty, to Commander Air Force Pacific Fleet Staff. My duties were to lecture fighter squadrons on combat tactics and on fighter direction. At the completion of my duties with Commander Air Force Pacific Fleet, at the request of the Commanding General, Hawaiian [610] Air Force, I was loaned to Interceptor Command in an advisory capacity verbally, to assist in an advisory capacity in setting up the air warning system at Fort Shafter.
3. Q. Will you state briefly what your experience was prior to 7 December, in the field of aircraft warning devices, specifically, the radar?
A. Well, I had two years' experience in England, mainly as a fighter pilot; one year with the British Navy, one year with the Air Force, and during which time I had access to and took advantage of learning the British air warning system, both aboard ship and ashore.
462 CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATION PEARL HARBOR ATTACK
4. Q. Had you any intimate acquaintance with the radar equipment in the United States Pacific Fleet between October and December, 1941?
A. Yes, I did, I had an opportunity to see the early equipment on four of the American carriers.
b. Q. Will you state to the court what you consider the materiel efficiency of the radar equipment was before December 7, 1941, that you have just stated you had familiarity with?
A. The radar equipment itself was excellent. It was almost as good as the equipment is today. In two carriers it had dust been installed and was not completely operative.
6. Q. After what date?
A. The date I was aboard. The date varied. One was on the east coast in September of 1941, and the other on the west coast in October of 1941, sir.
7. Q. Did you have any contact with the radar equipment on the U. S. S. CURTIS?
A. No, sir.
8. Q. Was the radar equipment on the U. S. S. CURTIS similar to that installed on the other ships that you have stated you were familiar with?
A. Yes, it was.
9. Q. From your contacts with radar equipment in the U. S. Pacific Fleet immediately prior to 7 December, 1941, can you state what the efficiency of radar operators was in general?
A. If you mean by "operators", the fighter director officers, plotters, and actual radar operators-they were, in general, fairly inexperienced.
10. Q. Did you consider them capable of taking bearings of aircraft at a distance?
A. Yes, sir. The operators themselves were quite capable of operating the radar equipment. The fighter director officers were green and inexperienced.
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11. Q. When you reported to the Commanding General of the Hawaiian Department, what duties did you perform?
A. I did not report to the Commanding General, Hawaiian Department. I reported to the Commanding Officer at Wheeler Field, who was acting for the Commanding General, Interceptor Command. My duties were then to assist in an advisory capacity in setting up the aircraft warning system. I spent my entire time working with the Interceptor Command and the Signal Officer, Hawaiian Department, in assisting setting up the aircraft warning system, which consisted of training operators, advising on communication methods. My time was spent at staffs of the various commands in trying to work out liaison between the aircraft warning systems and the commands.
12. Q. As of the date, 6-7 December, 1941, what would you say was the efficiency of this organization that you have just described as having been assisting in organizing and instructing?
A. The radar equipment was adequate to do a fair job of early morning. The communications between the air warning system itself and the other organizations were in, except for the lines to some of the fighter dispersal areas, and the lines to the civilian air warning. The communications between the fighter-director officers', or controllers', positions, and the fighter aircraft, were totally inadequate to control fighters more than five miles off shore.
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13. Q. What was your opinion of the efficiency of the operators of the radar themselves, as of 6-7 December, 1941?
A. The radar operators themselves were well-trained.
14. Q. Adverting to the period of between 27 November 1941, and 7 December, the same year, do you know what hours this radar system was in operation under the direction of the Army?
A. I don't remember exactly what hours the equipment was operating the entire time, but some time within ten days of December 7--
l5. Q. Before or after?
A. Before December 7, the information center received instructions, I was told, from General Short, to close down the radar stations except between the hours of 4:00 a. m. and 7:00 a. m.
16. Q. Under what system had these radars been operated prior to the institution of this system of 4:00 to 7:00 in the morning?
