Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy - Ludwig von Mises ...

Joint Congressional Committee, Pearl Harbor Attack: Part 2 723
that if the planes had been warmed up and ready to go that, considering
what you did with the 14 planes . . . the damage would
have been minimized considerably?”
Short: No question about that. I think our pilots showed that
they were superior to the Japanese pilots in individual combat
that day. 151
When Navy Secretary Knox visited Pearl Harbor immediately
after the attack, Short said,
He went completely through my fi eld headquarters and spent,
I would say, probably 2 hours, in which we had offi cers detailed
from every section to explain everything that had happened.
He got a very complete picture not only of our headquarters but
how we were functioning and exactly what happened, and at the
end of the time he was so impressed with our headquarters that
he directed the Navy to make arrangements to move over into
an underground headquarters right alongside of us. 152
Representative Keefe said to Short, summarizing:
[A]s commander at Pearl Harbor prior to December 7, 1941,
and subsequent to your appointment to that important position,
you did everything within your power to provide the
physical things necessary to provide for the defense of the
Hawaiian Islands.
Yet, Keefe said, Short had testifi ed “as to many items of physical
property, such as guns, installations, radar equipment, air strips,
buildings, and so on,” that he had not received “but a small part of
the material that you had requested prior to December 7, 1941.”
But according to Marshall’s testimony,
151Ibid., pp. 3068, 3069–70.
152Ibid., p. 3165.