Walter Campbell Short (March 30, 1880 – September 3, 1949) was a

lieutenant general Lieutenant general (Lt Gen, LTG and similar) is a three-star military rank (NATO code OF-8) used in many countries. The rank traces its origins to the Middle Ages, where the title of lieutenant general was held by the second-in-command on the ...

(temporary rank) and major general of the

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and the U.S. military commander responsible for the defense of U.S. military installations in

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only ...

at the time of the Japanese

attack on Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawa ...

on December 7, 1941.

Early life

Short was born in 1880 in Fillmore, Illinois. The son of a doctor, he graduated from the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Unive ...

in 1901.''Pearl Harbor 1941: The Day of Infamy'' by Carl Smith, Adam Hook, Jim Laurier. He then taught mathematics for a year at a military academy.

Military career

Pre-World War II service

He was commissioned as a second lieutenant of infantry in the U.S. Army on March 13, 1902, and assigned duty at the

Presidio of San Francisco The Presidio of San Francisco (originally, El Presidio Real de San Francisco or The Royal Fortress of Saint Francis) is a park and former U.S. Army post on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula in San Francisco, California, and is part o ...

. He served in the Philippines and later Alaska, and took part in the expedition into Mexico with the