A. As I remember, they were operating the radar sets between 8:00 o'clock in the morning and 4:30 in the afternoon.
17. Q. And then when you started to operate them between [612] 4:00 and 7:00 in the morning, do you know the reason why this change was made?
A. I was told that the change was made to save the equipment from breaking down from long periods of use.
18. Q. Do you know why the hours of 4:00 and 7:00 in the morning were adopted in preference to some other hour of the day?
A. No, sir, I do not.
19. Q. Can you add anything further to your testimony concerning the organization of the aircraft warning system?
A. I forgot to mention that the personnel in the aircraft warning center-we had, as I remember, only sufficient numbers of plotters and operators for two watches. There were no liaison officers to man any position. We had no controllers. The controller is the most important man in the information center. We had to use squadron commanders as controllers, and we were in the process of teaching them to control at the time of December 7.
20. Q. Do you know the organization of the information center in the aircraft warning system?
A. Yes, sir, I do.
21. Q. Will you please state it?
A. The organization is headed by a controller, or senior fighter director officer. Under the fighter-director officer or senior controller are several interceptor officers as liaison officers. There are searchlight officers, gun control officers, radar officers, bomber command liaison officers, fighter command liaison officers, naval liaison officers, surface; naval liaison officers for air identification; Army ground liaison positions. Under these officers are the plotters, the operators, and the maintenance crews.
22. Q. Where were you at 0755 on the morning of 7 December, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor?
A. I was in bed at the Hawaiian Hotel.
23. Q. Do you know anything, of your own personal knowledge or contact as to what happened in the aircraft warning system at the time of the attack-after the attack?
A. Yes, sir, I do. I got there between 8:30 and 9:00, and got the general story on what had happened. One of the radar stations was
464 CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATION PEARL HARBOR ATTACK
continuing to operate after 7:00 o'clock in the morning, to train operators. The information he received was sent to the information center, where it was handed to the acting controller, who was a squadron commander spending his first morning in the information center, trying to learn the system.
24. Q. Do you know who the officer was in control in the [613] information center?
A. No, sir, I do not remember his name.
25. Q. On the morning of 7 December 1941?
A. I do not remember his name, sir.
26. Q. When you arrived, as you stated you did, about 0830, was it?
A. Yes, sir.
27. Q. On the morning of 7 December 1941, what was the condition of the organization of this information center?
A. The information center was in pretty great confusion. In order to man all the necessary positions, the air warning officers had drawn on mess cooks, linemen, every man that they could lay their hands on-all of whom were inexperienced-to man the telephones. The main plot had a paper overlay, ripped off the table, making the scale of the plotting table too large for accurate plotting. The plots that were coming in from the various radar stations were in such confusion it was impossible to determine what was going on.
28. Q. Do you know if there was any attempt made, after you arrived in the information center, to plot either incoming or retiring aircraft from the Pearl Harbor area?
A. All plots that came into the information center from the radar stations were plotted, but the scale of the plotting table itself was so large-so small, that there could be no accurate information plotted There were also other plots coming in besides the Japanese raid, to add to the confusion.
29. Q. Do you know whether or not a plot was ever made of retiring Japanese planes?
A. There were, as I say, plots made of everything reported by the information centers, but the information center had no way of knowing whether they were Japanese planes or American planes.
30. Q. Was any plot ever made of planes retiring in a northwesterly direction to a distance of as much as 50 to 100 miles from Oahu?
A. Yes, sir.
31. Q. Will you state what that plot was, as best you can remember?
A. Well, the plot of the retiring planes in any one direction also included plots retiring in other directions as well.
32. Q. Can you state what plot was made of the planes that retired, if any did, in a northwesterly direction?
A. There was no single plot of planes in any direction made at the time. Several days later attempt was made to try [614] to assess what had happened from the tracers.
33. Q. What was your opinion as to the efficiency of the personnel in the Army information center in interpreting radar reports?
