Attack on Pearl Harbor

About, sixty-five years ago on a large naval base in a small state named Hawaii the United States of America was secretly attacked by the Japanese. Today, this dramatic event is known as Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor is credited for pushing the United States into World War Two. The American government lacked knowledge of Pearl Harbor. The Japanese way of life attributed to the way that they attacked the United States. The Japanese felt that rather than surrender they would kill themselves in honor of their emperor. So, men where willing to go on Kamikaze missions where they knew that they were not going to be coming back to their families. The United States was unprepared for the attack. December7, 1941 was America's Darkest Day until 911.

Before the attack on Pearl Harbor many other things had taken place in Europe, Africa, and Asia. The United States was remaining neutral to any fighting and attack from any other nation. At this time America and Japan were supposedly still at peace. Adolf Hitler and his new Nazi party were taking over. This party took a lot of land. They were becoming a world power stomping all over all of Europe. But Roosevelt insisted the United States was going to remain neutral. The British and the French were upset because the United States agreed to be an ally of France and Britain at the end of World War I with the Treaty of Versailles. Most Americans believed that even though the US was supplying Germany with more goods at the time, the United States would find a way to stay neutral.

The place where Pearl Harbor is located was not well known in the early 20th century. Pearl Harbor lies in the Hawaiian Islands, which are located in the Pacific Ocean. Kauai, Niihau, Oahu, Molokai, Maui, Kahoolawe, Lanai, and Hawaii form the major islands of Hawaii. The islands are between the United States and Japan a perfect place for a military base. Hawaii was discovered in the Eighteenth century. The land is very fertile and it can yield American and Asian products such as Sugar, and Rice. The US pacific fleet arrived in Hawaii in 1940 and a lot of workers and soldiers came out to help expand Pearl Harbor, giving it more power, fuel storage facilities, shelter, more supplies, and repair the ships in the fleet.

The population of Hawaii at the time of the attack of Pearl Harbor consisted mostly of American and Asian people. The Japanese thought Pearl Harbor was the perfect place to attack because the US had a base there and it was fairly close to Japan and it was not close to the US military headquarters. The Unites States though, thought that they had the strongest stronghold and that Pearl Harbor worth all of their modifications was nearly indestructible. The United States was overconfident that they were prepared for a war with Japan.

Japan was becoming a world power, really strengthening themselves in the early twentieth century. The Japanese were planning to attack on Pearl Harbor. The Japanese attacked and took control of many parts of China, and Manchuria. The Japanese took control of three of the four provinces in Manchuria and were getting ready to take control of more. Japan was quickly also modernizing themselves on the industrial and economic side as well. Japan's industrial revolution saw the modernizing of manufacturing facilities and the upgrading of the military. Japan felt that the Europeans were limited the expansion of their new world power. After the war broke out the Japanese and the United States relationship was collapsing.

Japan started to expand the ties between Japan and the United States started to decline. Japan sent Ambassador Nomura to try to improve the situation with the United States. The Japanese needed more resources with their newly found Industrial wealth. These resources where in Southeast Asia and the US had placed an embargo on Japanese products which furthered ruined the relationship.

Ambassador Nomura met with Cordell Hull saying that they would settle for nothing less than a Co-Prosperity Influence, so negotiations idled. The new powerful fleet that the United States assembled at Pearl Harbor, the US thought as a restriction for Japan to not attack them, but Japan felt this as almost a stab in the throat pushing them against the wall and urging them to fight. The Japanese military wanted to find a solution to conquer the resource rich parts of Asia. If a negotiation could not be reached between the United States and Japan by November 23, 1941 the Japanese were going to peruse a military operation to get what they wanted.

Admiral Yamamoto began secretly planning a surprise carrier based air attack on Pearl Harbor. This was one part of his plan titled the "Hawaii Operation" .The Japanese got key information on Pearl Harbor, because it was in the City of Oahu and any citizen or spy could look at it. A spy took photos of the naval basin, the military posts, and other things. After a couple of months of compiling every move made in and out of the Harbor the Japanese knew every ship, and when they were scheduled for duty and which ships were in for repair.

The problems that Admiral Yamamoto would have to resolve the Hawaii Operation had any reasonable prediction of success. Most significant was the technical challenge of launching aerial torpedoes against ships in the shallow waters of the harbor, which were only about forty feet deep. The torpedoes were dropped from planes would typically plunge to a depth of at least seventy-five feet before turning and hitting their target. At Pearl Harbor, they would hit the bottom before they had any chance to strike US ships. A second problem would be to maintain the critical element of surprise in an operation involving dozens of warships traveling vast distances across the Pacific.

The US was convinced that if they were going to engage in any sort of war that the Atlantic Ocean would be the site of more action so in April and May of 1941 they transferred three battleships, one aircraft carrier, seventeen destroyers, and four cruisers to the Atlantic fleet. This dramatic move weakened the US force in the Pacific by about 25 percent. Japan's Oil was beginning to run out they only had about a two years supply left so they felt that this was the time to attack.

On July 14th, Japan went to France and demanded the right to occupy Indochina. On July 28th Japan invaded Vietnam and made progress in an invasion of Malaya, Singapore and the Philippines. They were coming very close to the very oil rich Dutch East Indies. The United States was to stop this powerful nation from gaining control of these resources. The United States, the British and the Dutch shut down 75 percent of Japanese trade and limiting 90 percent of Japan's oil supply. Japan was ready