Kermit Tyler | Pearl Harbor officer, 96

Kermit Tyler, 96, an Army officer who dismissed initial reports of what turned out to be the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, died Jan. 23 at his home in San Diego.

During World War II, he went on to fly combat missions in the Pacific and retired from the Air Force as a lieutenant colonel in 1961.

He was the Army Air Force's first lieutenant on temporary duty at Fort Shafter's radar information center in Hawaii on Dec. 7, 1941, when two privates reported seeing an unusually big blip on their radar screen, indicating a large number of aircraft about 130 miles away and fast approaching.

"Don't worry about it," Lt. Col. Tyler famously replied, thinking it was a flight of U.S. B-17 bombers that was due in from the mainland.

The aircraft were the first wave of more than 180 Japanese fighters and bombers whose surprise attack on Pearl Harbor plunged the United States into the war.

Many questioned his decision for years, and the 1970 movie Tora! Tora! Tora! portrayed him in an unflattering light. Audiences watching a documentary at the Pearl Harbor Visitors Center theater still groan when they hear Lt. Col. Tyler's response to the radar report.

Daniel Martinez, Pearl Harbor historian for the National Park Service, said that Lt. Col. Tyler's role was misunderstood and that subsequent inquiries did not find him at fault. He said that a flight of B-17s flying in from California was indeed due to land at Hickam Field.

"Kermit Tyler took the brunt of the criticism, but that was practically his first night on the job, and he was told that if music was playing on the radio all night, it meant the B-17s were coming in," Martinez said.

The music played all night so the B-17 pilots could home in on the signal, and when he heard the music as he was driving to work, Lt. Col. Tyler assumed the aircraft would be coming in soon.

"I wake up at nights sometimes and think about it," Lt. Col. Tyler said in a 2007 interview with the Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. "But I don't feel guilty. I did all I could that morning." - AP