A. They were very inexperienced.
34. Q. From your own personal knowledge of radar as it was installed in vessels of the United States Pacific Fleet, and the efficiency
PROCEEDINGS OF NAVY COURT OF INQUIRY 465
of the operators as of 6-7 December, 1941, is it your opinion that these radar sets could have been employed in detecting the approach of planes towards Pearl Harbor?
A. It would depend on where the sets were installed, sir.
35. Q. I Would ask you, for a set that is installed on a vessel of the United States Fleet, and the vessel anchored or moored in Pearl Harbor.
A. The efficiency of the equipment aboard ships was excellent at sea. In a land-locked harbor, particularly with mountains around, only by very good luck would you get any performance out of radar equipment aboard ship.
36. Q. In a sector in Pearl Harbor-where mountains did not interfere, would you be able to get efficient results from a ship moored in Pearl Harbor?
A. Regardless of the terrain in the direction that the radar is searching, the mountains to the rearward or the side would still effect radar performance.
37. I would give you the hypothetical case of a ship moored in Pearl Harbor, attempting to locate a plane to the south and west of Pearl Harbor, where I believe there are no mountains interfering. Would this set work from Pearl Harbor in that direction?
A. It might work and again it might not. As I said before, the mountains to the north still affected the performance to the south.
The interested party Admiral Harold R. Stark, U. S. Navy, did not desire to cross-examine this witness.
Cross-examined by the interested party, Rear Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, U. S. Navy (Ret.):
38. Q. Whose responsibility was it to operate the radar equipment on Oahu on 7 December, 1941?
A. That was the Chief Signal Officer, Hawaiian Depart- [615] ment.
39. Q. The Hawaiian Department of what service?
A. The U. S. Army.
40. Q. In your opinion, did or did not the Navy lend all possible assistance in placing the radar equipment of the Army in efficient condition?
A. That is quite difficult to answer, sir. The assistance that the Navy gave to getting the radar equipment into operation was nil. They were not asked for any assistance in putting the radar equipment into operation.
41. Q. I think I said, "efficient condition."
A. Yes, sir, the Navy gave all assistance they were asked for in setting up the air warning system, except for furnishing liaison officers.
The interested party, Admiral Harold R. Stark, U. S. Navy, did not desire to cross-examine this witness. Neither the interested party, Rear Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, U. S. Navy (Ret.), nor interested party, Admiral Claude C. Bloch, U. S. Navy (Ret), desired to cross-examine this witness.
Examined by the court:
42. Q. You stated in a reference to the operators of the radar system on ships of the Navy that you inspected, that they were green and inexperienced-that is, the officer operators; is that correct?
A. Fighter directors, yes, sir.
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43. Q. Was this due to insufficient training or newness on the job?
A. It was newness on the job, sir. The equipment had just been installed.
44. Q. You spoke of the equipment on ships as being of excellent efficiency.
A. Yes, sir.
45. Q. At what maximum distance?
A. The maximum distance would range between 80 and 140 miles, depending on the height, sir.
46. Q. With reference to the Army mobile radar equipment, what was the range of their equipment?
A. Their range was almost the same, but their equipment was much cruder, much slower to operate. There were many more errors in the plotting range and azimuth than there was in the shipboard equipment.
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47. Q. Was it entirely under the control and responsibility of the Army?
A. Yes, sir.
48. Q. Did you have any control or authority beyond your duties as an instructor or adviser?
A. No, sir, my sole duties were in an advisory capacity.
49. Q. So long as this Army radar equipment was operative and efficient within certain limits, to which you have specified, do you know why it was not in operation continuously during the critical period in the days preceding December 7?
A. There were two reasons, sir. One reason was the shortage of personnel to operate twenty-four hours a day. The second reason was it was shut down by, I am told General Short's orders, to save the equipment.
50. Q. Well, in view of the fact that personnel might be taken from other Army organizations, do you not think this was so important that this should have been done in order that they be permanently manned?
