onsisted of an information center at Fort Shafter on Oahu, which had just been built, and several mobile radars mounted on trucks and located at Kawailoa, Kahuku Point, Kaaawa, Koko Head, the rear of Fort Shafter, and perhaps Waianae. These radars were operated by motor generator sets that broke down under frequent use, and they were effective only for high altitudes at ranges between 30 and 130 miles. They could now detect low-altitude flights nor those within 30 miles of the radar. There was also one totally blank sector of 20 degrees north of Molokai which was discovered after December 7, when the sets were finally calibrated.” (Wohlstetter 8) “On Oahu, communication between the radar operations and the information center was by commercial telephone; from the outlying island communication was by radio and was unsatisfactory.” (Wohlstetter 9) So when the attack happened even if it was detected soon enough, which it wasn’t because they weren’t patrolling at the time, there wouldn’t have been a fast enough way to alert everyone on the island since it was set up so poorly. “As it turned out, the radar station was operation on the morning of December 7, albeit only by radar operators who were being trained and who picked up signals of the approaching Japanese planes some one hundred miles away from their designated target. At approximately the same time, however, a flight of Army B-17 bombers was suposed to be arriving from the West Coast.” (Clausen and Lee 72) Therefore when the radar operators got the signals they figured that they were friendly, they never expected for them to be attacking Japanese fighter planes. They did not have professionals in the stations, and the people they had in them had been trying but didn’t know what they were supposed to be doing. Also the stations were not open twenty-four hours a day, they were only open during designated times. If the comman...
