"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message
...

"William Wright" wrote in message
news:2LP2d.62556$MQ5.42514@attbi_s52...

"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message
...

"Tom Cervo" wrote in message
...
The Pearl Harbor debacle is often blamed on lack of resources caused
by
inadequate support from the politicians. Wrong. Short and Kimmel
had
both quantitative and qualitative superiority but were hopelessly
inept.


Actually, they were probably quite able. They were simply expecting
an
attack
in the Far East, and that PH might face sabotage or submarine attack
as
the
base for the response for that attack. That remark (from Frank Knox?)
about no,
they must mean the Phillippines, shows that it didn't stop with them.

Nope

Not a single Army AA unit was able to engage the first wave
of attackers and only 10% were able to engage the second wave.

Not only were the mobile guns not deployed the fixed
guns had no ready use ammunition as the quartermaster
thought it got too dirty in the field.

I believe they had just returned to depot after the war warning the week
earlier.


They never left the depot.

This is what I had remembered:

3. ANTIAIRCRAFT ARTILLERY AND COAST DEFENSES.--General Burgin commanded the
Coast Artillery Command consisting of seacoast artillery plus all
antiaircraft artillery in the Hawaiian Department. He commanded the 53rd
Coast Artillery Brigade composed of the 64th Regiment, 251st Regiment, and
the 98th Regiment.

He testified that the Interceptor Command was being organized on a temporary
basis saying:



We had constant training and maneuvers, practice, where that particular
thing was stressed, and the antiaircraft was turned over to interceptor
Command . . . For at least six weeks or two months prior to December 7, we
had, every Sunday morning, one of these exercises with the Navy. Our AA
would go out in the field and take their field positions. They would know
that the Navy was coming in, with carrier-based planes, and they would
simulate an attack on the island, and we put our guns out mainly along the
roadways, sometimes in position, and practiced simulating fire against this
simulated attack made by the Navy. And we were out just one week prior to
December 7 . . . On Sunday; but, by some stroke, we did not go out on
December 7. The fleet was in the harbor.


On the other hand:
The artillery ammunition situation is summed up by General Burgin as
follows:



[178] They were all ready to go into action immediately, with the exception
that the mobile batteries did not have the ammunition. The fixed batteries
along the seacoast, those batteries bolted down to concrete, had the
ammunition nearby. I had insisted on that with General Short in person and
had gotten his permission to take this antiaircraft ammunition, move it into
the seacoast gun battery positions, and have it nearby the antiaircraft
guns. It was, however, boxed up in wooden boxes and had to be taken out.
The ammunition for the mobile guns and batteries was in Aliamanu Crater,
which you may know or may not, is about a mile from Fort Shafter, up in the
old volcano. In addition to that, the mobile batteries had to move out from
the various posts to their field positions. They were not in field
positions. (R. 2604- 2605)



Keith