ALERT MESSAGE DELAYED

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVIII, Issue 23376, 6 December 1945, Page 5

ALERT MESSAGE DELAYED

Pearl Harbour Attack (7.30 D.m.) WASHINGTON. Dec. 4. The Congressional Committee inoviring into the Pearl Harbour attack had before it to-day a memorandum prepared by MajorGeneral Sherman Miles, formerly head of the army intelligence, showing that a warning message rom General George Marshall to the Hawaiian commander, MajorGeneral Walter Short, was sent by commercial cable because the service radio was defective, and it was received in Honolulu a few minutes before the attack. The message was not delivered to the signals officer by an oriental messenger until 11.45, and was not decoded and delivered to General Short’s staff until unward of seven hours after the attack. The memorandum showed that the message centre at General Marshall’s Headquarters reported that the message would reach its destination in half an hour. Colonel Bratton, who had been instructed to send the message to all outpost commands by the most expeditious means, said the centre gave no indication that the message was not going by army radio direct to the four army headquarter". The message read: “Japanese are presenting at 1 p.m.. Eastern Standard Time, to-day. what amounts to an ultimatum. Also, they are under orders to destroy their code machine immediately. Just what significance the hour set may have we do not know, but be on the alert accordingly. Inform naval authorities of this communication.— Marshall." The memorandum continued that Colonel J. R. Deane, the only officer present at General Marshall’s Headquarters at the time, related as follows: "About 1.30 p.m. enlisted men from the Navy rushed into my office with a pencil note supposed to have been a message from the Navy radio operator at Honolulu reading: “I contracted General Marshall at Fort Meyer and tald him of the message. General Marshall directed me to contact Hawaii, if possible, and verify, but before this was possible an official message confirmed the attack.”