The three names to associate with this are Kermit Tyler, George Elliott and Joseph Lockard. The latter two were the two radio operators at the Opana Point station, then-LT Tyler was the duty officer to whom they reported. Lockard was the primary operator, Elliott the plotter. All three survived the war, and so could be interviewed afterwards.

It would appear that the primary culprit was quite simply that the Army was just not on a war footing in Hawaii. When Lockhard and Elliott reported in, the lads on the tracking board duty who really knew what was going on with the B-17s had gone off for breakfast.

Eventually LT Tyler called back about a quarter-hour later. Tyler was a fighter pilot who was placed on the watch duty (Official title: Pursuit Officer) without really being qualified to fill it or given the staff to help him. Not his fault. He was a Lieutenant. You can read the post-event interrogation here: http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/myths/radar/tyler_3.html http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/myths/radar/tyler_4.html

Of note, a 'pursuit officer' was basically a GCI controller: Ground Control Intercept. It wasn't his task to determine whether or not aircraft should launch, it was his job to tell launched aircraft where to go. That, combined with his lack of training for the position (he referred to it as designed to be on the job training...without an instructor!) really set him up for failure. Further, the people whose job it was to evaluate the information and launch aircraft weren't there, so Tyler was really just making do as he could.

Now, what information did he have to work on? The lads manning the radar set weren't highly trained either. Lockard was generally up to speed, but Elliott was fresh. They basically just saw a large blip thataway, and sent it up.

The problem was that they didn't say how large a blip it was. Just big. 12 B-17s will give a big blip. So will a hundred Vals and Kates. Just bigger. Tyler, aware that the B-17s were inbound, that they seemed likely to meet the criteria for that big blip, and the Army's belief that any Japanese attack would happen in the Western Pacific, had no reason to conclude that the blip was anything but what he thought they were, and he believed that had the report actually said something like "that there were at least 50 aircraft being detected," he may have come to a different conclusion. And even if he did, there wasn't a whole hell of a lot he could have done about it anyway. However, Lockard was of the belief in post-war interviews that he could not give a numerical assessment. I'm inclined to agree, given the technology and display interface of the time.

Since Tyler was held not to be at fault, he went on with his military career in fighters in the Pacific. He retired in 1961 as a Lt. Colonel in the Air Force. He died 2010.

Lockard, being the primary operator of the radar, was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal in 1942. As far as the Army were concerned, he did his job to the best of his ability and as such sounded the alarm. He survived the war, dying in 2012.

Elliott's testimony can be found here. https://www.awesomestories.com/asset/view/Testimony-George-E.-Elliott-on-Pearl-Harbor

He was awarded the Legion of Merit at the same time as Lockard received his award, but refused to accept it on the basis that he didn't feel he should have an inferior award to Lockard. He died 2003.