It was early morning on Dec 7, 1941, and the Japanese planes were heading to Pearl Harbor, on the Island of Hawaii, to destroy the American Pacific fleet..

A experimental radar station had been set up at Oahu’s northernmost tip and it showed a sudden "shower of blips". It indicated a large flight of aircraft some 132 miles to the north. The two viewers phoned their watch officer, Lieutenant Kermit A. Tyler, and were told "Don’t worry about it". Tyler knew that a flight of B-17s was due in from the West Coast, and did not have much confidence in the new technology of radar. The Japanese planes came into view as they flew over the island, and the inhabitants of the island thought that they must be American planes on early morning maneuvers. Perhaps the first warning that all was not well was when Rear Admiral William R. Furlong, who was on his flagship, the minelayer Oglala, noticed that there was a red ball under the wings of the airplanes. But at this point, it was too late. America was about to suffer what Congress later called "the greatest military and naval disaster in our nation’s history".

Why did it happen? In 1944 the Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, appointed a lawyer named Henry Clausen to find out. Henry Clausen found that that the U.S. had priceless intelligence that should have prevented Pearl Harbor. In his book, "Pearl Harbor Final Judgement" (with Bruce Lee, Crown publishers, 1992) he analyzes what went wrong. Part of the problem was a huge systemic failure in the organization of the Navy and Army. Intelligence information and its correct interpretation did not reach the right people, and when it did, some were derelict in their duty to communicate it to others.

The possibility of a hostile Japan was not even a secret to the public. As Clausen points out, "If (the outpost commander) did not know that the relations between Japan and the United States were strained and might be broken at any time, he must have been the only man in Hawaii who did not know it, for the radio and newspapers were blazoning these facts daily."

There was no doubt that some important government officials foresaw the danger. On Jan 24, 1941, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox wrote a letter to Secretary of War Henry Stimson saying that "If war eventuates with Japan, it is believed easily possible that hostilities would be initiated by a surprise attack upon the fleet or the naval base at Pearl Harbor..."

On November 27, 1941, both the Navy and the Army sent special warnings of war to their respective commanders at Pearl Harbor. The dispatch sent to the Naval commander, Husband Kimmel began with the fateful words "This dispatch is to be considered a war warning..." The dispatch to the Army commander at Hawaii, Lt Gen Walter C Short, warned that hostile action by the Japanese was possible "at any moment", and that "prior to hostile Japanese action he was to undertake reconnaissance and other measures. ‘Reconnaisance’ implied use of the radar with which the Hawaiian Department had been provided, and which could detect approaching planes from a distance of 100 miles.

To interpret the radar required both army and navy personnel to be present who could tell which planes belonged to either the army or navy, and which were intruders. These personnel were not made available.

On Dec 3, Washington knew from reading decrypted Japanese messages that Japanese diplomats in Washington had been instructed to burn all their codes and destroy their code machines. Clausen explains, "When a nation prepares to go to war, one of the most indispensable steps it takes is to make sure that its codes and code machines cannot be captured by the enemy should the enemy retaliate and raid an embassy for intelligence reasons" Washington knew from reading these messages that war would have to break out, with Japan attacking somewhere in the Pacific. Therefore, on Dec 3, The Navy in Washington informed Kimmel, of the Japanese order.

Clausen says, "If there was one mitigating factor in favor of Kimmel and Short, it was that, while they might have been sentries, it wan’t during a time of war that they failed in their duties, but in a time of peace. One might call it the result of the Pearl Harbor syndrome." He quotes a novel Under Siege by Stephen Coonts. Coonts’s hero. Jake Grafton, explains why governments are caught with their pants down. "They weren’t unprepared," Grafton says. "They just weren’t ready, if you understand the difference. It’s almost impossible for people who have known only peace to lift themselves to that level of mental readiness necessary to immediately and effectively counter a determined attack... We refuse to believe."