[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>