Husband Edward Kimmel (February 26, 1882 – May 14, 1968) was a United States Navy four-star admiral who was the commander in chief of the United States Pacific Fleet (CINCPACFLT) during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He was removed from that command after the attack, in December 1941, and was reverted to his permanent two-star rank of rear admiral due to no longer holding a four-star assignment. He retired from the Navy in early 1942. The U.S. Senate voted to change Kimmel's permanent rank to four stars in 1999, but President Clinton did not act on the resolution, and neither have any of his successors.
Husband Kimmel was born in Henderson, Kentucky, on February 26, 1882, to Sibella "Sibbie" Lambert Kimmel (1846–1919) and Major Manning Marius Kimmel (1832–1916), a graduate of West Point who fought with the Union side during the American Civil War before switching allegiance to the Confederate States Army to fight alongside his neighbors. Kimmel was a descendant of Herman Husband.
Kimmel was known by various nicknames throughout his life: "Kim" and "Hubbie", contractions of his given and family names, and later, "Mustafa", the last being a reference to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, due to the similar sounding (homophony) "Kimmel" and "Kemal".
He married Dorothy Kinkaid (1890–1975), sister of Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid, with whom he had three sons: Manning, Thomas K. Kimmel and Edward R. Kimmel.
Kimmel graduated in 1904 from the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. One of his classmates was future fleet admiral Willam Halsey. From 1906 to 1907 he served on several battleships in the Caribbean. In 1907 he was assigned to the USS Georgia during its participation in the around-the-world cruise of the Great White Fleet. Kimmel then served in the United States occupation of Veracruz, Mexico, during which he was wounded in April 1914.
In 1915 he was briefly appointed as an aide to Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt. During World War I, Kimmel served as a squadron gunnery officer in U.S. Battleship Division Nine which served as the Sixth Battle Squadron of the British Grand Fleet. After the war he served as Executive Officer aboard the battleship USS Arkansas, then in Washington, D.C., and the Philippines, as well as commanding two destroyer divisions before attaining the rank of captain in 1926 upon completion of the senior course at the Naval War College.
From 1926 to 1937 Kimmel held a number of positions in the Navy Department, as well as the command of a destroyer squadron and of the battleship USS New York.
In 1937 he was promoted to the flag rank of rear admiral. In this capacity he commanded Cruiser Division Seven on a diplomatic cruise to South America and in 1939 became Commander of Battle Force Cruisers.
After Admiral James O. Richardson was relieved of command in February 1941, in part for protesting that the Pacific Fleet if based in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, would be the logical first target in the event of war with Japan, Kimmel was appointed in his place as Commander in Chief, United States Fleet (CINCUS). Kimmel was also appointed Commander in Chief, United States Pacific Fleet (CINCPACFLT), a position reestablished on February 1, 1941, when General Order 143 was issued, and Kimmel assumed command with the temporary rank of admiral starting on that date. Kimmel earned a reputation as a hard worker who inspired subordinates, but some later criticized him for over-attention to detail, claiming it portrayed a lack of self-confidence. These critics asserted that Kimmel constantly revisited minute tasks he had done previously when he could have delegated the work to others.
On the other hand, Kimmel's fleet gunnery officer Willard Kitts later testified that under Kimmel's leadership, "the efficiency and training of the Fleet was at its highest level." Halsey, who in 1941 commanded one of the Pacific Fleet's carrier task forces and rose during the war to five-star fleet admiral, described Kimmel as "the ideal man for the job."
The base for the fleet had been moved from its traditional home at San Diego, California, to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in May 1940. Richardson had been relieved of command for his vocal opposition to this move and concerns about the fleet's vulnerability. On February 18, 1941, Kimmel wrote to the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), Admiral Harold Raynsford Stark:
I feel that a surprise attack (submarine, air, or combined) on Pearl Harbor is a possibility, and we are taking immediate practical steps to minimize the damage inflicted and to ensure that the attacking force will pay.
On April 18, 1941, Kimmel wrote to the CNO requesting additional resources for base construction at Wake Island and for a Marine Corps defense battalion to be stationed there. On August 19 the first permanent Marine garrison was assigned. Naval Air Station Midway was commissioned in August after the completion of runways and support structures, and a Marine garrison assigned shortly afterwards. In November Kimmel ordered USS Enterprise to ferry Marine fighters and pilots to Wake Island to reinforce the garrison, and for USS Lexington to depart Pearl Harbor on December 5 to ferry Marine dive bombers to Midway. Because of these missions, neither aircraft carrier was in Pearl Harbor during the later Japanese attack.
Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor occurred in an air raid on December 7, 1941, and caused the deaths of 2,403 U.S. military personnel and civilians. Edwin T. Layton related that during the attack:
Kimmel stood by the window of his office at the submarine base, his jaw set in stony anguish. As he watched the disaster across the harbor unfold with terrible fury, a spent .50 caliber machine gun bullet crashed through the glass. It brushed the admiral before it clanged to the floor. It cut his white jacket and raised a welt on his chest. "It would have been merciful had it killed me," Kimmel murmured to his communications officer, Commander Maurice "Germany" Curts.
In The World at War, a naval serviceman—who had been alongside Admiral Kimmel during the attack—recalled that as Kimmel watched the destruction of the fleet, he tore off his four-star shoulder boards in apparent recognition of the impending end of his command.
Kimmel was relieved of his command ten days after the attack. At the time he was planning and executing retaliatory moves, including an effort to relieve and reinforce Wake Island that could have led to an early clash between American and Japanese carrier forces. Vice Admiral William S. Pye (Commander, Battle Force, Pacific Fleet) became acting CINCPACFLT on December 17. He had reservations about Kimmel's plan and decided the Wake Island operation was too risky, recalling the relief force. Admiral Chester W. Nimitz took over as CINCPACFLT on December 31 and by that time Wake Island had been invaded and occupied by the Japanese. Kimmel's CINCUS command was reassigned to Admiral Ernest J. King (at that time Commander in Chief, U.S. Atlantic Fleet [CINCLANTFLT]) in a wartime expanded role of Commander in Chief, United States Fleet (with the new acronym of COMINCH), which would also be combined with King's subsequent appointment as the Chief of Naval Operations.
In 1942, the Roberts Commission, appointed by President Roosevelt to investigate the attack, determined that Kimmel and his counterpart, Army Lieutenant General Walter Short, were guilty of errors of judgment and dereliction of duty in the events leading up to the attack. Kimmel defended his decisions at several hearings, testifying that important information had not been made available to him.