Admiral Kimmel is in command of Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attack. He is ostracized and demoted for dereliction of duty. At first, he is overwhelmed by the isolation and the public hatred. This documentary presents various intelligence sources predating the attack which aren't given to Kimmel. He's told about the secret decryption codebreaking effort called Magic and is angrily convinced of his persecution by President Roosevelt.
This rehashes many of the issues already known although it may be new for the uninitiated. My main issue is that the documentary, like many other conspiracy theorists, want to defend Kimmel from all responsibilities. Admiral Stark and bureaucracy are blamed for the ultimate failure to warn Kimmel. Kimmel is at best a cog in the system. He was not forward thinking. He was not imaginative enough. In many ways, he waited to be warned and he was more concerned about sabotage which this documentary never touched upon. This never showed Kimmel doing anything to prepare for an attack other than asking other people for stuff which every military commander does anyways. I would have more sympathy for him if it showed him doing something specific on the ground. As the movie states, he was more intent on training his green troops for an offensive war. He did not foresee the attack himself. Stark certainly comes off poorly as the main villain. As for Kimmel's conspiracy theory on Roosevelt later in life, it doesn't hold water as stated by most of these commentators. A warning was actually sent to him but was only delayed by incompetency. It doesn't move me to feel for the guy who turned into an angry conspiracy nut when the obvious culprit from the movie is an incompetent Stark. I see some reviewers are complaining about 1812. It's weird that some seems proud of it and it's a small unimportant error in the documentary. My main takeaway is that Kimmel is an angry old man who is mostly concerned about himself and his reputation.
