At least that was the theory, and it seems not to have had any lasting deleterious effect when one considers the accomplishments of Kimmel’s contemporaries at the academy, many of whom, a half century later, went on to become the principal naval leaders of World War II: Harold R. Stark, Ernest J. King, Chester W. Nimitz, William F. Halsey, Raymond A. Spruance, Royal E. Ingersoll, Robert L. Ghormley, John H. Towers, John S. McCain, Wilson E. Brown, H. Kent Hewitt, Milo F. Draemel, Aubrey W. Fitch, Richmond Kelly Turner, William S. Pye, and Thomas C. Kinkaid. The last-named, future commander of the Seventh Fleet, became Kimmel’s brother-in-law when his sister Dorothy gave her hand in marriage to Kimmel on a snowy evening in January 1912 at St. Anne’s Episcopal Church, Annapolis.29 It would be difficult to argue that the sterile intellectualism of the academy appreciably hindered those particular classes, on whom “the stars fell,” either in the prosecution of their careers or in the achievement of their wartime victories.
As for Cadet Kimmel, who would also rise to high position, second only to that of Chief of Naval Operations, he successfully observed the academy discipline as a “regulation” cadet, passed his courses, became a member of the varsity gymnasium team, played on his class football team, managed the varsity crew, and reached the cadet rank of brigade adjutant. Not the least of his accomplishments had been to form numerous strong friendships with quality individuals. One such staunch relationship had bonded him with Harold Raynsford “Betty” Stark, in the class (1903) ahead of him. Stark got his nickname from upperclassmen during his plebe year at the academy. His hazers mistook a distant Stark relative’s name from the Revolutionary War period to have been Betty, instead of Molly. But Betty stuck. Kimmel was able to escape the academy as Kim, except that Stark would later call him by the Turkish “Mustapha,” because Kimmel sounded like “Kemal,” as in Mustapha Kemal, president of the Turkish Republic (1923–1938). Their paths would intersect many times in the years ahead.
* * *
After graduating thirteenth in his class of sixty-two on 1 February 1904, Passed Midshipman Kimmel was ordered to duty in the battleship USS Kentucky, where he served in the gunnery department. Other tours of duty followed in battleships, cruisers, and destroyers, as the novice officer rose in rank. In 1914, as a lieutenant, he became aide and fleet gunnery officer on the staff of the commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet. During the years 1913–15 he was engaged in the task of rescuing stranded Americans from the coast of Mexico, then in the throes of revolution. On 18 July 1914, while on board ship, he was wounded twice in the right arm and in each leg by shots fired from shore. When the United States entered the World War in 1917, the now lieutenant commander was detailed as a U.S. naval observer to the British Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow to demonstrate a photographic system for the analysis of gunnery scores that he had had a major hand in developing. Afterward, he served as squadron gunnery officer with the five battleships that formed the so-called American Battle Squadron attached to the British fleet. Later, in 1918, as executive officer of the Arkansas, he witnessed the ignominious surrender (and scuttling) of the German High Seas Fleet at Rosyth.
In the early 1920s, Commander Kimmel served three years as production officer in charge of 6,700 civilian workers in the Naval Gun Factory at Washington Navy Yard, after which he was made captain in charge of the Cavite Navy Yard in the Philippines. He then served two years on the Asiatic Station as commander of Destroyer Division 45, a part of whose mission was to guard U.S. Army round-the-world aircraft on their leg between Hong Kong and Calcutta. That duty was followed by studies at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, where he completed the senior course, the greater part of which was taken up by analysis of the latest version of War Plan Orange, the Navy’s secret projection of how it would fight and win the “inevitable” naval war with Japan. Two years of duty at the Navy Department in the Policy Section of Naval Operations preceded another two years in destroyers, this time as commander, with the rank of captain, of a squadron of Battle Force destroyers.
