Congress May Get to Heal Long-Felt WWII Wounds

WASHINGTON — Almost six decades after the bombing of Pearl Harbor that propelled America into World War II, Congress is poised to recommend the posthumous promotions of the commanding officers who shouldered the official blame for the attack’s success.

The move is part of a strong push underway on Capitol Hill to reward the sacrifices of the World War II generation and right some perceived wrongs. These efforts are spurred in part by the dwindling number of the era’s veterans--of 16 million who served, fewer than 6 million remain alive.

Awaiting action as lawmakers reconvene this week after their summer recess are more than a dozen war-related measures. They range from paying $20,000 to each veteran forced into slave labor by the Japanese after the fall of Bataan and Corregidor to creating a Rosie the Riveter historic park honoring efforts on the home front.

The Pearl Harbor bill would clear the commanders of culpability for failing to have the naval base better prepared for the Japanese attack that brought the United States into the war.

It asserts that Adm. Husband E. Kimmel and Gen. Walter C. Short “were not provided necessary and critical intelligence that . . . would have alerted them to prepare for the attack.” The measure asks President Clinton to honor the commanders by restoring their highest wartime ranks--four stars for Kimmel and three stars for Short. Both officers retired with two stars.

The congressional recommendation has rekindled old passions and a decades-old controversy. “Government should not be in the business of rewriting history,” said Ronald H. Spector, a history professor at George Washington University who contends that Kimmel and Short bear some responsibility for what happened at Pearl Harbor.

But supporters say that Kimmel and Short are the only two eligible officers from World War II who were not allowed to retain their wartime ranks.

Officers’ Families Push for Bill’s Passage

The measure--contained in a large bill related to Defense Department activities--includes no financial benefit. But it long has been sought by supporters of Kimmel and Short, including the late admiral’s lone surviving son, Edward R. “Ned” Kimmel.

“I don’t think the Pearl Harbor disaster was brought about by any inaction or negligence . . . on the part of my father,” said Kimmel, 79, a retired Delaware attorney.

Sen. William V. Roth Jr. (R-Del.) narrowly won Senate approval last year for including the measure in the Defense Department bill. But it was dropped from the final legislation during negotiations with the House.

This year, the measure is considered virtually certain to pass once negotiators from both chambers meet in coming weeks to draw up the final bill.

“At last, we have an excellent opportunity to correct a serious wrong from World War II,” Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) said in supporting the measure in June. Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C) has called Kimmel and Short the “two final victims of Pearl Harbor.”

Kimmel and Short were relieved of command shortly after the Pearl Harbor attack. U.S. losses included more than 2,400 dead, 18 warships sunk or severely damaged and 188 aircraft destroyed.

In 1942, a presidential commission accused the commanders of “dereliction of duty” for failing to anticipate the attack. Subsequent investigations did not find any dereliction on their part but some of the inquiries declared that the two commanders made errors in judgment.

Both officers retired from the service in 1942. Short died in 1949. Kimmel fought to clear his name until his death in 1968.

“You couldn’t talk to him for five minutes before he’d get on the subject of Pearl Harbor,” said the younger Kimmel.

In 1995, Kimmel won Pentagon review of his father’s case. It concluded that responsibility for Pearl Harbor should not fall solely on the two commanders but “should be broadly shared.” But it did not provide for the advancement in rank sought by the families.

Kimmel and Short backers, including some historians and retired Navy officers, have contended that Washington-based officials made the commanders scapegoats to cover their own failure to anticipate the Japanese attack.

But Robert Love, a history professor at the U.S. Naval Academy, called the legislation “preposterous” and said that it has “nothing to do with serious history.” He added: “It’s a settled issue.”

Some historians say that Kimmel and Short should have ordered more reconnaissance flights that might have detected the Japanese. “The intelligence available to Adm. Kimmel and Gen. Short was sufficient to justify a higher level of vigilance than they chose to maintain,” according to the 1995 Pentagon report.

Spector, the George Washington University professor who is a former Navy director of naval history, said: “There is such a thing as command responsibility. On that basis, they were not treated unfairly.”

The raft of World War II legislation comes as a campaign to build a $100-million memorial in Washington and the commercial success of books such as Tom Brokaw’s “The Greatest Generation” and movies such as “Saving Private Ryan” have renewed public interest in the war and those who fought it.

“This is the last good war,” said Charles Moskos, a sociology professor at Northwestern University. “I don’t think there was a war in America that was as popularly supported, including the American Revolution.”

Also at work is sheer demographic reality. “There’s a recognition that World War II veterans are dying at the rate of over 1,000 a day,” said Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Other Congressional Measures Address Issue

Other measures Congress is considering would:

* Create a Rosie the Riveter-World War II Home Front National Historic Park at the former Richmond, Calif., shipyards. Named after the coverall-clad, muscle-flexing heroine depicted in wartime posters, the site would be the first in the National Park Service dedicated to telling the story of the World War II home front. “The Richmond shipyards produced more ships, faster and better than had ever been done,” says a Park Service study.

* Provide back pay for former World War II POWs approved for promotion during captivity. The measure was pushed by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) after he was contacted by retired Marine Col. Robert A. Bonadio of Carlsbad, Calif., who discovered the oversight.

* Require the U.S. government to open classified records regarding chemical and biological experiments carried out by Japan during the war. The measure is sponsored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who was contacted by scholars seeking to open the records. She said that she introduced the legislation to “help those who were victimized by these experiments. . . . If old wounds are to heal, there must be a full accounting of what happened.”

* Require the Justice Department to document civil rights abuses suffered by Italian Americans on the home front.

* Allot $4.2 million to build a visitors center at California’s Manzanar internment camp and preserve other camps used to hold Japanese Americans during the war.

Legislation also has been introduced to declare the date of the Pearl Harbor attack, Dec. 7, 1941, a national holiday, authorize a postage stamp to raise funds for the World War II memorial and call on the Japanese government to issue a “clear and unambiguous apology” for war crimes. Earlier in this congressional session, a resolution was passed that offered special recognition to veterans who fought in the Battle of the Bulge.

Despite support for much of the World War II-related legislation, not all of it has been embraced.

A $54-million proposal to provide $20,000 to the Bataan and Corregidor veterans or their surviving spouses has won Senate approval. But it is opposed by the Clinton administration, which says that it would “single out one group of veterans for special benefits when others who might have served in similar circumstances are not afforded such benefits.”

Also, a long-sought measure to give health care benefits to Filipino veterans who served with U.S. forces remains stalled in a House committee.

The measure, supported by more than 200 lawmakers from both parties, has been blocked by Rep. Bob Stump (R-Ariz.), a World War II veteran and influential chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee.

Stump has expressed concern about the cost, which Rep. Bob Filner (D-San Diego), the bill’s main sponsor, puts at $30 million to $35 million.

But Eric Lachica, executive director of the American Coalition for Filipino Veterans in Washington, said Friday that he is optimistic the measure will be included in an omnibus spending bill that will fund a variety of projects.

About 55,000 Filipino veterans are alive today, including 17,000 U.S. citizens living in the United States and 8,000 U.S. citizens living in the Philippines.