[Congressional Bills 106th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 3050 Introduced in House (IH)]
106th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 3050
To provide for the posthumous advancement of Rear Admiral (retired)
Husband E. Kimmel and Major General (retired) Walter C. Short on the
retired lists of their respective services.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
October 7, 1999
Mr. Spratt (for himself, Mr. Spence, and Mr. Skelton) introduced the
following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Armed Services
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To provide for the posthumous advancement of Rear Admiral (retired)
Husband E. Kimmel and Major General (retired) Walter C. Short on the
retired lists of their respective services.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. POSTHUMOUS ADVANCEMENT OF REAR ADMIRAL (RETIRED) HUSBAND E.
KIMMEL AND MAJOR GENERAL (RETIRED) WALTER C. SHORT ON
RETIRED LISTS.
(a) Findings.--Congress makes the following findings:
(1) The late Rear Admiral (retired) Husband E. Kimmel,
formerly serving in the grade of admiral as the Commander in
Chief of the United States Fleet and the Commander in Chief,
United States Pacific Fleet, had an excellent and unassailable
record throughout his career in the United States Navy prior to
the December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor.
(2) The late Major General (retired) Walter C. Short,
formerly serving in the grade of lieutenant general as the
Commander of the United States Army Hawaiian Department, had an
excellent and unassailable record throughout his career in the
United States Army prior to the December 7, 1941, attack on
Pearl Harbor.
(3) Numerous investigations following the attack on Pearl
Harbor have documented that then Admiral Kimmel and then
Lieutenant General Short were not provided necessary and
critical intelligence that was available, that foretold of war
with Japan, that warned of imminent attack, and that would have
alerted them to prepare for the attack, including such
essential communiques as the Japanese Pearl Harbor Bomb Plot
message of September 24, 1941, and the message sent from the
Imperial Japanese Foreign Ministry to the Japanese Ambassador
in the United States from December 6-7, 1941, known as the
Fourteen-Part Message.
(4) On December 16, 1941, Admiral Kimmel and Lieutenant
General Short were relieved of their commands and returned to
their permanent ranks of rear admiral and major general.
(5) Admiral William Harrison Standley, who served as a
member of the investigating commission known as the Roberts
Commission that accused Admiral Kimmel and Lieutenant General
Short of ``dereliction of duty'' only six weeks after the
attack on Pearl Harbor, later disavowed the report maintaining
that ``these two officers were martyred'' and ``if they had
been brought to trial, both would have been cleared of the
charge''.
(6) On October 19, 1944, a Naval Court of Inquiry--
(A) exonerated Admiral Kimmel on the grounds that
his military decisions and the disposition of his
forces at the time of the December 7, 1941, attack on
Pearl Harbor were proper ``by virtue of the information
that Admiral Kimmel had at hand which indicated neither
the probability nor the imminence of an air attack on
Pearl Harbor'';
(B) criticized the higher command for not sharing
with Admiral Kimmel ``during the very critical period
of 26 November to 7 December 1941, important
information . . . regarding the Japanese situation'';
and
(C) concluded that the Japanese attack and its
outcome was attributable to no serious fault on the
part of anyone in the naval service.
(7) On June 15, 1944, an investigation conducted by Admiral
T. C. Hart at the direction of the Secretary of the Navy
produced evidence, subsequently confirmed, that essential
intelligence concerning Japanese intentions and war plans was
available in Washington but was not shared with Admiral Kimmel.
(8) On October 20, 1944, the Army Pearl Harbor Board of
Investigation determined that--
(A) Lieutenant General Short had not been kept
``fully advised of the growing tenseness of the
Japanese situation which indicated an increasing
necessity for better preparation for war'';
(B) detailed information and intelligence about
Japanese intentions and war plans were available in
``abundance'', but were not shared with Lieutenant
General Short's Hawaii command; and
(C) Lieutenant General Short was not provided ``on
the evening of December 6th and the early morning of
December 7th, the critical information indicating an
almost immediate break with Japan, though there was
ample time to have accomplished this''.
(9) The reports by both the Naval Court of Inquiry and the
Army Pearl Harbor Board of Investigation were kept secret, and
Rear Admiral (retired) Kimmel and Major General (retired) Short
were denied their requests to defend themselves through trial
by court-martial.
(10) The joint committee of Congress that was established
to investigate the conduct of Admiral Kimmel and Lieutenant
General Short completed, on May 31, 1946, a 1,075-page report
which included the conclusions of the committee that the two
officers had not been guilty of dereliction of duty.
(11) The Officer Personnel Act of 1947, in establishing a
promotion system for the Navy and the Army, provided a legal
basis for the President to honor any officer of the Armed
Forces of the United States who served his country as a senior
commander during World War II with a placement of that officer,
with the advice and consent of the Senate, on the retired list
with the highest grade held while on the active duty list.
