What Caused Japan To Attack Pearl Harbor – Pearl Harbor struck a country full of war alarms. It is true, we have already entered the draft and we have reached the stage of firing on the German ships. But as people we still talk about war, without admitting its nearness. And then, in the despondency of the country, came a surprise to our strongest!
We underestimated the strength of the Japanese military. So far as Japan’s military and naval estimations are concerned, Japan must be judged on her past record. Power cannot be measured solely on power reports, even if the true power is known. Japan’s war record was not impressive. She fought but one great power (if Russia of 1904-1905 can be counted), pushing against a German territory. The main thing that shows this is that four years before Pearl Harbor she fought a war in China. We know what China really lacks in modern equipment, resources, and training. Our maps and time scales, as we followed the war, clearly showed an underestimation of Japanese military strength by modern standards.
What Caused Japan To Attack Pearl Harbor
We have a standard. There’s no better measure of what a power plant can do, if you can’t put your weight on it, than what it did. We have no reason to doubt the accuracy of our measurements. However it is completely false.
Japanese Announcement Of The Attack At Pearl Harbor, 1941
I remember an incident that happened shortly before Pearl Harbor. We feared that the Japanese forces in Indo-China might advance at the northern end of the Burma road, at Kunming. Secretary Stimson asked me how long such a move would take. Military intelligence officers took into account the terrain and the opposing forces, and used measurements. I answered, “Three months,” and stuck to it when the Secretary tried to shake me. Compared to what the Japanese did later in Malaya, Burma, and the Philippines, my estimate of Kunming’s development was like giving a Percheron to a racehorse. The strength of the Japanese military, measured in space and time, in the six months between Pearl Harbor and Midway stunned the world.
The Japanese ability to attack Hawaii, or Panama or the West Coast, is the beginning of the water crisis. Unfortunately, our navy underestimated Japan’s sea and air power more than we army underestimated the quality of their ground and air forces. The Japanese Navy has seen even less modern warfare than the Japanese Army. You can’t use a balance, true or false. Regardless of whether or not, our naval authorities value the Japanese navy. I remember Admiral Kelly Turner expressing in a meeting of the British and American staff, six months before Pearl Harbor, his confidence in our ability to keep the Japanese navy in our home waters only by transporting ships in the middle of the Pacific. I suggested that would just be “shadowboxing”—much to the Admiral’s wrath, I fear. Also, there is a statement by war planning officer Admiral Kimmel that there will never be an air attack on Pearl Harbor. In particular, the temporary detachments of merchantmen and sailors from the Pacific Fleet, at least the Navy Department has quietly acknowledged them, almost in line with their November war alert, are clear signs of the navy’s thoughts on the possibility of major Japanese operations. in the sea.
Another important factor enters, almost to the end, into our calculations. The question is whether Japan will, on its own, immediately engage us in war over ending its diplomatic meetings in Washington. It became clear in the fall of 1941 that the conference was likely to end without an agreement. The increasing economic pressure we are putting on Japan, and the military forces of the government that came to power there and the losses they have suffered in China, have led to the possibility of returning to their goals of victory. In which direction will the Japanese attack, and against whom?
There are many reasons, both political and economic, to expect them to attack south. They had already occupied Indo-China, under little legal order. After that there is the riches of Malaya and East India. Oil and rubber that they need especially. There are also possibilities for Australia, Burma, and India.
How The Attack On Pearl Harbor Changed History
In other words, that is the line they took. It means wars with the English and Dutch, but not necessarily with us. We assumed that they knew the intensity of the feeling in this country about going to war. “America First” is still out there in the country, and it speaks volumes. There were threats to paralyze the strike. Even in the new Army, anxiety and depression led to the slogan “Over the hill [desertion] in October.” We recently saved the Army from disbanding with just one vote in the House of Representatives!
If Japan had not attacked us when the Washington conference failed, there are only two steps that could have resulted in our interfering with her goals of conquest. The president may have persuaded Congress to declare war, or he may have joined the US military in the path of advancing Japan. Administrative problems were great and success was problematic in any case. And how the isolated factions in the country—the “Hearst-McCormick-Patterson Axis,” “America First,” etc.—will cry! American lives to be sacrificed for the defense of the British and Dutch colonies, and Siam! All this the Japanese must know. They must have lost the bet, once they realized that their negotiations in Washington would not succeed, in not continuing their southern business and leaving us on another competition.
Through “magic,” our number-crunching machine, we read a strong reference along these lines to Tokyo from Ambassador Nomura in Washington. And he was right; because, whatever we did, the Japanese stopped to have time to seize and strengthen their power in the south, and still the greatest advantage, in the long run, of fighting the United States and the conflict. They chose, instead, to bring us in immediately, and by a treacherous attack ensured full cooperation in our immediate war effort. We underestimated their fighting power, yes; but their failure to understand America and our potential in a long war (which their Ambassador showed them) was great.
It has been argued that the Japanese were forced to attack our forces upon resuming their victory policy because it became an insurmountable strategic threat on their side. The fleet was certainly an important element in Pacific strategy, and its destruction or elimination was of great interest from the Japanese point of view. But in reality, that is not an immediate threat to Japan, and it cannot really stop her in the first months of any campaign that she decides to start after the defense of the islands that have been given to her. For our army, in any operation in the Far East, it would have been much lower than Japan in air and sea power, especially in logistical support.
Japan Had Little Chance Of Victory—so Why Did It Attack Pearl Harbour?
We don’t have bases beyond Hawaii that can operate ships. We do not have the “ships”, the large production and repair capacity of ships, which would be necessary for such remote operations. The Japanese must know this. Not even the slightest misapprehension of the quality of the forces in front of them would have led our army far from base for a long time. Even so, Admiral Yamamoto can solve his problem which is still the most tragic for us.
Nothing discussed above – the underestimation of Japan’s war power or the underestimation of the advantage it would have if it took it upon us to go to war – or the consideration of it causes us to ignore the possibility of reaching Japan will immediately attack us when the Washington Conference ends, or perhaps we should join her war at last. The war warnings of November 24 and 27, together with the many discussions that culminated in President Roosevelt’s unprecedented appeal to the Emperor of Japan, made this clear. Also, he made it clear that the decision to bring us first or put us on our own rests solely with Japan.
The commander-in-chief of our army and navy thought they had prepared either for the future or for the immediate future, as far as one could do it. However, it is difficult to predict, and we certainly do not predict that the Japanese will make a big mistake like Pearl Harbor, joining the spirit of war and the potential of the United States. We have gone too far.
This blunder in policy eventually cost Japan its empire. But that’s not all. In Japan’s small-scale strategy of attacking Pearl Harbor by surprise contained great danger. As General Marshall later testified: “A surprise is either a victory or a disaster. If it turns out to be a disaster, – the whole Japanese war is ruined.”
The Day Of Infamy
Our army and camp together were what was probably, at that time, the largest
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