No. of Recommendations: 10
A quibble, dope.
Marshall’s purge of Kimmel and Short occurred AFTER Ww2 began, and it was performance based. Whether it was for “failure to perform” or simply a matter of “someone had to take the rap”, Kimmel was the admiral whose navy left the Pacific fleet’s battleships parked stem to stern on Battleship Row, Pearl Harbor, and Short was the general whose army left its air assets parked in rows at Hickham on the morning of December 7th.
For missing the signs that pointed to an imminent attack by the Empire of Japan, signs that everyone seemed to have missed, Kimmel and Short were forced to walk the plank, because they were the ones in charge when disaster struck.
Interestingly (at least to me) MacArthur did worse, if you can believe it. That’s because he had the knowledge that the Japanese had already attacked Pearl Harbor, yet when it came to protecting his own forces, he did nothing . He had ten hours to get his planes arranged randomly, yet they were lined up in tidy rows when the Japanese came zooming in overhead. He had 10 hours notice to get his troops ready to repel an attack, yet they weren’t and didn’t. He hesitated, and after being told to evacuate to Australia, made the famous “I shall return” speech.
I don’t understand how he survived, he was terrible, not the least including his disobeying orders later in Korea (which finally brought about his downfall.) Yes, he had some brilliant moments (Inchon!) but mostly, meh.
