Deceit At Pearl Harbor
From Pearl Harbor To Midway
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
PREFACE "Air Raid Pearl Harbor . . .This is No Drill"
Over fifty years have passed, and much of the truth about Pearl Harbor has been covered up. The passage of time and the political correctness of keeping the blame pinned on Admiral Kimmel and General Short makes it all the more important that this narrative be published. I am sure that I am probably the only living survivor of Adm. Kimmel’s staff as it existed on Dec. 7, 1941 and probably the last Commanding Officer of the USS Isabel which became the "Tethered Goat" that very nearly ignited World War II.
It is now well known that FDR attempted to justify Americas entry into WW II by accepting the first blow. Sending out the Isabel plus two small schooners as "Pickets" meant they would no doubt be sunk by the Japanese. The United States Press would publish screaming headlines," U.S. Warships sunk by Japanese". The hue and cry would be "Remember the Isabel" and WWII would be in full bloom. Draft boards would be swamped with volunteers. All this could have happened.. .but didn’t. Pearl Harbor ended all that and Roosevelt’s madcap scheme faded into obscurity.
To this day, no one has been able to explain FDR’s elaborate effort to create the impression that he was unaware of the impending attack on Pearl Harbor. The "Tethered Goat" fiasco could very well have been a cover up plan to obfuscate the fact that FDR knew all about the disaster that was about engulf the sacrificial crews at Pearl Harbor.
The Freedom of Information Act made it possible to release the Top Secret message that was kept from public view. The fact that this suicide mission would doom 75 men and 6 officers seemed to matter little to FDR
Since the Freedom of Information Act, there has been an avalanche of unpublished facts revealing that Washington (FDR) the British, the Dutch, and even the Russians had detailed knowledge of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The fact that all this intelligence was relayed to Washington is particularly damning because it was ignored.
Gen. George Marshall, who was FDR’s closest advisor was particularly responsible. When it became clear to many that on Dec. 6th that the attack on Pearl Harbor was imminent, he made himself unavailable by horseback riding the morning of Dec. 7th. After several hours of delay, he finally sent the final warning to Pearl Harbor, but did not code "urgent".
This was sent by RCA telegram instead of by direct phone, thereby placing it on the same priority as all the "Happy Birthdays" sent to Honolulu that day.
By omitting the "urgent" designation this message was effectively "pigeon holed" for hours. I believe it was seven hours too late when the Japanese boy on a motorcycle delivered the warning. Adm. Kimmel threw it in a wastebasket in frustration.
All these delays made it sure that the warning would be too late. The much publicized "war warning" that Washington sent to CINCPAC on Nov. 27th was extremely misleading. That warning detailed the expected attack to be the Philippines, Kra Peninsula, or Borneo. Nothing was said about Pearl Harbor which was about 5,000 miles away. Some Warning!
And then we come to "Magic". The Purple Machine was busily decoding Japanese messages for over a year before Pearl Harbor. This extremely vital information should have been a godsend to Adm. Kimmel and Gen. Short. The only trouble was that Washington decided to send the Purple Machine to Churchill (2 in fact) , MacArthur in the Philippines, but incredibly, left out Adm. Kimmel.
The other code used by Japan was JN-25 (Japanese Navy) and detailed Naval plans and operations. This too was successfully decoded, but never sent to Adm. Kimmel.
Little has been said about the Dutch and their intelligence capabilities, but they could have been important factor. A little known Dutch outpost in Malaysia, succeeded in cracking the JN-25 code and discovered an attack on Pearl Harbor could come in a few days. This was relayed to an American Colonel Thorpe who rushed the information to Washington, and was again duly ignored.
The British too, had their top spy uncover the details of a Jap attack on Pearl Harbor. When relayed to the FBI they stated the plans looked too detailed, and smelled a trap. Once again.., a warning was ignored.
Three separate aides, Harrison, McCollum and Deane, later testified that Marshall, in fact never did go horseback riding, and perjured himself in a later investigation.
Marshall, in spite of his aides urgent request that he immediately warn Pearl Harbor, made strange delays in reading and re-reading the recently decoded fourteen part "Winds Execute Message" that indicated an imminent attack on Pearl Harbor.
This message was never received in time for it to be of any use to Kimmel, but reached other addressees like the Philippines and Canal Zone in a timely manner.
Obviously, Marshall never sent his warning, watered down as it was, until he was satisfied it was too late.
Marshall, who later testified that he considered loyalty to his Commander in Chief to take priority over his patriotic duty, was obviously as guilty as Roosevelt in the whole cover-up and was a willing co-conspirator.
Author Mark Willey, in his recent book "Pearl Harbor, Mother of All Conspiracies," quotes President Roosevelt provoked the attack, knew about it in advance, and covered up his failure to warn the Hawaiian Commanders.
• FDR denied intelligence to Hawaii
• On November 27, misled the commanders into thinking negotiations were continuing
• Had false information sent to Pearl Harbor about the location of the Japanese carrier fleet.
Many historians have observed that it would be almost impossible to orchestrate a cover-up without the cooperation of many other high ranking officers who were involved. The loyalty of George Catlett Marshall to FDR was never questioned.
The other high ranking officer that had to be entrusted with knowledge of impending attack was Lt. General Douglas MacArthur, a flamboyant publicity seeking Army General with an enormous ego.
MacArthur, who had a Purple Machine, knew that Pearl Harbor was headed for a surprise attack. Instead of warning Kimmel, MacArthur’s command sent a series of three messages lying about the locations of the Jap carrier fleet, saying it was in the South China Sea. This false information was the true reason CINCPAC was caught by surprise.