A. I feel and felt then these stations should have been operating twenty-four hours a day, and the air warning system fully manned.
51. Q. Do you believe that General Short's orders not to keep in operation continuously because of the deterioration of equipment was a sound decision?
A. Not knowing the Army radar materiel conditions in Hawaii, I would say his decision was not sound.
52. Q. If there was possibility of deterioration of the equipment by having it in constant operation, would not it have been practicable to keep half of the system in operation with some degree of efficiency?
A. With some degree of efficiency. There were just enough radar stations to cover the area of Oahu. Any one set going out would mean the loss of that coverage.
53. Q. Did you ever make any recommendations with reference to keeping the Army system in operation?
A. Yes, sir.
54. Q. What were they?
A. I have a copy of the recommendations I made with me, sir.
55. Q. State briefly what it was and who it was made to?
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A. The recommendations were made as a result of a conference held on November 24, and were made to the Acting Commanding Officer, Interceptor Command.
56. Q. And that was who?
A. I can't remember his name now, sir.
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57. Q. Davidson?
A. No, sir. Davidson hadn't come back. He was in the United States then. The recommendations were also made to Colonel Murphy, who was the Acting Signal Officer, Headquarters, Hawaiian Department, who was present; to Lieutenant Commander Coe, who was liaison officer for Patrol Wing Two, to the 18th Bombardment Wing, the 14th Pursuit Wing, the Coast Artillery, and to the 86th Observation Squadron.
58. Q. What is the date of this recommendation?
A. There is no date on this recommendation, but the copy of the minutes of the meeting was in the hands of all present within three days after the 24th of November.
59. Q. Three days after the 24th?
A. Within three days, yes, sir.
The court then, at 10:15 a. m., took a recess until 10:25 a. m., at which time it reconvened.
Present: All the members; the judge advocate and his counsel; all the interested parties and their counsel, with the exception of the interested party, Admiral Harold R. Stark, U. S. Navy, whose counsel were present. Frank M. Sickles, yeoman first class, U. S. Naval Reserve, reporter.
Commander William E. G. Taylor, U. S. Naval Reserve, the witness under examination when the recess was taken, entered. He was warned that the oath previously taken was still binding, and continued his testimony.
Examined by the judge advocate:
60. Q. What is this document that you have in your possession?
A. This document is a memorandum of the minutes of a meeting that I called at the information center on Monday, the 24th of November, 1941. Copies of this memorandum were sent to all present. One copy was sent to the Operations Officer on Commander-in-Chief Pacific Fleet's staff, and one was sent to the Acting Commanding Officer Interceptor Command.
The judge advocate made the following statement: The judge advocate has examined the document in the possession of the witness, which he feels contains information that should be before the court. He therefore recommends to the court that the document be introduced in evidence for the purpose of reading such extracts therefrom as may be pertinent to this inquiry, and as the court may desire to put before it.
The court then, at 10:30 a. m., took a recess until [618] 10:44, at which time it reconvened.
Present: All the members; the judge advocate and his counsel; all the interested parties and their counsel, with the exception of the interested party, Admiral Harold R. Stark, U. S. Navy, whose counsel were present. Frank M. Sickles, yeoman first class, U. S. Naval Reserve, reporter.
468 CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATION PEARL HARBOR ATTACK
Commander William E. G. Taylor, U. S. Naval Reserve, the witness under examination when the recess was taken, entered. He was warned that the oath previously taken was still binding, and continued his testimony.
Examined by the judge advocate:
61. Q. Commander, at the time you made this memoranda, was the subject matter of it fresh in your memory?
A. Yes, sir, it was. I wrote it the same day, within two hours of the meeting.
62. Q. At the time you wrote the memorandum, did you consider it a correct account of the events of that conference?
A. I did.
The memorandum of the minutes, made by the witness, Commander William E. G. Taylor, U. S. Naval Reserve, of a meeting called by him on November 24, 1941, at the information center, Oahu, Territory of Hawaii, was submitted to the interested parties and to the court and by the judge advocate offered in evidence.
