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The Bombing of Pearl Harbor: Its Impact and Repercussions Abstract: A devastating incident occurred on Pearl Harbor raises historical question to citizens of US as well as the entire world. The tangled web of events leading up to the damage of the United States Pacific navy at its anchorage on December 7, 1941, is among the most fascinating sequences of historical drama ever enacted. All the great powers of the world at war but one that last one on the brink of war, in possession of the secret codes of its enemies, forewarned but wholly surprised, and finally forced to enter the greatest conflict of all times with a sense of shame, anger, and feeling of deception by someone, somewhere, sometime. The present paper describes thorough background of events that led to such a callous attack; major issues resulted to war, United States alertness for war and its impact. Finally paper analyses the in depth motive for happening of Pearl Harbor. Introduction: From the beginning of nineteenth century, US navy is based on Pearl Harbor, which is on the island of Oahu.
Attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise, USA launched by 1 st Air Fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy on the morning (Hawaii Time) of Sunday, December 7, 1941. It was aimed at United States Navy and its shielding Army Air Corps and Marine defensive squadrons as pre-emptive war in order to neutralize the US Pacific task. This attack has also been termed as "Bombing of Pearl Harbor." The Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor caused a shocking defeat on the US fleet and US armed forces. In the expression of President Franklin Roosevelt's stirring war message to Congress, a date that will live in infamy marks the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor of Japanese naval air that descended the US encounter fleet and forced the United States into the Second World War.
The attack: In Pearl Harbor attack, vulnerable torpedo bombers led the first wave to of 183 planes, took advantage of the first moments of shock by attacking the aircraft carriers and battleships while dive bombers assaulted the US air bases across Oahu. In the second round, the 170 planes attacked Bellows Field and Ford Island, a Marine and Naval air station in the center of Pearl Harbor. P- 36 Hawks and P- 40 War hawks that flew 25 sorties opposed the attack. The attack was over within Ninety minutes. In this ruthless attack, 2, 403 Americans lost their life and 1, 178 injured. Eighteen ships including five battleships were sunk.
The hull of Arizona has become a monument to those lost that day, most of who remain within the ship. Events that occurred leading up to the bombing of Pearl Harbor: Between 1910 - 1930 s, Japan had been extensively militarized after considerable internal conflict and built a large and modern Navy and Army. In 1924, General Billy Mitchell conveyed a 324 -page report to his seniors word of warning of a future war with Japan, suspecting an air-attack on Pearl Harbor but his message was completely ignored. American commanders had been warned tests demonstrated shallow-water aerial torpedo commenced were likely, but none of the superiors in Hawaii fully appreciated the danger. In July 1939, the 1911 US/Japanese commerce agreement was terminated by US, which both showed official disapproval and removed legal barriers to obligation of trade restrictions. Japan sustained its military movement in China and Anti-Comintern Pact was signed between Japan and Nazi Germany, officially ending World War- I warfare, and to assert common welfare.
Japan signed the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Fascist Italy in 1940 to form the alliance Powers. US moved to close the Panama Canal to Japanese shipping by these Japanese actions. In 1941, Japan moved into northern Indochina and situation deteriorated. Japan's assets were freezing by US and to declare a complete oil embargo. As it is known that Japan's most vital resource Oil was; her own supplies were very inadequate, and 80 % of Japan's imports came from the U. S.
The Imperial Navy was dependent completely on imported bunker oil stocks. The Japanese high command was divided. The Army wanted to go south to capture oil and mineral reserves in the Dutch East Indies. The Navy wanted to bring the U. S. into the warfare.
An attack on the Pacific Fleet was considered essential to prevent American intrusion. When German-Japanese Pact was signed between Japan and Germany in 1940, tensions augmented. On September 4, 1941, the Emperor attended the second of two Imperial Conferences bearing in mind an attack on Pearl Harbor. The Japanese Cabinet organized a meeting to consider the attack plans prepared by Imperial General Headquarters. Specific issues of Japan's preparation for the attack: Major issue for Japanese plan to the attack included breaking off negotiations with the United States just 30 minutes before the attack started on.
Japanese Ambassador, Admiral Kichisaburo Nomura, and special representative Saburo Kurusu, and other diplomats had been carrying out extensive talks with the State Department concerning the US responses to the Japanese move into Indochina. In the days before the attack, the Foreign Office in Tokyo sent the 14 -part message to the Embassy, with commands to convey it to Secretary of State Cordell Hull around 1 p. m. Washington time.
Last part of the final message was decrypted by The United States well before the Japanese Embassy supervised to. These events provoked General George Marshall to send the disreputable word of warning to Hawaii. A young Japanese-American cycle messenger actually delivered the message to Gen. Walter Short at Pearl Harbor several hours after the attack had ended.
Evidence was admitted during Congressional hearings on the attack after the War and it was recognized that the Japanese government had not even written an announcement of war until after they took notice of the victorious attack on Pearl Harbor. After 10 hours when the attack was over, that two-line declaration of war was finally delivered to US Ambassador Grew in Tokyo. Whether the United States knew the attack was imminent: When the attack was inward, the Pearl Harbor was unprepared. Anti-aircraft armaments were not ready, missiles were sheltered down, anti-submarine measures were not put into practice, battle air patrols not in the air, and so on.
