Why Did The Japanese Decide To Attack Pearl Harbor – History » World War II » Pearl Harbor » Why Did Japan Attack Pearl Harbor? A Comprehensive Review
After more than 75 years, the question remains for students of World War II history: Why did Japan attack Pearl Harbor?
Why Did The Japanese Decide To Attack Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor ranks as the most successful surprise military attack in the early years of combined naval/aerial warfare. On December 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service attacked the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Territory. The Attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, directly caused America’s entry into WW2 which led to the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, an outcome that spelled disaster for the Japanese. The Japanese were able to destroy nearly 20 U.S. naval vessels, including 8 battleships, 200 airplanes, and kill over 2,000 Americans, but why did the Japanese attack America in the first place? And what were they trying to achieve by attacking Pearl Harbor, specifically?
Plenty Of Blame To Go Around
The U.S. and Japan had been arguing for decades and it was inevitable that things would end up in a war. Japan had imperial ambitions to expand into China to solve some demographic and economic problems and to capture the Chinese import market. When Japan decided in 1937 to declare war on China, America opposed this aggression and responded with trade embargoes and economic sanctions. In particular, the oil embargo organized by America with the British and Dutch was a thorn in the side of Japan, which imported 90% of its oil. Without oil, Japan’s military could not function and all war efforts would come to an end. Negotiations between Washington and Tokyo had been going on for months, without any resolution, so Japan decided to attack first.
Since war was inevitable, Japan’s only chance was to use the element of surprise and destroy the American navy as quickly as possible. Japan wanted to move into the Dutch East Indies and Malaya to seize territories that could provide valuable natural resources such as oil and rubber. By destroying a large part of the American fleet, they hoped to conquer the Philippines and Malaya while America was still recovering from its own injuries – a simultaneous attack was launched on these areas while Pearl was taking place Harbor.
Let’s go back to our main question: why did Japan attack Pearl Harbor? In the end, Japan hoped that America would accept defeat and that Japan would be able to create a fortress that would reach the entire Pacific Rim.
Roosevelt expected a Japanese attack, but conspiracy theories that claim he knew they would strike Pearl Harbor have been rejected by most scholars. The Government expected Japan to attack American targets in Thailand or the Dutch East Indies rather than a target closer to home. The Chicago Tribune published a top-secret war plan, “Rainbow Five” on December 4, 1941, in which the War Department made preparations for war with Japan.
Pearl Harbour Essay
The day before the death of Sara Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt’s mother, the State Department’s refusal of Japanese Prime Minister Konoye’s urgent request for a private conversation with Roosevelt convinced the Japanese to begin serious plan for an attack.
At a cabinet meeting on September 6, 1941, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto was told to attack unless Konoye achieved peace terms with the United States that would not spark a revolution at home, an uprising in Korea, or the restoration of Chinese morals. Hirohito was shot twice, once by a Japanese communist, once by a Korean nationalist. The better men of the two cabinets were assassinated or wounded because they were seen as too accommodating to foreigners who wanted to colonize Japan or reduce the nation that had never lost a war in modern times to a weak third tier of power. Konoye himself was threatened with death if he made too many concessions, and there were serious attempts to overthrow the emperor in favor of his brother or his son. Hirohito knew that his own dynasty could be exterminated like the Romanovs or marginalized, just as the Japanese themselves had done to the Korean royals if he bowed to demands that the Japanese considered not only insulting but insane.
Yamamoto, who spoke English fluently, had studied at Harvard, and in happier times he had boarded the United States, knowing that Japan could not conquer, or even defeat, the United States. Japan’s grand strategy, if war was unavoidable, was to inflict enough damage and seize enough territory that the Americans guaranteed Japanese sovereignty in exchange for an armistice and the restoration of all or most of what Japan had taken abroad. of Korea and perhaps Manchuria.
Theoretical plans for a Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor existed for decades. General Billy Mitchell warned as early as 1924 that the next war would be fought with aircraft. Admiral Harry Yarnell of the U.S. The Navy conducted a simulated attack by carrier-based aircraft in 1932 as part of a war game. Navy judges ruled that it would have sustained significant damage if the attack had been real, and the attackers had won the war game.
I Led The Air Attack On Pearl Harbor
Yamamoto delivered his updated contingency plan for an attack on Pearl Harbor on January 7, 1941, less than a month after the British aerial torpedo attack on Taranto. Minoru Genda, Japan’s planning genius, called Yamamoto’s first plan “difficult but not impossible.” More information is needed. By the summer of 1941, Korean patriots walled off at the Japanese consulate in Honolulu by Korean servants and loyal Japanese-Americans were hearing rumors of intense Japanese interest in the depths of the harbor water and its strengths and weaknesses. of Army and Navy installations in Hawaii.
Roosevelt’s restriction of Japan’s oil supply shifted Japanese planning into high gear. War is now the only alternative to economic strangulation and political revolution.
In the final months before the attack, the U.S. government released of a memorandum stating, “The Japanese government does not desire or intend or hope for an immediate armed conflict with the United States. . . . If it were a matter of betting, the under would give odds of five to one that Japan and the United States would not be at ‘war’ on or before March 1 (a date more than 90 days from now, and after a time in which our strategists estimated it would be useful for us to have ‘time’ for further preparation and disposal).
On December 1, 1941, the emperor met with his privy council. “It is now clear that Japan’s claims cannot be settled through diplomatic means,” Tojo said. The emperor asked for a vote—perhaps more gun-shy than the elder statesmen. The cabinet voted for war. Hirohito agreed. The Japanese fleet was told to attack Pearl Harbor on December 7 unless it received a last-minute cancellation due to a sudden change in American attitude. Kurusu and Nomura—who had been sincere in seeking peace until they received the Hull note—were told to hold off. Tojo summarized the situation: Japan, the only Asian, African, or South American nation that had modernized rather than been colonized, could not accept American demands without unrest at home, revolts in Korea, and reversal in Manchuria. “At this moment,” he declared, “our Empire stands on the verge of glory or oblivion.”
Pearl Harbor History And Facts About The Japanese Attack
This article is part of our larger selection of posts about the attack on Pearl Harbor. To learn more, click here for our comprehensive guide to Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor struck a nation fed up with war alarms. True, we passed the draft and actually reached the stage of shooting with German submarines. But as a people we still talk about war, without actually accepting its imminence. Then, to our national delight, came a surprise blow to our strongest point!
We underestimated Japan’s military power. So far as military and naval estimates are concerned, Japan has to be judged primarily on her past record. Power cannot be measured only in strength reports, even if actual strength is known. Japan’s war record is not impressive. He fought but a great power (if the Russia of 1904-1905 can be rated), with a push-over against an isolated German Colony. Most important of all were the four years before Pearl Harbor in which he conducted active warfare with China. We are acutely aware of China’s deficiencies in modern equipment, resources, and training. Our maps and time scales, as we followed the war, clearly indicated a low rating for Japanese military strength when judged by modern standards.
We had a measure. There is no better measure of what a power plant can do, if you can’t put your own measurements on it, than what it has done. We have no reason to doubt the approximate accuracy of our measure. But this is completely untrue.
I remember an incident that happened shortly before Pearl Harbor. We feared that Japanese forces might advance in Indo-China at the northern end of the Burma Road, at Kunming.