There being no objection, it was so received, copy appended, marked "EXHIBIT 62."
63. Q. Will you read the entire document, please?
Yes, sir.
The witness read the document, Exhibit 62.
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Frank L. Middleton, yeoman second class, U. S. Naval Reserve, reporter, entered. Frank Murrell Sickles, yeoman first class, U. S. Naval Reserve, reporter, withdrew.
Examined by the court:
64. Q. Who called this conference?
A. I called it, sir.
65. Q. It was not at the initiation of the Army at all?
A. No, sir.
66. Q. Was any objection made or disagreements expressed by any official to whom copies of the memo were given?
A. No, sir; all were agreed.
67. Q. What action was taken as a result of this conference prior to December 7, 1941?
A. Very little was done as a result of this conference. We managed to complete our communication lines. We were not able to have either the Army or the Navy agree on an aircraft identification system. We were not able to get men to man the information center. We were able to get no more personnel and the information center more or less remained as it was on 24 November. The fact that the radar stations were shut down except for the period of 4:00 a. m., to 7:00 a. m., made it impossible to continue to train plotters and operators for more than three hours a day, which was not enough. That fact alone did more to slow down the development of the information center than anything else.
68. Q. Whose responsibility or duty was it to provide the personnel? Army or Navy?
A. Except for the Navy liaison officers, it was the Army's duty to supply personnel.
69. Q. Was a request made upon the proper naval authorities for the detail of liaison officers?
A. The request was made verbally by me, sir.
PROCEEDINGS OF NAVY COURT OF INQUIRY 469
70. Q. Upon whom?
A. On Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Fleet, staff, and Com 14's chief of staff, and also Admiral Bellinger.
71. Q. Was any reply made or reason given for failure or inability to supply these liaison officers?
A. The reply was that in all three places there were no liaison officers available. The Commander-in-Chief's staff said that they would order 6 officers as soon as possible to the information center at Shafter. This he said after all other sources failed to produce them.
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72. Q. There was agreement as to the desirability and necessity for liaison officers; there was no opposition to the idea?
A. No, sir.
73. Q. Were liaison officers essential to the operation of this radar by the Army's radar equipment?
A. Not the radar equipment; no, sir. They were necessary in order to get the information that was needed by the information center, and also to disseminate it back where it was needed.
74. Q. Then it was strictly the Army's province to get the information, and the liaison were only to be used for getting the information to the Navy?
A. Yes' sir; that is, Navy liaison people.
75. Q. But their absence in no way acted against the efficient use of the radar as such?
A. Their absence didn't affect the use of the radar but their absence, had the information center been going, would have very definitely affected the function of the information center
76. Q. Only insofar as getting the information around was concerned?
A. The information that we needed from the Navy was just as important as the information needed from the Army in order to operate the center. In other words, unless the officers of the different activities were able to identify the plots on the board from information that they received from their parent stations, it was impossible for the information center to operate, so each man was vital to the whole system.
77. Q. Well, the absence of the liaison officer didn't absolutely exclude the exchange of information, even though it might have been slower?
A. It would be a case, sir, of being slower, but certain information would never get to the information center that was needed, and important information would never go from the information center to the Navy. As it turned out, inasmuch as there were no liaison officers down at the information center at all, the absence of the Navy liaison officers made very little difference.
78. Q. Lieutenant Colonel Tyler, then a lieutenant in the Army, was sole controller, as I understand it, in the information center from 4:00 a. m., until 8:00 a. m., on 7 December 1941?
A. I don't remember his name, sir, but there was one squadron commander; that was the first time he had [621] ever been in the information center. We were using squadron commanders as the only source of controllers we could lay our hands on. Unfortunately though, they had their squadrons to train which took up by far the bulk of their time and they would never have worked out satisfactorily in any case.
