What happened to the key guys after Pearl Harbor?

Answer 1

Rear Admiral (acting Admiral) Husband E. Kimmel was Commander In Chief, Pacific and U.S. fleets and was at Pearl Harbor when it was attacked by Japanese naval air forces on the early morning of December 7, 1941. He was blamed, perhaps unfairly, for unreadiness for the attack and went into early retirement in 1941 after being relieved of command by Chester W. Nimitz. He spent the rest of his life (he died in 1968) defending his decisions and actions before the attack and insisting that he was not given sufficient information or he would have been more ready. Some historians excoriate him, others exonerate him.

Army Lieutenant General Walter C. Short was Kimmel's Army opposite number at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and was similarly blamed for unreadiness. In Short's case, he was more concerned with the possibility of sabotage against the Army Air Forces than he was of attack from the air, and ordered all his warplanes lined up on the tarmac wingtip to wingtip, which made them easier to guard. It also made it easier for the strafing Japanese planes to destroy virtually the entire Army Air Force on the ground in the early part of the attack. So far as I know, only two pilots made it into the air to fight back during the first wave of the attack. General Short, like Admiral Kimmel, was forced to take early retirement and spent the rest of his life (he died in 1949) defending his actions before the attack. Like Kimmel, some historians excoriate him, others exonerate him.

Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo was in command of the attacking Japanese fleet, consisting of 6 aircraft carriers with 414 aircraft escorted by 9 destroyers, 2 battleships, 2 heavy cruisers, 1 light cruiser, 8 tankers and a whole fleet of submarines. The Japanese managed to get this huge task force across thousands of miles of the Pacific without the Americans being entirely aware of it, although there is evidence that we knew an attack was coming soon somewhere in the Pacific. We just didn't think it would be Pearl Harbor. After launching a highly successful surprise attack just at Morning Colors, plus an only slightly less successful second wave, (American defenders were putting up a serious fight by the time the second wave arrived) Nagumo made the decision not to launch a third wave against the oil tanks, maintenance facilities and dry docks at Pearl Harbor, a decision which was later heavily criticized. Nagumo died by his own hand on Saipan in 1944.

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto was not present during the Pearl Harbor attack but is widely considered to have been the principal architect of it. His idea was to deliver a crushing blow to the U.S. Navy, then be in a position to negotiate a peace favorable to the Japanese, but the plan fell apart when the Japanese representatives in Washington were late delivering the note of the intention of the Japanese to attack, thus turning the Japanese attack into a "sneak" attack which strengthened American resolve. Also, the American aircraft carriers were not in port that Sunday morning (in fact they were out scouting for the Japanese, but in the wrong direction) and so were undamaged, a fact which became decisive six months later at the Battle of Midway. Yamamoto was killed in 1943 when his aircraft was jumped by the Americans who were, unbeknownst to the Japanese, reading the Japanese codes and knew where to find Yamamoto's plane on its way from Rabaul on an inspection tour to boost Japanese morale.

Answer 2

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, several key players faced different consequences. Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, the commander of the Pacific Fleet, was relieved of his command and demoted. General Walter Short, the commander of the U.S. Army in Hawaii, also faced a demotion. Both faced criticism for not adequately preparing for the attack. Additionally, a number of intelligence officials faced reassignments or dismissals for failing to anticipate the attack.