Word: commandants
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Congressmen who favor unifying the Army and Navy under a single command suddenly found themselves with all the ammunition they needed...
Walter Short arrived in Hawaii in February to take command. The nation's outpost was woefully deficient. Hawaii needed aircraft, artillery, searchlights, roads, bombproofing, engineer troops, more airfields for dispersion of planes, aircraft warning systems...
Tidy Attitude. One of the weirdest chapters in the report deals with the state of Hawaii's Coast Artillery Command. There were three regiments under Major General Henry T. Burgin. But their activities were limited 1) by "important and influential civilians on the island" who objected to artillery using their land for gun positions, and 2) by Ordnance's reluctance to let them have any ammunition...
Another reason was service red tape. Another was the complex Navy command setup in which Kimmel held two positions, Rear Admiral Claude C. Bloch held four (including command of the 14th Naval District), and a many-hatted Rear Admiral P. N. L. Bellinger held six. "Under such circumstances," said the Board, "The Army had a difficult time in determining under which of the three shells (Kimmel, Bloch or Bellinger) rested the pea of performance and responsibility...
Inherent Weaknesses. There was a "Joint Hawaiian Coastal Frontier Defense Plan" and an "Air Agreement" by which Army & Navy would divide responsibilities, come the attack. "The inherent weakness . . . was the fact of their [the plans] not being operative in time to meet the attack. . . . Unity of command in Washington would have been a condition precedent to unity of command in Hawaii...