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Walter was born on March 30, 1880 in Fillmore, Illinois, United States, the third son and fifth of six children of Hiram Spait Short, a physician, and Sarah Minerva (Stokes) Short. Both parents were Scots-Irish, the father having migrated from North Carolina before the Civil War.
After preliminary education in public schools, he entered the University of Illinois, from which he received a B. A. degree in 1901. Short was graduated from the School of the Line in 1921, and from the Army War College.
Short taught mathematics at Western Military Academy until, in 1902, he accepted a commission in the United States Army.
Short's army career began with the 25th Infantry at Fort Reno, Oklahoma, where he first met another new officer, George C. Marshall, with whom he later served in France. Between tours in Alaska and into Mexico with the punitive expedition of 1916-1917, Short served as secretary of the School of Musketry at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
With America's entry into World War I, Short went to France with the 1th Division in June 1917. He held a series of increasingly responsible training positions while rising to the temporary rank of colonel.
Returning to the United States in 1919, Short taught at the General Service Schools at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where he wrote a textbook, Employment of Machine Guns (1922). Following various troop and staff assignments and another tour at Leavenworth, he obtained his first regimental command, that of the 6th Infantry, when he was fifty-four. He was promoted to the rank of brigadier general in 1936 during a brief assignment as assistant commandant of the Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia; in 1939 he took command of a division.
As America mobilized in 1940, Short stood out as one of the army's best training men, a reputation Chief of Staff Marshall recognized by assigning him to command provisional corps in maneuvers during 1940 and the 1th Corps later the same year.
In February 1941 Short took charge of the army's Hawaiian Department, with the rank of lieutenant general. In Hawaii, Short exerted himself with his customary industry and thoroughness, giving particular attention to improving air defenses. Serious concern in early 1941 over a possible surprise attack on the Pacific Fleet and its Pearl Harbor base gradually faded during the year. Both in Washington and in Hawaii it was generally assumed that the Japanese would not dare risk a strong carrier-based air attack on Oahu while the American fleet was based there.
Actually, the Japanese attacked on December 7, 1941, with such force that a full alert of the army defenders would not have made much difference in the amount of damage done, although merely establishing a full alert might have warned off the enemy's striking force and probably would have saved General Short from much blame. After the attack Short quickly instituted a tight military control of Hawaii and set in motion measures that greatly strengthened the army's defenses. The success of the surprise attack had stunned the nation. President Roosevelt, on December 15 and 16, appointed an investigating commission headed by Supreme Court Justice Owen J. Roberts and on December 17 directed the relief from duty of both Short and the fleet commander, Admiral Husband E. Kimmel. The commission's report, in January 1942, accused the Hawaiian commanders of poor judgment and dereliction of duty.
Short submitted a request for retirement that Chief of Staff Marshall could use if he wished, and at the president's order Short and Kimmel were retired on February 28, 1942, "without condonation of any offense or prejudice to any future disciplinary action" - a phrase leaving open the way to court-martial. While awaiting his day in court, Short worked as traffic manager for the Ford Motor Company in Dallas, Texas, which remained his home thereafter.
Short finally received the opportunity to testify publicly in early 1946 before the congressional committee investigating Pearl Harbor. He readily acknowledged, as he had in earlier secret testimony, that he had made the wrong decision about an alert before the attack; but he denied that his estimate of the situation was the result of any carelessness on his part or on the part of his military associates in Hawaii.
Heart trouble led to Short's complete retirement after the congressional inquiry, and he died in Dallas three years later, at the age of sixty-nine, of heart failure brought on by emphysema.
Walter Campbell Short won the Distinguished Service Medal for conspicuous service in inspecting and reporting upon frontline conditions and for his efficiency in training machine-gun units behind the lines. He was later co-inventor of a low-slung machine-gun carrier. Short stood out as one of the army's best training men and wrote a famous textbook, Employment of Machine Guns (1922) He was the commander responsible for the defense of U. S. military installations in Hawaii at the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
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Walter was reared a Methodist, his mother's faith.
In November 4, 1914, he married Isabel Dean of Oklahoma City. They had one child, Walter Dean.