In every assignment, Kimmel acquired an outstanding annual performance evaluation (“Officer’s Record of Fitness”) from direct superiors: “an all-around officer of great promise,” “energetic, forceful and of pleasing personality,” “good common sense and initiative,” “a splendid officer of high character,” “excellent in organization, management, and in handling personnel.” So impressive was Kimmel’s proficiency in ship movements, the then Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral William V. Pratt, added his own encomium to the fitness report of April 1933: “Captain Kimmel is a humdinger. He is a driver and a worker most efficient and he does it all without antagonizing people; I like him because he says what he thinks, never fools you, and his judgment is excellent. He is eminently qualified for promotion and I expect to see him get to the very top someday. He will make good.”30
It was axiomatic that for advancement to flag rank an officer must first serve as commanding officer of a battleship. Kimmel received that compliment later in 1933 when he was given command of the 27,000-ton USS New York (BB-34), built in 1914. It was a ship on which he had been stationed briefly, when on the staff of Admiral Hugh Rodman, with the British Grand Fleet, in 1917. (His senior air officer on board, Lieutenant Logan C. Ramsey, would later, in August 1937, write a prescient article for the United States Naval Institute Proceedings entitled, “Aerial Attacks on Fleets at Anchor.” In 1941, while serving Kimmel again as operations officer of Patrol Wing 2 at Pearl Harbor, Ramsey would be the first to sound the attack alarm on 7 December.) After only a short stint as skipper of the New York, Kimmel was transferred to become chief of staff for Commander Battleships, Battle Force. Yet another Washington assignment followed in 1935, as budget officer for the entire naval establishment. On 13 October 1937, to no one’s surprise, he was promoted to rear admiral.
Back at sea, the new flag officer became Commanding Officer Cruisers, Battle Force. Early in 1939, he commanded a good will tour around South America with a division of three heavy cruisers, visiting ports in Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, and, via the Straits of Magellan, Chile and Peru. In June of that year, he was reassigned to the command of Cruisers, Battle Force (consisting of three divisions of light cruisers) in the Pacific Fleet, relieving his old friend from academy days, Rear Admiral Harold R. Stark, who had been appointed Chief of Naval Operations (CNO). Kimmel hoisted his flag in the USS Honolulu.
As the months of 1940 came and went, it was clear to Kimmel and his fellow flag officers at Pearl that the Orange plan, which they had first encountered in an earlier form at the Naval War College, was moving ever closer to the execution phase. Japan was threatening to unleash a sixth initiative since 1896 to dominate the nations and territories of eastern Asia. In the Sino-Japanese War of 1896 she had seized the island of Formosa (Taiwan) off the southeastern coast of China. In the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05, she had gained predominant control over Manchuria and Korea, annexing the latter in 1910. In 1931 she had seized the three northern provinces of China and formed them into a puppet state named Manchukuo. In 1937 she had invaded the major population centers of China—Peking (Beijing), Shanghai, and Nanking—and, by the following year, she had occupied almost all the principal cities, ports, and railroads of north and central China. In 1939 she occupied Hainan Island off the coast of China, and the Spratlys, coral islands that lie between southern Vietnam and Borneo, athwart the sea-lanes between Singapore and Manila—perfect submarine bases.
Two events in September 1940 demonstrated that Japan’s appetite was hardly sated. First, as a result of Germany’s defeat of France, she stationed troops in northern French Indochina. The U.S. government, which earlier, in July, had responded to Japan’s continuing war in China by placing an embargo on exports to Japan of aviation fuel and the highest grades of iron and steel scrap, now cut off all grades of those metal exports. And, second, on 27 September, Japan signed the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy, which provided that the three powers would come to one another’s assistance
if one of them was attacked by a nation not yet involved in the European or Sino-Japanese wars. Emboldened by her Axis partnership, and fueled by ambitions to establish a western and southwestern Pacific empire that she euphemistically styled the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, Japan now cast ravenous eyes in the direction of southern Indochina and other European colonies to the south of her: the Dutch East Indies, whose oil fields had become a strong attraction after the mother country’s surrender to Germany; and rubber and tin-rich Malaya, only half-protected by a beleaguered Great Britain. If the Japanese fleet moved south against those colonies of nominal allies of the United States, it was possible that the United States Navy Pacific and Asiatic Fleets would become engaged; it was certain if the list of Japanese targets was enlarged to include the U.S. territory of the Philippine Islands.
