The Evening Star (December 7, 1945)
Kimmel, aide studied possible Jap attack day before it came
PEARL HARBOR (AP) – The day before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Adm. Husband E. Kimmel and his war plans officer discussed the imminence of war with Japan and planned immediate offensive operations if war came, the latter disclosed today.
Adm. Kimmel’s war plans officer was Vice Adm. Charles H. McMorris, then a captain, who now is chief of staff and aide to Adm. Raymond Spruance, commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet.
“I did not expect an air attack on Pearl Harbor,” Adm. McMorris said in an interview on the fourth anniversary of the Japanese raid. “But I did expect sabotage, submarine raids and possibly other forms of attack in this area.
Expected attack
“I thought it could start any day. I fully expected it and believed in the end we would win.”
The 59-year-old naval veteran, who was Adm. Nimitz’s chief of staff after participating in some of the South Pacific’s hottest surface engagements and who was awarded the Navy Cross and two Distinguished Service Medals for his work in the war, said that when the Japanese raiders came, he rushed to his office and did not leave it for several days.
“Except for the first few days of war following initial heavy losses, the confidence of the Navy in achieving victory was never seriously shaken,” he said.
Adm. McMorris declared that for many years Pearl Harbor and Guam will be the United States’ best Pacific bastions.
He said he would leave Pearl Harbor in a few days for the mainland and that he probably would be called to Washington to testify in the Pearl Harbor inquiry sometime after the first of the year.
Hulks rusting in harbor
Virtually the only reminders today of the disaster that struck Pearl Harbor were the rusting, barnacled sections of unsalvaged ships in the harbor, and the rows of crosses gleaming white against the green hillside rising above the placid waters of the harbor.
Navy men and islanders went about their business as usual, with only simple ceremonies to mark the historic date. In Honolulu, shirt-sleeved Christmas shoppers continued to crowd streets gay with colored lights, tinsel and pictures of Saint Nick.
But those who died when war first exploded in the Pacific were not forgotten. Requiem mass was scheduled at 9:30 a.m. At Pearl Harbor’s Bloch Arena. Scores of servicemen and civilians also were expected to gather in Halawa Naval Cemetery for Jewish, Catholic and Protestant services, and to hear a commemorative speech by Rear Adm. E. W. Hanson, naval base commandant.
G.I.’s shout to get home
The only strident voices raised on this fourth anniversary of Pearl Harbor were the voices of peace – the voices of weary, lonely G.I.’s and sailors, shouting: “Get us home! Get us home!”
Adm. Spruance said yesterday that the Japanese failed to wipe out the United States’ first line of defense in the Pacific in their attack on Pearl Harbor because they did not “fully appreciate” sea power as an offensive weapon.
Since sea power was America’s first line of defense, the Japanese might have won a quick and decisive victory had that line been smashed, the admiral said.