US Marine Corps - The Black Vault

Pianning for War, 1940–1941 189
the recommendation of the Director of Naval Intelligence to the Chief of
Naval Operations in this regard.
It can be said quite objectively that Admiral Stark did not receive the best
of advice (that is advice so strongly and cogently expressed that he, follow-
ing the advice, did in fact alert Admiral Kimmel ) from either of these two
major intelligence evaluating subordinates in the immediate hours prior to
the Pearl Harbor Attack.
Rear Admiral Wilkinson, right up until 7 December 1941, did not think
the Japanese would attack any United States Territory. On 6 December 1941
he had informed Turner that Turner was “mistaken in the belief that Japan
would attack a United States objective. ” 74
QUESTION: Did you ever talk to Admiral Turner as to whether or
not he thought of an attack upon Hawaii?
WILKINSON: No, sir.
QUESTION: But at least you had no thought of an attack upon
Hawaii ?
WILKINSON: No, sir.
QUESTION: And that continued on until after the attack?
WILKINSON: Yes, sir.
Rear Admiral Turner thought the chances of a raid in Hawaii were about
50-50, but no specific mention of this belief appeared in the final version of
any despatch which he drafted for the CNO to send to CINCPAC, although
it has been asserted such a warning was in one of the preliminary drafts.”
And when Admiral Stark, on three different occasions, sought assurances
that CINCPAC did in fact have decryption facilities, and the dispatches
availabIe to him so he could read the Japanese diplomatic traffic, Rear
Admiral Turner brought back the wrong information from the Director of
Naval Communications. This was either through poorly phrased inquiries
to Rear Admiral Noyes, since Noyes stated that he thought Turner was
talking about traffic analysis (called radio intelligence), or through ignorance
of Noyes in regard to what the decryption capabilities were at Pearl Harbor.
The latter has been generally suspected, since (1) the Pearl Harbor Naval
Radio Station routinely did not even copy Japanese diplomatic traflic, because
there was no decoding machine in Pearl Harbor essential to change the coded
Japanese diplomatic message into Japanese language, even if it was copied,
and (2) because Rear Admiral Noyes’s testimony showed ignorance of
“ Pearl Harbor Hearings, part 4, PP. 1776, 1869, 1984.
7’Hoehling, The Week, p. >5.