US Air Force pilot who dismissed Pearl Harbor reports dies aged 96

AN American pilot who dismissed initial reports of what turned out to be the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor has died aged 96.

Kermit Tyler was the Army Air Forces’ first lieutenant on temporary duty at Fort Shafter’s radar information centre in Hawaii on December 7, 1941, when two privates reporting seeing an unusually large blip on their radar screen, indicating a large number of aircraft about 132 miles away and fast approaching.

“Don’t worry about it,” Tyler famously replied, thinking it was a flight of US B-17 bombers that was due in from the mainland.