US Signals intelligence, through the Army's Signal Intelligence Service and the Office of Naval Intelligence's OP- 20 -G unit, cut off Japanese diplomatic and naval traffic and had infiltrated many Japanese secret messages, though none carried strategic armed information. At best, the information was fragmentary, contradictory, or insufficiently distributed. Decision makers also incompletely understood it, and completely un analyzed until very late. Impact: The Pearl Harbor attack immediately motivated a separated nation into action.
Suddenly, Americans unified against Japan, and that reaction most likely made possible the unconditional surrender position later taken by the joined Powers. Same day when Japanese attacked on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Declaration of War against Japan. Next day of disturbing attack on Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt, in addressing to a joint session of Congress termed 7 December 1941, a date which will live in infamy.
The U. S. Navy and Army Air Corps were unable to play any major role in the Pacific War for the next six months due to its losses at Pearl Harbor and in the subsequent Japanese invasion of the Philippines. Japan was for the time being free of worries about the rival Pacific naval power. The relations between the United States and Japan had taken a theatrical turn by the end of 1941. During same period, the United States felt deeply devoted to a united victory.
Japan's reasons for bombing Pearl Harbor: The intent of the attack on Pearl Harbor was to counteract American naval power in the Pacific if only for the moment, as part of a theatre-wide, near simultaneous coordinated attack against several different countries. Yamamoto himself likely even a successful attack would achieve only a year or so of freedom of action before the U. S. improved enough to check Japan's progresses. In January 1941, initial planning for a Pearl Harbor attack in support of military advance elsewhere began and, after some Imperial Navy factional internal strife, the project was finally reviewed commendable. Mission training was under way by mid-year.
The deliberate attack depended mainly on torpedoes. Imperial Japanese military leaders came into view to have mixed opinion about the attack. Yamamoto was miserable about the failed timing of the breaking off of negotiations. Yamamoto did seem to arrest his feelings about the attack. Japanese misinformation caricature map from around 1941 represented a U. S.
barricade of Japan from the Philippines. The Japanese people living in Japan and its territories accepted their government's grounds for the attack and supported the war attempt until their nation admitted defeat in 1945. In 1942, former Japanese ambassador to the United States, Saburo Kurusu traced the "chronological predictability of the war of Greater East Asia. " He mentioned that the Pearl Harbor attack was a reaction to Washington's enduring belligerence toward Japan. In the words of Kurusu, the aggravations commenced with the San Francisco School incident and the United States' racist strategies on Japanese immigrants, and terminated in the 'belligerent's crap metal and oil refuse by the United States and allied countries directly for control of Empire of Japan while increasing their influences in throughout Asia. He said that it came in direct response to an effective challenge, the Hull note, from the US government, and that the bombshell attack was not treacherous because it should have been expected. Another reason is the progressing negative response of succeeding governments in Japan to relate to Japanese children the full degree of Japan's war remorse and the awful violence committed by the Japanese military in China and during 1941 to 1945 Pacific War.
Similar with this refutation, is an increasing push in Japan (i) to claim that Japanese troops invaded China as liberators of the Chinese from Western colonialism and (ii) to charge the United States for instigating Japan to bomb Pearl Harbor Conclusion: The attack on Pearl Harbor was a premeditated success, which far surpassed the prospect of its planners. By implementing this attack, it has few parallels in the military history of any era. It will be remembered as a strategic blunder for Japan. Indeed, Admiral Yamamoto, who developed the Pearl Harbor attack, had forecasted that United States had strong army fleet. Even a booming attack on the US Fleet could not succeed a war with the United States, because American prolific competence was huge. In the Pearl Harbor attack, Japanese couldnt fulfill the main objective to destroy the three American aircraft carriers stationed in the Pacific, but they were not present.
Bibliography: 1) Charles Matching - author. Magazine Title: History Today. Volume: 50. Issue: 12. Publication Date: December 2000. Page Number: 41. 2) Hans Louis Trefousse, What Happened at Pearl Harbor?
Documents Pertaining to the Japanese Attack of December 7, 1941, and Its Background; Twayne Publishers. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1958. Page Number: 13 - 20. 3) Isoroku Yamamoto to Shigeharu Matsumoto (Japanese cabinet minister) and Fumimaro Kondoye (Japanese prime minister), quoted in Eagle Against the Sun: The American War With Japan by Ronald Spector (Vintage, 1985). 4) Lawrence Said; Journal Title: Air Power History. Volume: 48. Issue: 3.
Publication Year: 2001. Page Number: 38 5) Robert Guillain, I saw Tokyo burning: An eyewitness narrative from Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima (J. Murray, 1981). 6) Roland H. Worth, Jr. , No Choice But War: the United States Embargo Against Japan and the Eruption of War in the Pacific (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 1995). ISBN 0 - 7864 - 0141 - 9. 7) Saburo Kurusu, Historical inevitability of the war of Greater East Asia, Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service, Tokyo, November 26, 1942 (accessed June 10, 2005). 8) Stetson Conn et al, "Chapter 7 - The Attack on Pearl Harbor" Guarding the United States and Its Outposts, Center of Military History United States Army, Washington, D. C. , 2000.
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