Pearl Harbor (World War II)
Pearl Harbor, located in Honolulu, Hawaii on the island of O'ahu, is a U.S. naval base that, during World War II, was the target of an attack by the Imperial Japanese Navy on December 7, 1941 via submarine and air. The Pearl Harbor commanders, Admiral Husband Kimmel (Navy) and Lieutenant General Walter Short (Army), had no warning of the attack, and command at Pearl Harbor was badly fragmented, to the point of absurdity where the Army's highest alert was Level 3, but the Navy's lowest alert was Level 3.
Had all the forces in Hawaii been under the vigorous operational control of a single commander — most likely the Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet — it is unlikely (though not inconceivable) that multiple alert systems would have existed side by side, that the air above the islands would not have had a single center controlling it, or that Oahu's fighter defenses would have assumed that long-range patrols would give them four hours' warning of an enemy's approach.[1]
References
- ↑ Eliot A. Cohen and John Gooch (1990), Military Misfortunes: the Anatomy of Failure in War, Vintage/Random House, ISBN 679743969, pp. 54-55