 In the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Henry Stimson chose Dargue to lead the investigation of why the United States had been unprepared for the attack, and placed him in command of the US Army units there.However, while flying from Mitchel Field to Hawaii to take his new post, Dargue's B-18 crashed in the Sierra Nevada mountains, outside Bishop, California, and he was killed.The wreckage of the plane was not found for five months.