* * *
Rear Admiral Kimmel was still in command of Cruisers, Battle Force, when, on Sunday, 5 January 1941, after returning to the Pearl Harbor fleet landing following a round of golf with his chief of staff, Captain Walter S. DeLany, at the Army’s Fort Shafter course, he was met by a staff officer who announced that the admiral was to report immediately aboard the fleet flagship, then alongside one of the docks. Upon going aboard, Kimmel was escorted to the quarters of the chief of staff, who showed him a dispatch from the Navy Department to Admiral James O. Richardson, Commander in Chief, United States Fleet (CINCUS). The dispatch read that, effective 1 February 1941, Admiral Richardson was relieved of his command, and that President Franklin D. Roosevelt had appointed in his stead as CINCUS and as Commander in Chief, United States Pacific Fleet (CINCPAC) Husband E. Kimmel, with the designated rank of admiral. DeLany was with him when he received the news. “The blow dazed him,” DeLany told the Associated Press. “I’ve never seen a man more surprised.”31
Kimmel went at once to Admiral Richardson’s quarters in Honolulu to assure him that he had in no way sought this appointment, second only in the Navy to that of Chief of Naval Operations in Washington, and to express his conviction that, from his knowledge of Richardson’s efficient command of the fleet, there was no justification for his being relieved only thirteen months into his command. Kimmel, furthermore, sent a letter, dated 12 January 1941, to CNO “Betty” Stark:
When I got the news of my prospective assignment, I was perfectly stunned. I hadn’t any intimation that Richardson’s relief was even being considered; and even had I known that his relief was being considered, I did not in my wildest dreams really think that I would get the job. Nevertheless, I am prepared to do everything I can when I take over on about the first of February.32
Some months later, Kimmel would learn why Richardson was relieved. He had angered President Roosevelt during a White House luncheon meeting on the previous 8 October by opposing, in what Roosevelt considered disrespectful language, the permanent stationing of the fleet at Pearl Harbor. Prior to May 1940 Pearl had been home base for only a Hawaiian detachment, consisting of a carrier, heavy cruisers, and destroyers. Roosevelt thought that the presence of the fleet in mid-Pacific waters would deter Japan from seizing European colonies in the Far East. Richardson had disagreed and had argued, furthermore (and too boldly for Roosevelt’s taste), that only the bases on the U.S. West Coast could provide the dockyard and supply services, the manpower, and the auxiliary vessels that the fleet would need for war. Kimmel would also learn that he had not been the President’s first choice to replace him. That had been Rear Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, chief of the Navy’s Bureau of Navigation, which had charge of all naval training and all officer appointments. Widely admired in the Navy, Nimitz was also a Roosevelt confidant, and thus he probably was not overly surprised by the President’s offer. But knowing that he was being jumped over fifty more senior officers, thus risking their ill will (though it had not bothered Stark to be promoted over fifty seniors when he was made CNO in 1939), he respectfully declined. In his stead he recommended for CINCUS and CINCPAC his old cadet-mate Kimmel, who would jump only thirty-one numbers. “He had an excellent service reputation,” Nimitz would write in 1962, “so good—in fact—that he was promoted from grade to grade after having been selected by Selection Boards. His reputation was good enough to persuade me, as Chief, Bureau of Naval Personnel, Navy Dept., to nominate him as the relief of Admiral J. O. Richardson, C-in-C Pacific Fleet.”33 Pointing out that he and Kimmel had known each other since their academy days, former CNO “Betty” Stark said of Kimmel in a 1966 interview: “We became warm friends in those early days and our contacts were many through the years. In 1941 when a vacancy occurred in the command of the Pacific Fleet I strongly urged [upon the Secretary of the Navy, Frank Knox] the appointment of Admiral Kimmel for that most important Command, and he was so appointed. I could have paid him no higher compliment.”34
When Knox and Stark then presented Kimmel’s name to the President, Roosevelt responded, “Of course! Why didn’t I think of him?”35
After the appointment was publicly announced, it was greeted with approval throughout the service; it is not recorded how many, if any, of the senior flag officers over whom Kimmel was jumped manifested a grievance. As for the U.S. Army, it took cautious measure of the man. Under the date 7 February 1941, U.S. Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall wrote to the newly installed Lieutenant General Walter C. Short, commandant of the Army’s Hawaiian Department:
My dear Short: I believe you take over command today; however, the reason for this letter is a conversation I had yesterday with Admiral Stark.
