PANORAMA OF DEFEAT

OFF MAGAZINE LOCH A pair of large picture windows in the second- floor commodore’s corner office overlooking Pearl Harbor here immediately draw the eye of any visitor who enters the room.

On Dec. 7, 1941, the sight would have been horrifying, particularly because the man standing at the windows watching the U. S. fleet be destroyed was the overall commander, Adm. Husband Kimmel.

This was his office, and after he arrived here sometime after 8 a. m. that Sunday morning, rushing from his home nearby, the window facing northwest gave him a panoramic view of Battleship Row from the USS California on the left to the USS Nevada on the far right.

Between them he could see the USS Oklahoma capsized and a fire raging on a ruined USS Arizona. “It is very sobering to know the history,” said Navy Capt. Robert Roncska, who has this office today.

Roncska is commodore of a squadron of nuclear attack submarines operating in the Pacific and keeps a photograph of Kimmel on the wall just to the right of the window that looks onto Battleship Row.

He tells visitors the story — some historians differ on whether it’s true — about a spent bullet or shrapnel fragment that came through the window while Kimmel was watching, struck the admiral in the chest and fell to the floor. Kimmel reportedly said either “I wish it had killed me,” or “It would have been more merciful if it had killed me.” That attack would cost him his career. “He and his staff could do nothing but sit and watch their battleships and the main focus of their fleet be destroyed,” said Navy Cmdr. Andrew Ring, one of Roncska’s deputy commanders and an amateur historian. “He sat there feeling rather helpless over what he could do.”