Background
Theobald was born in San Francisco, California, on 25 January 1884. He was the son of George Theobald and Hattie Caroline Yoell. His father had come from England as a young man, and worked for an insurance company.
(Many of the arguments Admiral Robert A. Theobald makes in...)
Many of the arguments Admiral Robert A. Theobald makes in this book have been fleshed out further by the research of later writers. In particular, readers familiar with Stinnett's "Day of Deceit" (2000) and Gannon's "Pearl Harbor Betrayed" (2001) will find many of the same arguments, though in a more condensed fashion, here. The difference, of course, is that Theobald was writing in 1954. And he brings to the table not only the viewpoint of a professional naval officer, but also one who was in fact present in a relatively senior position (Commander, Destroyers, Battle Force) at Pearl Harbor at the time of the attack. His argument is that Roosevelt deliberately backed the Japanese into a position where they had no choice but to launch an attack on the Pacific Fleet -- a fleet that was deliberately weakened, and denied critical information, by orders of the President.
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Theobald was born in San Francisco, California, on 25 January 1884. He was the son of George Theobald and Hattie Caroline Yoell. His father had come from England as a young man, and worked for an insurance company.
Theobald was educated in the public schools of San Francisco, then enrolled at the University of California in 1902 to study mining engineering. On a dare from a friend, he took the competitive examinations for the service academies, and in 1903, unable to obtain a preferred appointment to West Point, he entered the United States Naval Academy. He graduated ninth (in a class of eighty-six) in 1907.
Commissioned an ensign in 1908, he made the world cruise with the "Great White Fleet" aboard the Wisconsin from 1907 to 1909. The next two decades brought assignments in which Theobald impressed his superiors with his ability and intellectual acumen. In 1910-1913 he served aboard the Nebraska, and from 1913 to 1915 he was stationed at Annapolis. In 1915 he assumed command of a destroyer, and a year later he commanded a destroyer landing force at Montecristi in the Dominican Republic intervention.
During World War I, Theobald was gunnery officer on the New York, flagship of the American battleship squadron attached to the British Grand Fleet. In 1919 he became executive officer of the Navy Postgraduate School, but left this post in 1921 for two years of destroyer command with the Asiatic Fleet.
In 1924 he was appointed head of the Postgraduate School. He returned to sea duty in 1927 as executive officer of the West Virginia. From 1930 to 1931 he attended the Naval War College. During the 1930's Theobald emerged as one of the most promising officers in the navy. After leaving the War College, he was successively assigned to the War Plans Division of the Navy Department and as chief of staff and aide to the commander of destroyers, Battle Force.
In 1935 he returned to the Naval War College as a member of the advanced class, and from 1936 to 1938 he was in charge of the Strategy Division at the college. Students at the college during these years would long remember his fiery debates with Captain Richmond K. Turner, a strong air power enthusiast, over the proper weight the navy should give to air war and the role that air power would have in the event of war in the Pacific.
Following his second tour at the War College, Theobald commanded the Nevada and served briefly on the staff of the commander in chief, United States Fleet, as a member of the General Board, and as commander of a cruiser division. In June 1940 he was promoted to rear admiral, and three months later he became commander of a destroyer flotilla with the Pacific Fleet, a post he held until the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor in December 1941. The promise that Theobald displayed in his rise to flag rank did not materialize into a major role in World War II. After serving briefly as commander of destroyers, Pacific Fleet, he was named commander of the North Pacific Force in May 1942.
From the outset Theobald and Major General Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr. , commander of army forces in the Alaskan sector, differed on strategy for the Aleutians campaign. The small size of his force and a proclivity for focusing on the possible perils of an undertaking inclined Theobald to be cautious in moving against the Japanese, while Buckner favored an aggressive strategy. Matters were worsened by a personality clash with Buckner and disputes with Brigadier General William O. Butler, commander of the Eleventh Air Force, and Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt, head of the Western Defense Command. These problems with his army counterparts and their negative effect on army-navy cooperation, along with Theobald's undisguised feeling that he had been consigned to a backwater of the war, irritated Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, commander of the Pacific Fleet, and in January 1943, Theobald was reassigned as commandant of the First Naval District and the Boston Navy Yard. He was relieved of all active duty in October 1944, and retired in February 1945.
In retirement Theobald immersed himself in the Pearl Harbor controversy. He had helped Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, a close friend and commander of the Pacific Fleet, prepare for the hearings of the Roberts Commission in the weeks following the attack, and was convinced that Kimmel and Lieutenant General Walter C. Short, commander of the Hawaiian Department, had been made scapegoats for the Japanese success. In The Final Secret of Pearl Harbor (1954) he claimed that Kimmel and Short were purposely not alerted to the threat of attack because of a plot by President Franklin D. Roosevelt who invited the attack to unify the United States behind a direct part in the war. Theobald also wrote a biweekly column for a Beverly, Massachussets, newspaper and gave numerous speeches on world affairs.
He died in Boston.
(Many of the arguments Admiral Robert A. Theobald makes in...)
Theobald was a portly man with a wide, square face. He possessed a quick mind that at times prompted him to be caustic and insulting.
On October 2, 1909, Theobald married Helen Reeves Berry. They had two children. His wife died in 1938, and on May 24, 1941, he married Elizabeth Burnham Dartnell. They had no children.
