Pearl Harbor: Final Judgment

• Author: Lieutenant Colonel John J. Siemietkowski
• Pages: 07

220 MILITARY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 179 PEARL HARBOR: FINAL JUDGMENT1

REVIEWED BY LIEUTENANT COLONEL JOHN J. SIEMIETKOWSKI2

You are directed to give Major Clausen access to all records, documents and information in your possession or under your control, and to afford him the fullest possible cooperation and assistance.3

1. Introduction

   With these words, Secretary of War Henry Stimson created a fascinating, yet largely unknown, place in history for an Army judge advocate during World War II. In Pearl Harbor: Final Judgment, Henry Clausen recounts his wild ride from civilian practice in San Francisco to conducting the War Department's investigation into the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Although not widely reviewed in the several years since its publication,4 this book is a must-read for any judge advocate, or for that matter, anyone interested in World War II history. Despite some shortcomings in the book, it has great historic value, reads like a great legal novel, and contains several important lessons in military leadership. This review analyzes Pearl Harbor as a historical text and legal novel, discusses the book's shortcomings, and concludes with valuable lessons from Clausen's work that are helpful to today's leaders.

2. A Historical Text

   Pearl Harbor is foremost a history book. Clausen provides detailed chronologies of the communication failures leading up to the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and his own involvement in conducting the War Department's investigation of those failures.

   In his foreword, Clausen poses several questions that he sets out to answer in his book. He emphasizes, however, that "what occurred during the attack on Pearl Harbor is not as important as why it happened."5 Readers looking for a chronology of events during the attack will instead find a chronology of communication failures that led

   to the attack. For example, Clausen discusses a 24 January 1941 letter from Secretary of War Henry Stimson to Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox (with copies to the Army and Navy commanders in Hawaii), which warned, "'[I]t is believed easily possible that hostilities would be initiated by a surprise attack upon the fleet or the naval base at Pearl Harbor . . . . The dangers envisaged, in their order of importance and probability, are . . . 1) air bombing attack; 2) air torpedo-plane attack . . . . '"6 Clausen also discusses and even reproduces two cables from Washington to Hawaii, dated 27 November 1941, that emphasized, "This dispatch is to be considered a war warning" and that "hostile action

   [is] possible at any moment."7 Sadly, according to Clausen, neither Admiral (Adm.) Husband E. Kimmel nor Lieutenant General (LTG) Walter C. Short, the Navy and Army commanders in Hawaii, sufficiently communicated these warnings to prepare their commands against attack.

   In fact, Clausen describes LTG Short's Hawaiian command as "a perpetual happy hour."8

   Readers will be equally appalled by Clausen's chronology of what happened in Washington late on the night of 6 December 1941. Here, Clausen describes how two Army officers received intercepted messages from Tokyo to its embassy in Washington discussing Japan's imminent severing of diplomatic relations with the United States.9 Despite reading the last part of the intercepted messages around midnight or 0100―directing their diplomats in Washington to sever relations with the United States on the afternoon of 7 December―the officer responsible for delivery of these intercepts to the senior military leadership went to bed instead of delivering them.10

   Along with chronicling the communication failures leading up to the Pearl Harbor attack, Clausen also provides a captivating narrative of his whirlwind military career, culminating in his testimony before Congress regarding the findings of his Pearl Harbor investigation.

   Soon after hearing the news about the attack on Pearl Harbor while working in his San Francisco law office, Clausen decided to write all three of the existing military services to offer them his legal services.11 He was thirty-six years old and had four small children. Clausen's descriptions of his early JAG experiences provide a small but fascinating window into JAG life at the beginning of World War II. Clausen describes taking a week-long train ride to Washington, reporting for duty, and promptly shaking the Judge Advocate General's (TJAG) hand rather than saluting him. The Judge Advocate General interviewed Clausen...