The First of the First AND Kimmel Relieved of Command

Every year on this day we cover an aviation first of the first in an attempt to keep the memory alive amongst we aviation enthusiasts, so please forgive the repeated “on this day in aviation history”…on this day and on every December 17^th:  Today on December 17, 1903, according to History.com: “Near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first successful flight in history of a self-propelled, heavier-than-air aircraft. Orville piloted the gasoline-powered, propeller-driven biplane, which stayed aloft for 12 seconds and covered 120 feet on its inaugural flight.” 

Interestingly, on the day just ten days short of 38 years later, that same invention…that flying machine…was used with great success and precision and caused what seemed at the time as irreparable damage (from the Japanese perspective—and as it turned out from a tactical perspective but not a strategic one) to the US Pacific Fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor.

Knowledge dissipates.  Reaction and passion over news events wains.  What was astonishing and deeply angering news in 1941 becomes just interesting news in 1991 and a tidbit of history by 2041.  In 20 years, some of us will hopefully still be alive.  Will Pearl Harbor “harbor” the same emotion when everyone who was there or had parents alive at that time are gone?  Not likely.  A writer to the Carteret News Times in Morehead City, NC lamented this natural cycle of life’s events that end up with many of these events, perhaps all of them to a degree, being swept up in what was coined as the “dustbin of history”.  December 7, 1941—Pearl Harbor—is not an exception.

But it was more than lives, military equipment and capability, and the start of the most destructive war (at least from the American perspective) in the history of humankind that resulted from Pearl Harbor.  Military careers (actually a very small thing in the big scheme of things) were lost over Pearl Harbor too.

Today in 1941, a mere ten days after “Infamy Day”, Rear Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, USN was relieved for cause of his command of the U.S. Pacific Fleet as part of a shake-up of officers in the wake of the Pearl Harbor disaster

A Dec 7, 1941 Japanese war photo shows torpedo bombers and a plume of water erupt as a torpedo strikes the USS West Virginia, anchored in Battleship Row next to Ford Island.  Courtesy of rarehistoricalphotos.com.

According to History.com, “Admiral Kimmel had enjoyed a successful military career, beginning in 1915 as an aide to the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He served admirably on battleships in World War I, winning command of several in the interwar period. At the outbreak of World War II, Kimmel had already attained the rank of rear admiral and was commanding the cruiser forces at Pearl Harbor. In January 1941, he was promoted to commander of the Pacific Fleet, replacing James Richardson, who FDR relieved of duty after Richardson objected to basing the fleet at Pearl Harbor.

“If Kimmel had a weakness, it was that he was a creature of habit, of routine. He knew only what had been done before, and lacked imagination—and therefore insight—regarding the unprecedented. So, even as word was out that Japan was likely to make a first strike against the United States as the negotiations in Washington floundered, Kimmel took no extraordinary actions at Pearl Harbor. In fact, he believed that a sneak attack was more likely at Wake Island or Midway Island, and requested from Lieutenant General Walter Short, Commander of the Army at Pearl Harbor, extra antiaircraft artillery for support there (none could be spared).

“Kimmel’s predictability was extremely easy to read by Japanese military observers and made his fleet highly vulnerable. As a result, Kimmel was held accountable, to a certain degree, for the absolute devastation wrought on December 7. Although he had no more reason than anyone else to believe Pearl Harbor was a possible Japanese target, a scapegoat had to be found to appease public outrage.

“He avoided a probable court-martial when he requested early retirement. When Admiral Kimmel’s story, an “as told to” autobiography, was published in 1955, Kimmel made it plain that he believed FDR sacrificed him—and his career—to take suspicion off himself; Kimmel believed Roosevelt knew Pearl Harbor was going to be bombed, although no evidence has ever been adduced to support his allegation.”

And by the way, talk about a footnote in history!  Did you know there was a second attack on Hawaii by Japan just three months after the fateful day of December 7, 1941?  A long-range Japanese Flying Boat, the H8K1 and 2, reconfigured as a bomber (they would land at sea and refuel and rearm by submarine) attempted to attack Honolulu.  According to former USAF historian and curator Frederick A. Johnson from his column “Of Wings and Things” in the September 7, 2023 edition of the aviation periodical General Aviation News, “Underwing carriage of torpedoes, bombs or depth charges made the H8K1 and H8K2 lethal sub and shipping hunters.  But their debut as land bombers, the night of March 4, 1942, proved inauspicious when cloud cover obscured the prized target of Honolulu.  The largely unheralded second attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor was a bust.”

Photo courtesy of the General Aviation News

Photo courtesy of the General Aviation News

Organizations like the Moore County Airport Team and its web managers and many other organizations, museums, and foundations attempt to help keep important historical events from being buried as footnotes or swept up in the “dustbin of history”.  Pearl Harbor (and its aftermath) and the First Flight by Orville and Wilbur Wright are two important events we’ll continue to try to keep alive in our collective, national memory, even if in some ways it’s sadly a losing battle.