MacArthur, was given nine hours warning after Pearl Harbor and ordered to use his newly arrived fleet of B-17 bombers to attack Formosa. Upon news of Pearl Harbor he inexplicably locked himself in his quarters and refused to meet with his air commander. Consequently his entire air force was destroyed on the ground, and half the fleet of all heavy bombers in US fleet was lost. This has been called by historians as even more important than the damage at Pearl Harbor, and either the greatest blunder in military history, or he was under orders to allow the planes to be destroyed.
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About the Book
A vast array of books has been published about Pearl Harbor since World War II. This book is unique, since it was actually written by the last remaining member of Admiral Kimmel’s staff as existed on December 7, 1941, plus two other Pearl Harbor survivors; one a crew member of the early warning radar, and another a crew member of the USS Pennsylvania, Admiral Kimmel’s flagship. These three survivors of America’s worst military disaster provide an unusual eyewitness report on how this tragic event developed. Lt. Cmdr. Landis actually served on the USS Isabel, one of the "Tethered Goats" sent out by Roosevelt to intercept the Japanese fleet and be sunk, thereby igniting World War II. St. Sgt. Rex Gunn tells how his unit actually picked up the incoming air armada by RADAR and their warning was ignored. Chief Petty Officer Lawrence McNabb, serving on the USS Pennsylvania gives a remarkable, historical background study on how Roosevelt, Churchill, and even Hitler knew of the planned raid on Pearl Harbor, long before it happened. The events leading up to America’s victory at Midway, and how this ambush was orchestrated is revealed as a major intelligence breakthrough in code breaking and interpretation of radio transmission by the Japanese fleet. Perhaps the most astonishing revelation in this book is the transcript of the telephone conversation between Churchill and Roosevelt, eleven days before Pearl Harbor. Roosevelt ignored the warning from Churchill that a large Japanese Task Force was on its way to Pearl Harbor, and thus denied thousands of men to make immediate preparations to defend themselves. This book shows how an American government betrayed their Armed Forces in order to accept the first blow and rally public opinion to allow the United States’ entry into World War II. The immediate outcry was "Remember Pearl Harbor" and America prepared itself for its largest and costliest World War. Much of the contents of the book will shock its readers as the little publicized events are revealed, some for the first time.
About the Author
Ken Landis
Kenneth Landis was born in 1918 in Chicago, Illinois. He attended Evanston Township High School and then went on to college at Northwestern University.
Landis graduated from Northwestern University receiving a Bachelors Degree in Industrial Engineering in 1940, also receiving a commission in the U.S. Navy as Ensign in the Naval Reserve.
At that time war was imminent and Landis shortly received orders to report to the USS Sculpin, a submarine based in Pearl Harbor.
After many months aboard the USS Sculpin, Landis received orders to report to CINCPAC at the Sub Base, Pearl Harbor on Admiral Kimmel’s staff. This turned out to be indeed lucky for Landis as the USS Sculpin was later sunk with all hands lost.
Landis was later transferred to the USS Isabel in West Australia and took command of that ship in 1943. The Isabel was a historic ship that seemed to bear a charmed life in two World Wars.
In 1944 Landis was ordered to the DE 750 the USS McClelland as Executive Officer and saw extensive duty in Admiral Halsey’s Third Fleet at Iwo Jima and Okinawa; winding up the war at Tokyo Bay in 1945; after somehow surviving the waves of kamikaze attacks at Okinawa. Seeing the war from start to finish from Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay is remarkable and rare. Few can match this coincidence and actually live to tell the tale.
After discharge in San Diego in 1946 Landis moved to Santa Monica, California where he owned and operated the Beverly Stationers in Beverly Hills, California.
After selling the business Landis was employed as a Systems Engineer for Diebold, and later left to own and operate Hamilton Security, Inc. a bank security company.
Landis retired in 1989 living with his wife, Roslynn, in La Quinta, California. He has two children, son Robert Lawrence, a Purple Heart Vietnam Veteran and reserve Warrant Officer in the US Army, and his daughter Marilynn Kerschner, a graduate of Moorpark College.
Lt. Cmdr. Landis, USNR, (ret.) remains active in The Pearl Harbor Survivors Association in Palm Springs, California where he is Vice President of Chapter 21. He was present in Honolulu on the fiftieth anniversary of Pearl Harbor along with his family.
Rex Gunn
Rex Gunn was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, on September 28, 1920, the youngest of three boys His father, Leo Gunn, died when Rex was six.
When he was seventeen, he went on his own to Shreveport, La., where he was graduated from Fair Park High School in 1940. His brother, Hamilton Gunn, had enlisted in the 7th Army Air Corps (At the time called the Hawaiian Air Department) at Hickam Field. Rex joined his brother on Oahu as a member of the Signal Corps, Aircraft Warning Company, Special...first radar outfit in the Pacific. The Japanese attack on December 7, 1941, caught the two brothers about three miles apart: Ham at Hickam Information Center at Fort Shafter. Neither of them was hurt.
Rex was appointed a GI war correspondent for the 7th Army Air Corps picture magazine, Brief, in the autumn of 1943. With Brief, he covered the Tarawa and Abemama Eniwetok; and the Marianas Islands campaigns at Saipan, Tinian and Guam. In the 7th Army Air Corp bombers, he flew over Iwo Jima and Truk, and many other enemy-held islands in the Central Pacific.
After the war, he attended the University of Oregon at Eugene, got a B.A. degree and went to work at the Associated Press in San Francisco on January 1, 1949. Later he earned his master’s degree at Stanford University and his doctorate at USC.
In 1949, he received a direct commission as a LtJG in the US Navy Reserve and was placed on the retired list in 1965.
During a 26-year academic career, he taught and worked as an administrator at Stanford, UCLA, San Bernardino Valley College, and the University of California at Davis in 1995, he returned to live in Hawaii with his Hawaiian sweetheart of World War II days on Kauai. He lived in Hawaii until his death in 1999.