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79. Q. In consideration of your statement that the Army officer in charge of the center on the morning of December 7th had not been on duty in the center before, did the absence of Navy liaison officers in any way affect the results that were or might have been obtained?
A. No, sir, I do not believe it would have made much difference.
80. Q. Am I correct in the assumption or the conviction that the information center simply was not organized and was not functioning on the morning of December 7th?
A. Yes, sir.
81. Q. In summation of the reasons which you have given and the difficulties encountered, was this not due to the fact that the whole system was in the process of being brought to a state of efficiency?
A. Yes, sir. It could have been made operative sooner had there been some impetus behind it with enough power to get the things we needed.
82. Q. Where should this impetus have emanated?
A. It is my opinion it should come from the Hawaiian Department of the Army.
83. Q. Did you remain on duty with the Hawaiian Department after the 7th of December, 1941?
A. Yes, sir, I remained with them for at least one month after December 7th.
84. Q. What was the state of affairs at the end of that month with regard to the completion of the efficiency of the organization?
A. At the end of that month, well, as a matter of fact, at the end of 7 days, the information center was running smoothly with improvised methods. We had only one very bad handicap and that was that the radio equipment was still not adequate for directing the fighters very far off shore.
85. Q. Was part of the deficiency in personnel supplied by reason of the unfortunate fact that they were made available because of the damage to the battleships?
A. It made the liaison officers easier to get.
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86. Q. Commander, how long were you on duty in Hawaii?
A. I don't remember exactly the dates.
87. Q. About when did you report?
A. I reported out in Hawaii, I would say, the middle of October, 1941. I left on the first of February, 1942.
88. Q. In what capacity were you to act in Hawaii?
A. The original intention of sending me out was to talk to fighter squadrons on combat tactics and to talk to the ships' officers on fighter direction of fighters and to bring back to the Bureau of Aeronautics whatever information I could pick up on the way it was used.
89. G. Well, then, you were not sent out there as a radar expert to assist and advise the Army in radar?
A. No, sir. When I completed my work with the Navy, CincPac sent a dispatch to Admiral Halsey's staff saying that the Commanding General, Hawaiian Air Force, wanted my services as a technical adviser.
90. Q. And you were so detailed?
A. I was detailed verbally, sir.
91. Q. As a technical adviser for radar?
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A. Yes, sir. To qualify that, I'm not a radar technician. I did know quite a bit about the air warning system as it should be set up.
92. Q. By whom were you detailed to report to the Commanding General at Hawaii?
A. By then Captain R. Davidson.
93. Q. By whose direction?
A. By direction of Admiral Kimmel.
94. Q. As we understand, this request for your detail was made by the Army?
A. Yes, sir.
95. Q. To the Commander-in-Chief, Pacific?
A. Yes, sir.
96. Q. About what time did you assume these special duties?
A. I believe it was somewhere around the second week of November, sir.
97. Q. What prompted you to call this conference on 24 November, 1941?
A. Mainly the hopelessness of getting the information center organized without all hands being present or a representative from each activity being present to discuss the details necessary to set the information center up. We had been having conferences with every commander in Hawaii daily which took up a great deal of time, and in [623] each case we had been able to accomplish practically nothing because the other activities were absent.
98. Q. But as the court understands it, this radar was a primary function of the Army?
A. Yes, sir.
99. Q. And as such you had called the conference to advise and suggest to them the proper installation and operation of radar in Hawaii; Is that correct?
A. Yes, sir.
100. Q. You stated in your testimony that you visited the control center on the morning of 7 December?
A. Yes, sir.
101. Q. This was the only control center?
A. Yes, sir.
102. Q. Did you meet there the officer in charge of the control center?
A. You mean by that, sir, General Davidson?
103. Q. Lieutenant Tyler.
A. Yes, sir, I met him there.
104. Q. Did you have any information as to his knowledge of being the officer in charge of the control center prior to his going on duty?