(12) On April 27, 1954, the then Chief of Naval Personnel,
Admiral J. L. Holloway, Jr., recommended that Rear Admiral
Kimmel be advanced in rank in accordance with the provisions of
the Officer Personnel Act of 1947.
(13) On November 13, 1991, a majority of the members of the
Board for the Correction of Military Records of the Department
of the Army found that the late Major General (retired) Short
``was unjustly held responsible for the Pearl Harbor disaster''
and that ``it would be equitable and just'' to advance him to
the rank of lieutenant general on the retired list''.
(14) In October 1994, the then Chief of Naval Operations,
Admiral Carlisle Trost, withdrew his 1988 recommendation
against the advancement of Rear Admiral (retired) Kimmel (by
then deceased) and recommended that the case of Rear Admiral
Kimmel be reopened.
(15) Although the Dorn Report, a report on the results of a
Department of Defense study that was issued on December 15,
1995, did not provide support for an advancement of the late
Rear Admiral (retired) Kimmel or the late Major General
(retired) Short in grade, it did set forth as a conclusion of
the study that ``responsibility for the Pearl Harbor disaster
should not fall solely on the shoulders of Admiral Kimmel and
Lieutenant General Short, it should be broadly shared''.
(16) The Dorn Report found--
(A) that ``Army and Navy officials in Washington
were privy to intercepted Japanese diplomatic
communications...which provided crucial confirmation of
the imminence of war'';
(B) that ``the evidence of the handling of these
messages in Washington reveals some ineptitude, some
unwarranted assumptions and misestimations, limited
coordination, ambiguous language, and lack of
clarification and follow-up at higher levels''; and
(C) that ``together, these characteristics resulted
in failure...to appreciate fully and to convey to the
commanders in Hawaii the sense of focus and urgency
that these intercepts should have engendered''.
(17) On July 21, 1997, Vice Admiral David C. Richardson
(United States Navy, retired) responded to the Dorn Report with
his own study which confirmed findings of the Naval Court of
Inquiry and the Army Pearl Harbor Board of Investigation and
established, among other facts, that the war effort in 1941 was
undermined by a restrictive intelligence distribution policy,
and the degree to which the commanders of the United States
forces in Hawaii were not alerted about the impending attack on
Hawaii was directly attributable to the withholding of
intelligence from then Admiral Kimmel and Lieutenant General
Short.
(18) Rear Admiral (retired) Kimmel and Major General
(retired) Short are the only two officers eligible for
advancement under the Officer Personnel Act of 1947 as senior
World War II commanders who were excluded from the list of
retired officers presented for advancement on the retired lists
to their highest wartime ranks under that Act.
(19) This singular exclusion from advancement of Rear
Admiral (retired) Kimmel and Major General (retired) Short from
the Navy retired list and the Army retired list, respectively,
serves only to perpetuate the myth that the senior commanders
in Hawaii were derelict in their duty and responsible for the
success of the attack on Pearl Harbor, and is a distinct and
unacceptable expression of dishonor toward two of the finest
officers who have served in the Armed Forces of the United
States.
(20) Major General (retired) Walter Short died on September
23, 1949, and Rear Admiral (retired) Husband Kimmel died on May
14, 1968, without having been accorded the honor of being
returned to their wartime ranks as were their fellow veterans
of World War II.
(21) The Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Pearl Harbor
Survivors Association, the Admiral Nimitz Foundation, the Naval
Academy Alumni Association, the Retired Officers Association,
the Pearl Harbor Commemorative Committee, and other
associations and numerous retired military officers have called
for the rehabilitation of the reputations and honor of the late
Rear Admiral (retired) Kimmel and the late Major General
(retired) Short through their posthumous advancement on the
retired lists to their highest wartime grades.
(b) Request for Advancement on Retired Lists.--(1) The President is
requested--
(A) to advance the late Rear Admiral (retired) Husband E.
Kimmel to the grade of admiral on the retired list of the Navy;
and
(B) to advance the late Major General (retired) Walter C.
Short to the grade of lieutenant general on the retired list of
the Army.
(2) Any advancement in grade on a retired list requested under
paragraph (1) shall not increase or otherwise modify the compensation
or benefits from the United States to which any person is now or may in
the future be entitled based upon the military service of the officer
advanced.
(c) Sense of Congress.--It is the sense of Congress that--
(1) the late Rear Admiral (retired) Husband E. Kimmel
performed his duties as Commander in Chief, United States
Pacific Fleet, competently and professionally, and, therefore,
the losses incurred by the United States in the attacks on the
naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and other targets on the
island of Oahu, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, were not a result
of dereliction in the performance of those duties by the then
Admiral Kimmel; and
(2) the late Major General (retired) Walter C. Short
performed his duties as Commanding General, Hawaiian
Department, competently and professionally, and, therefore, the
losses incurred by the United States in the attacks on Hickam
Army Air Field and Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, and other
targets on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941,
were not a result of dereliction in the performance of those
duties by the then Lieutenant General Short.
<all>