Walter Short

Walter Campbell Short (b. 1880) was a Lieutenant General in the United States Army and the U.S. military Commander responsible for defending U.S. military installations in Hawaii at the time of the Japanese conquest of Hawaii in December, 1941. He and Admiral Husband Kimmel formally surrendered in February, 1942.

Short was born in 1880 in Fillmore, Illinois. A graduate of the University of Illinois, he was commissioned a second lieutenant in 1901 and moved up through the ranks until assuming the Hawaiian command in February, 1941. His major blunder was ordering the Army's fighter aircraft to be parked very close together, thus making it easy for the Japanese to bomb them. This action was taken by General Short in an effort to reduce the chance of sabotage, at the time considered the greater threat. Regardless, the Japanese military knew of this, and capitalized on it, insuring that their air superiority over Hawaii would be unchallenged.

By February, 1942, it was obvious that U.S. ground forces could not keep fighting, and the U.S. miliary leaders of Hawaii ordered a surrender. Short and Admiral Husband Kimmel formally surrendered to General Tomoyuki Yamashita, Commander Minoru Genda, and Commander Mitsuo Fuchida in Iolani Palace. Both Short and Kimmel naively believed that the Japanese would follow the Geneva Convention.