Kimmel, Husband E. (1882-1968)

Naval Historical Institute #82800

Husband E. Kimmel was born in Kentucky and graduated from the Naval Academy in 1904. He served on several battleships, including Georgia during the world cruise of the Great White Fleet. He was wounded during the Vera Cruz expedition. He served as an aide to assistant naval secretary and future President Franklin D. Roosevelt just prior to the First World War. During the war, Kimmel taught gunnery and served as squadron gunnery officer with the American squadron assigned to work with the British Grand Fleet. Between the wars, he attended the Naval War College, commanded destroyer squadrons and battleships, and was promoted to rank of rear admiral in November 1937. He then commanded cruiser formations until being selected over 46 more senior admirals to the position of Commander in Chief, US Fleet (CINCUS).

Thus it was that Kimmel had the bad fortune to be in command of the U.S. Pacific Fleet on December 7, 1941. It was perhaps inevitable that he would be relieved shortly after the Pearl Harbor disaster and called to answer before numerous investigative committees. Historians still argue over whether he deserved to be relieved and retired or was simply a scapegoat for the pervasive lack of American preparedness.

Amid the controversy, a few facts seem fairly clear. Kimmel was a good naval officer, aggressive and capable. Many of his contemporaries felt that what happened to Kimmel could have happened as easily to any of them. Nimitz, his successor, was particularly outspoken in his opinion that Kimmel did not deserve to be treated so ignominiously. Kimmel did not get full intelligence from Washington, and he lacked sufficient aircraft to adequately patrol the area around Hawaii.

However, it is also clear that Kimmel had a pronounced “can’t happen here” attitude that affected his defense preparations. He was sent a message shortly before the attack that began with “This dispatch is to be considered a war warning.” Rather than alert the fleet to imminent hostilities, he focused on the list of potential Japanese targets in the message, which happened not to include Hawaii, and concluded that Pearl Harbor was a secure base. This is not the correct attitude for a sentry guarding a vital outpost. On the other hand, Kimmel also began planning for early raids against the Marshall Islands to relieve the expected pressure on the Philippines, which under other circumstances might have been a very reasonable course of action.

Kimmel’s relief was unnecessarily abrupt and damaged the early war effort. Kimmel was organizing an aggressive relief expedition to Wake Island when he was ordered to turn command over to Pye, his battleship commander, until Nimitz could get to Hawaii. This interim change of command was certainly unnecessary. Pye, who as interim commander seemed concerned mostly with avoiding any more disasters, called off the relief expedition. Some historians believe that if Kimmel had been allowed to retain command until Nimitz arrived, the relief expedition would likely have resulted in a badly-needed American victory in the first month of war.

On 26 January 1942 a Board of Inquiry found Kimmel guilty of dereliction of duty. Further hearings continued through 1946, and while the findings against Kimmel were softened slightly, he never escaped official blame for the debacle at Pearl Harbor.

Service record

References

Boatner (1996)

Dupuy et al. (1992)

Morison (1948)

Navy Historical Center (accessed 2007-11-20)

The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia (c) 2006 by Kent G. Budge. Index

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