Headline: "RAID SIGNS IGNORED"
..."ORDERS NOT CARRIED OUT"
By James B. Reston: "The disastrous Japanese attack on the United States' main Pacific naval base at Pearl Harbor Dec. 7 was due mainly to the failure of Admiral Husband E. Kimmel and Lieut. Gen. Walter C. Short to take adequate joint action for the defense of the Hawaiian Islands despite repeated warnings from the War and Navy Departments, Associate Justice Owen J. Roberts, chairman of President Roosevelt's special investigating commission, reported today..."
This report -- the Roberts Report -- was the first of many, not all of which arrived at the same conclusions.
Some reports put more blame on higher-ups in Washington for failure to adequately warn Hawaiia's commanders.
And the truth is, those warnings from Washington were vague and misleading -- none, zero, zip nada, said to expect air attack on Hawaii.
So the historical issue is whether Washington knew enough to have more adequately warned Hawaii?
The answer is, the case has not been proved, but there is evidence suggesting Washington did know more than they told Hawaii about.
Here's the bottom line: any suggestion that Hawaii received multiple warnings of a coming air attack is false in the extreme.
Read the book “Day of Deceit” by Robert Stinnett.
Washington knew a lot more than it let on.
Did it know the exact time and date probably not, but they sure got rid of a lot of old and useless battleships that day while they saved the carriers.