A. He was not, in fact, the officer in charge, sir. He was understudying the job of controller. There was no officer in charge.
105. Q. But there was no other officer at the control center other than Lieutenant Tyler; is that correct?
A. That is right, sir.
106. Q. So who was there to instruct him in his duties?
A. That I don't remember, sir.
107. Q. Do you know that there was no other officer there?
A. No, sir, I do not.
108. Q. But you just stated there was no other officer there?
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A. I stated I did not know that there were no other officers there. There was usually a signal corps officer there during all the watches to instruct the plotters and also instruct the controllers.
109. Q. Upon assuming this duty with the Army, did you make a general survey of radar equipment of the Army?
A. No, sir, only of the radar equipment which was installed and of the actual radar sets that were available.
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110. Q. And how many of these sets were available?
A. As I remember, there were only 5 mobile sets available, all 5 of which were installed.
111. Q. Will you please state where they were installed and in your opinion were they installed in the best positions?
A. I don't remember the exact location, sir, but in my opinion they were as well sited as was possible.
112. Q. Were there any permanent radar installations in the Island of Oahu?
A. No, sir.
113 Q. As we understand, there was no material available to establish those permanent stations?
A. No, sir. My understanding was that there was no permanent equipment there and it would take some months to install it had it been there.
114. Q. Then is the court correct in assuming that the radar equipment of Hawaii was under the direct control of the Army?
A. Yes, sir.
115. Q. And that prior to December 7, 1941, the establishment of the control center and the operation of these radar installations was in a state of being set up to work efficiently?
A. Yes, sir.
116. Q. In other words, it was in a state of working out the different problems in order that they might finally have a radar which would operate efficiently?
A. Yes, sir.
117. Q. Is that right?
A. Yes, sir.
118. Q. Did the Army, to your knowledge, have any officer in the Hawaiian Department who could have done the same as you did in attempting to get action toward bringing the radar system to an operative and efficient condition?
A. They did not have an officer who had the background knowledge of the information center or the air warning system, but they had officers in the Hawaiian Department who could have assisted in getting the action we needed.
119. Q. Would it have been necessary to have that knowledge to get behind this thing and push it along?
A. No, sir.
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120. Q. There is testimony before this court referring to two enlisted men in one of the radar stations on the morning of the attack who got certain results. Can you give us any information about that?
A. You mean the report that the radar operator picked the report up and passed it on to the information center where the report was ignored; is that it?
PROCEEDINGS OF NAVY COURT OF INQUIRY 473
121. Q. Yes.
A. The radar operators who were being trained and picked up the raid, which was normally to be expected, the information was passed into the information center where the plotters, as I remember, were then off duty. The plotters were only supposed to be on duty between the same hours that the radar stations were operating. Therefore, at 7:00 a. m., the regular plotters and the information center itself was due to close down. Had the information been properly plotted it would have been impossible to decide whether the plots picked up by the radar station were a Japanese raid, an air group from one of our own carriers, or some planes being ferried in from the United States. As a matter of fact, at that time, at the time of the raid, there were American bombers that came in from the States. But without some method of identifying the planes that came in, no one could have told whether the planes were friend or foe, and therefore no action would have been taken. In other words, until better organization had been planned between the Army and the Navy for aircraft identification and aircraft reporting, with all their liaison officers in position, the information that was picked up by the radar station was of no value to anybody.
122. Q. The spotting of those planes on the morning of the 7th of December was not dependent, as we understand it, upon information from the Navy, was it? It was simply a spot or a pip on the radar machine?
A. That is true, sir, but without the Army and Navy working together a system to identify those planes coming in, it would have to be assumed that they were friendly. The information center is set up with its Army and Navy liaison officers for the single purpose of identifying the planes that are coming in. After that time, when one of our carriers was sending in its air group, the information was immediately telephoned in by direct line to the naval liaison officer giving us the direction from which they were coming, when the raid then appeared on the board, and the naval liaison immediately identified it, and when the Army planes were coming in they were immediately identified by the Navy liaison officers. Any which were not identified had to be accepted as hostile, and immediately when they were intercepted as hostile, the air raid siren went on for people to take cover.