He spoke of Admiral Kimmel, the new Fleet Commander, regarding his personal characteristics. He said Kimmel was very direct, even brusque and undiplomatic in his approach to problems; that he was at heart a very kindly man, though he appeared rather rough in his methods of doing business. I gather that he is entirely responsive to plain speaking on the part of the other fellow if there is frankness and logic in the presentation. Stark went so far as to say that he had in the past personally objected to Kimmel’s manners in dealing with officers, but that Kimmel was outstanding in his qualifications for command, and that this was the opinion of the entire Navy.
I give you this as it might be helpful in your personal dealings with Admiral Kimmel, not that I anticipate that you would be supersensitive, but rather that you would have a full understanding of the man with whom you are to deal.36
When shown this communication by the writer in May 2000, Admiral Kimmel’s sole surviving son, Edward R. Kimmel, commented, “Sounds like my dad. He kept us three boys in line.”37 (Husband and Dorothy Kimmel had three sons: Manning Marius, born 22 April 1913, was graduated from the Naval Academy and entered the submarine service. During the Second World War Commander Kimmel became skipper of the submarine USS Robalo, which was sunk by a mine in the Balbac Strait north of Borneo, on 2 July 1944, with the loss of all hands. Thomas Kinkaid was born on 29 September 1914. Also an academy graduate, he commanded surface ships during the war. He died, a retired captain, at Annapolis on 24 January 1997. Edward Ralph was prevented from entering the academy by poor eyesight. He served as a reserve naval officer during the war, rising to the rank of lieutenant commander.
In 1966, middle son Tom recalled:
The most outstanding impression I have of my father [who was still alive] from the very first day I can remember is his complete honesty, forthrightness, and sense of fairness. He simply would not be a party to anything that was not completely honest and above board. He was a very poor bargainer, because he much preferred to pay a fair price and not enter into any “deals” with anyone. He had a quick temper and would not tolerate disobedience or willful neglect or carelessness. Such infractions he dealt with immediately in no uncertain terms. However, when the incident was over, it was completely finished and he held no grudges. My two brothers and I have always had the greatest respect and admiration for our father. In times of crisis, when something “big” came along, he was always ready to deal with the problem quickly, intelligently, and thoroughly. He seemed to save h
is temper for the small, relatively unimportant matters.38
If, indeed, there was a sometimes harsh surface to Kimmel, as Stark informed Marshall, and as son Tom appeared to acknowledge, one understands better the gossip, widespread in the Navy, that Roosevelt wanted the “two toughest sons-of-bitches” in the Navy to run the Pacific Fleet and the Atlantic Fleet (before 1 February 1941 called the Atlantic Squadron).39 For commander in chief of the latter theater (CINCLANT) he had chosen, effective 1 February 1941, Admiral Ernest J. King, about whom Roosevelt stated gleefully, “He shaves with a blowtorch.” One of King’s six daughters had her own assessment: “My father is the most even-tempered man in the Navy; he is always in a rage.”40
On Saturday morning, 1 February 1941, Husband E. Kimmel stood under the guns of turret No. 4 on the quarterdeck of the fleet flagship Pennsylvania for the change of command ceremonies. After a reading of orders with Admiral Richardson, the new CINCUS and CINCPAC watched as his four-starred flag was broken from the maintruck. Every high-ranking officer at Pearl watched with him, but not his wife and sons.
Dorothy had remained on the mainland when Kimmel began his latest tour in the islands; Manning and Tom were serving together on board the submarine S-38 based in the Philippines; and Ned was a junior at Princeton. The father of the family cut a fine, athletic figure in his starched white uniform. Five feet ten inches tall, with his ramrod straight posture he seemed taller. A ruddy youthful complexion formed the background to a prominent nose and clear blue eyes. His dark blond hair was turning prematurely gray. When he spoke the voice was soft Kentuckian.
Pearl Harbor Betrayed Page 8