PUBLIC LAW 106-398 —APPENDIX 114 STAT. 1654A-121 Pearl Harbor disaster should not fall solely on the shoulders of Admiral Kimmel and Lieutenant General Short, it should be broadly shared". (15) 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 followup 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". (16) 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 Admiral Kimmel and Lieutenant General Short. (17) 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. (18) Rear Admiral Kimmel and Major General 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 grades under that Act. (19) This singular exclusion of those two officers from advancement on the retired list 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, 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 Walter Short died on September 23, 1949, and Rear Admiral Husband Kimmel died on May 14, 1968, without the honor of having been returned to their wartime grades as were their fellow commanders 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,
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