Intelligence Failure of Pearl Harbor
And I Was There by Edwin T. Layton
The author of this book, Edwin T. Layton, was a Fleet Intelligence Officer. Along with others, he was tasked with breaking into the secret codes used by Japan. Finally, they were able to get through and have an idea of what the Japanese Navy was generally planning to do. However, Pearl Harbor had no decoding machine of the type that was needed and therefore intercepted information had to be sent elsewhere, decoded, and sent back. The main thesis in Layton's book is that Pearl Harbor was denied important intelligence. If it had been received in a timely manner, the attack that took place on December 7, 1941 could have been avoided. Whether or not this is completely accurate, however, remains a topic of debate. There were other alleged errors made at Pearl Harbor as well, and because of those errors it is very difficult to say with certainty whether Layton is 100% correct or whether the lack of intelligence information only contributed to what happened at Pearl Harbor on that fateful day. It was an unfortunate and tragic event in the history of the United States, regardless of the reasons that it took place.
The book itself was very interesting, but Layton makes both commanders that he served under - Kimmel and Short - out to be scapegoats that had absolutely no idea of what was happening. While they were denied the benefits of some important pieces of intelligence information, it does seem plausible that they could have figured some of this out on their own. The book makes strong counter-arguments to other works on Pearl Harbor, however, and there are many areas of the book that are particularly well done, such as the description and story of the activities that were used for code-breaking, and the information regarding the Battle of Midway. All in all, Layton's book is a fascinating look into Pearl Harbor, war, and the sacrifices that so many people make for their countries.
Pearl Harbor as an Intelligence Failure Several writers and intellectuals express that the shock the Japanese got in their attack on Pearl Harbor was a result from a failure of the United States intelligence community that were unsuccessful to give sufficient, correct information to government as well as to the military decision-makers. As presumed by these historians the intelligence community contained very important information that was misconstrue or in other words
CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS The Cuban Missile Crisis (CMC) presented a different type of military intelligence than Pearl Harbor did. In the case of CMC, military intelligence provided tremendous amounts of valuable and incontrovertible evidence. However, that information has to be viewed in the larger context of the times to understand why the United States government viewed the situation as seriously as they did. The United States had been actively but covertly working
The report mentions that almost 3-4% of the keys could not be resolved. Thereby, it can be argued here that great advantages were gained when Americans decoded Japanese conversation 2. Radio Traffic Unit There is a naval intelligence installed at the Pearl Harbor was using the radio traffic unit and it was working to find out and analyze the location of Japanese ships. In this case, the Japanese messages could not
Though Kimmel himself states that there had been submarine activity around the Islands, there were no actions taken against them as he was waiting for approval from Department of Navy, in the ten days preceding the attack to act decisively. "For some time there had been reports of submarines in the operating areas around Hawaii.... The files of the Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet, contain records of at least three
However, this is not to discount the fact that there were many human and bureaucratic errors that resulted in the American lack of preparedness, many of which seem quite surprising in light of the fact that the Americans were able to decipher Japanese codes and the Japanese engaged in such militant anti-American rhetoric and military shows of force (170). According to Wohlstetter, because the signals came from such diverse sources
Short to military dances. The book is riddled with anecdotes such as these that indicate the military was ill prepared for a surprise attack, and in fact were arrogant in their ignorance. In fact, Clausen's investigation showed the American military knew Japanese codes but ignored them in seeking intelligence; the agencies were unprepared for war or a surprise attack. As the author notes, "Although vested with high commands and responsibilities,
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