On Sunday, December 7, 1941, Japanese naval and air forces attacked the United States Pacific Fleet and nearby army installations in and around Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The Japanese attack killed over 2,400 people, sank four battleships, damaged ten other warships and destroyed almost 200 warplanes.

Two days after the Japanese attack, the first formal inquiry into the disaster began when Navy Secretary Frank Knox flew to Hawaii to see the damage firsthand. While noting that neither the army nor the navy had adequately prepared for a carrier-borne assault, Knox credited the disaster to superior Japanese planning rather than negligence on the part of American commanders. A second committee, chaired by Supreme Court Justice Owen Roberts, blamed Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, Commander of the Pacific Fleet, and General Walter C. Short, Commander of the Hawaiian Department, when it issued its findings in January 1942. While exonerating senior leaders, including Secretary...