[626]
123. Q. If this radar had been properly set up and had been running efficiently, the man who discovered the spot or the plot of these planes, it would have been his duty to report it immediately to find out whether or not they were expected, or friendly planes; is that correct?
A. Yes, sir. He would call immediately on the Army and Navy liaison officer to get them to identify the raid. If they were not able to, then they would check back to the flying activities to check again.
124. Q. Even in the absence of a naval liaison officer, is it not a fact that the flight of a group of B-17s from San Francisco could have been identified by an Army officer as a friendly flight which still would not have determined the fact that there were enemy planes en route?
A. Yes, sir.
125. Q. Referring to the Roberts Report, which is a public document, the findings thereof. The statement is made that on November
474 CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATION PEARL HARBOR ATTACK
27, 1941, there was sufficient partially trained personnel available to operate the aircraft warning system throughout 24 hours of the day, as installed in its temporary locations. An arc of nearly 360 degrees around Oahu could have been covered. Will you comment on that with regard to the complete accuracy of the statement, as well as to the possible efficiency of the system had it been able to be fully manned?
A. The first part of the statement is definitely untrue. There were not sufficient numbers of well-trained personnel to operate the radar station, even partially, at any time. The radar equipment was positioned in such a way that we could get fairly good 360 degree coverage around the Island of Oahu. There were times when planes could come in undetected, but not very often. But I believe in no case could a large raid come in undetected.
126. Q. As I understand it, the manning of a station for 24 hours, consistently for 24 hours, would have been for the purpose of rectifying the deficiencies in training. Isn't that what you said?
A. You could train your people during the daytime to operate 24 hours a day, but the point was to get the system going smoothly so that it would work day and night, which takes a regular watch right around the clock. But at the time of December 7th, there was not one complete or even partially trained team.
127. Q. It was a question, then, of the completion of the entire system so that the several parts would operate together efficiently?
A. Yes, sir.
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128. Q. Had all these mobile radars been in top efficient condition they still could not have been operated continuously because of untrained personnel; is that right?
A. Yes, sir.
129. Q. At the time you began your contact with the Army were there in evidence any efforts to organize the information center and bring it to an efficient working condition?
A. By two very junior officers, sir. One was the operations officer for the Interceptor Command, Captain Berquist of the Fourteenth Pursuit Wing, and a captain of the Signal Corps, whose name I cannot remember, both of whom had been to the information center school at Mitchel Field and both of whom were very eager to get the information center set up, and I think it was at Captain Berquist's request that I was asked for from the Navy. The two of them worked very hard and tirelessly the entire time with me in trying to get the information center operating, but they did not have enough force to get what they needed from the various commands to get the station operating.
130. Q. Before you entered into the picture they did make every effort to get some action?
A. Yes, sir.
131. Q. When was the temporary information center building completed and ready for operation, including the internal equipment?
A. The temporary information center was completed, except for communications, radio and telephone, within two or three days of my reporting to the Army which, as I remember, was in the second week of November.
PROCEEDINGS OF NAVY COURT OF INQUIRY 475
132. Q. When was the permanent, bomb-proof station completed?
A. The bomb-proof information center was still not completed when I left the Islands in February, 1942.
133. Q. Were the communication facilities in the temporary station completed before you left the Islands?
A. Yes, sir, they were completed except for the civilian air warning system and for the lines to several fighter squadron dispersal points before December 7th.
None of the parties to the inquiry desired further to examine this witness.
The court informed the witness that he was privileged to make any further statement covering anything relating to the subject matter of the inquiry which he thought should be a matter of record in connection therewith, which had not been fully brought out by the previous questioning.
[628] The witness stated that he had nothing further to say.
The witness was duly warned and withdrew.