The Path to Pearl Harbor

On December seven, 1941, Nippon staged a surprise assail on Pearl Harbor, decimating the U.s. Pacific Fleet. When Frg and Italian republic alleged war on the Us days later, America found itself in a global state of war.

Top Image: Propaganda poster adult by the Office of State of war Information following the attack on Pearl Harbor. (Paradigm: Library of Congress, LC-USZC4-1663.)

On December seven, 1941, Japan staged a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, decimating the The states Pacific Fleet. When Germany and Italy declared state of war on the Usa days later, America found itself in a global war.

The Roots of the Conflict

While Japan'due south deadly assault on Pearl Harbor stunned Americans, its roots stretched dorsum more than four decades. Every bit Japan industrialized during the late 19th century, it sought to imitate Western countries such as the United states, which had established colonies in Asia and the Pacific to secure natural resources and markets for their goods. Nihon's process of imperial expansion, however, put it on a collision form with the United States, particularly in relation to Prc.

To a sure extent, the conflict between the The states and Nihon stemmed from their competing interests in Chinese markets and Asian natural resources. While the United States and Japan jockeyed peaceably for influence in eastern asia for many years, the situation inverse in 1931. That year Nihon took its offset stride toward building a Japanese empire in eastern Asia by invading Manchuria, a fertile, resources-rich province in northern Cathay. Japan installed a boob authorities in Manchuria, renaming it Manchukuo. But the United States refused to recognize the new regime or whatever other forced upon China under the Stimson Doctrine, named later Secretarial assistant of State and hereafter Secretary of State of war Henry 50. Stimson.

The ineffectual Stimson Doctrine guided U.s.a. policy in Asia for the next decade. On the one hand, the doctrine took a principled stand up in support of Chinese sovereignty and against an increasingly militaristic Japanese regime. On the other mitt, however, it failed to bolster that stand with either material consequences for Nippon or meaningful support for China. In fact, US companies continued to supply Japan with the steel and petroleum it needed for its fight against China long after the conflict between the countries escalated into a full-scale state of war in 1937. But a powerful isolationist movement in the Usa countered that the nation had no business at all in the international conflicts developing effectually the world. Even the Japanese military's murder of betwixt 100,000 and 200,000 helpless Chinese military prisoners and civilians and the rape of tens of thousands of Chinese women during the 1937 Rape of Nanking failed to immediately shift U.s.a. policy.

The stiff neutralist movement likewise influenced the initial US approach to the state of war in Europe, where past the cease of 1940 Nazi Frg controlled most of France, Central Europe, Scandinavia, and North Africa, and severely threatened Great U.k.. Prioritizing the war in Europe over Nippon's invasion of China, the U.s.a. allowed the sale of military supplies to Great United kingdom beginning in 1939. Only neutrality laws and isolationist sentiment severely limited the extent of that aid prior to 1941.

"Each [nation] stepped through a serial of escalating moves that provoked simply failed to restrain the other, all the while lifting the level of confrontation to ever-riskier heights."

David M. Kennedy, PhD

The state of war in Europe had some other meaning impact on the war in the Pacific because Deutschland's military machine successes unsettled the other European nations' Asian colonies. As Japan seized the opportunity to go the ascendant imperial ability in Asia, United States-Japan relations soured. As historian David M. Kennedy, PhD, explained, "Each [nation] stepped through a serial of escalating moves that provoked simply failed to restrain the other, all the while lifting the level of confrontation to ever-riskier heights."

The Impending Crunch

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt made one of those escalating moves in July 1940 when he cut off shipments of scrap fe, steel, and aviation fuel to Japan even as he immune American oil to continue flowing to the empire. Japan responded by entering resources-rich French Indochina, with permission from the government of Nazi-occupied France, and past cementing its alliance with Germany and Italy every bit a fellow member of the Axis. In July 1941, Japan and so moved into southern Indochina in grooming for an set on against both British Malaya, a source for rice, rubber, and tin, and the oil-rich Dutch Due east Indies. This prompted Roosevelt to freeze all Japanese assets in the United States on July 26, 1941, which effectively cutting off Japan's access to U.s.a. oil.

That motion pushed Japan to secretly ready its "Southern Operation," a massive military attack that would target Corking United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland'south large naval facility in Singapore and American installations in the Philippines and at Pearl Harbor, thus immigration a path for the conquest of the Dutch Eastward Indies. While diplomatic talks continued between the United States and Nippon, neither side budged. Nippon refused to sacrifice any of its newly acquired territory, and the United states insisted that Japan immediately withdraw its troops from Cathay and Indochina.

The Attack

On November 26, 1941, as US officials presented the Japanese with a 10-point argument reiterating their long-standing position, the Japanese Imperial Navy ordered an armada that included 414 planes aboard vi aircraft carriers to set to sea. Following a program devised by Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku, who had earlier studied at Harvard and served as Nippon's naval attaché in Washington, DC, the flotilla aimed to destroy the Us Pacific Fleet base at Pearl Harbor.

To grab the Americans past surprise, the ships maintained strict radio silence throughout their 3,500- mile expedition from Hitokappu Bay to a predetermined launch sector 230 miles north of the Hawaiian isle of Oahu. At 6:00 a.m. on Dominicus, December seven, a showtime wave of Japanese planes lifted off from the carriers, followed by a second wave an hour later. Led by Captain Mitsuo Fuchida, the pilots spotted land and causeless their attack positions around 7:30 a.m. 20-three minutes later on, with his bomber perched to a higher place the unsuspecting American ships moored in pairs along Pearl Harbor's "Battleship Row," Fuchida broke radio silence to shout, "Tora! Tora! Tora!" (Tiger! Tiger! Tiger!)—the coded bulletin informing the Japanese armada that they had caught the Americans by surprise.

USS Arizona

The USS Arizona in flames following the Japanese set on on Pearl Harbor, December vii, 1941. Paradigm: Library of Congress: LC-USZ62-104778.

For nearly two hours, Japanese firepower rained down upon American ships and servicemen. While the attack inflicted significant destruction, the fact that Japan failed to destroy American repair shops and fuel-oil tanks mitigated the impairment. Even more than significantly, no American shipping carriers were at Pearl Harbor that twenty-four hour period. The Japanese, notwithstanding, immediately followed their Pearl Harbor assault with attacks against The states and British bases in the Philippines, Guam, Midway Island, Wake Island, Malaya, and Hong Kong. Within days, the Japanese were masters of the Pacific.

In Washington, a decrypted message had alerted officials that an assail was imminent moments before Fuchida's planes took to the skies. Simply a communications delay prevented a alarm from reaching Pearl Harbor in time. The Americans missed another opportunity when an officer discounted a report from an Oahu-based radar operator that a large number of planes were headed their way.

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At the White Firm, Roosevelt learned of the attack as he was finishing lunch and preparing to tend to his stamp collection. He spent the residue of the afternoon receiving updates and writing the accost he intended to deliver to Congress the following twenty-four hours request for a annunciation of war against Japan. Every bit he drafted and redrafted the speech, Roosevelt focused on rallying the nation behind a war many had hoped to avoid.

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