Pearl Harbor, the American Perspective

About, sixty three 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. Usually, the American public lacks a detailed 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.

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. The party took an abundance of land over. 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. In Susan Wels book December7, 1941 PEARL HARBOR America's Darkest Day, Franklin D. Roosevelt says in October, 1940 "I shall say and I shall say it again, again, and again, your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars"(Wels 44). 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. (Smith 7). The islands are between the United States and Japan a perfect place fro 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 woth all of their modifications was nearly impenetrable. General George Marshall said about Pearl Harbor "the strongest forces on the world"(Wels 59). The United States was overconfident that they were prepared fro a war with Japan saying in a news article in Fortune magazine in 1940 "war with Japan, is the only war which the U.S. is prepared"(Wels 59).

Japan was becoming a world power, really strengthening themselves in the early twentieth century. The Japanese were laying the groundwork to their 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. (Willmott 14). 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 on the rocks. In Carl Smith's book entitled Pearl Harbor he offers a description of the weakening relationship between the United States and Japan saying "Japanese and American spheres of influence grew, stretching thinner, threatening to burst, Japan and the United States moved on a collision course: the former needed to grow, the latter wanted to maintain the status quo. Relations worsened, and nationalistic distrust blossomed"(Smith 9).

As mentioned in the previous paragraph as Japan started to expand the ties between Japan and the United States started to decline. Japan sent Ambassador Nomura to try to amend the situation with the United States. The Japanese needed more resources with their new 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 came frequently and met with Cordell Hull saying that they would settle for nothing less than a Co-Prosperity Influence so negotiations slowed to a standstill (Smith 24). The new powerful fleet that the United States assembled at Pearl the US thought as a deterrent 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 wanted. Admiral Yamamoto began secretly planning a "surprise carrier based air attack"(Wels 66), on Pearl Harbor. This was one part of his plan titled the "Hawaii Operation" (Smith 25). 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 are described by Susan Wels in her book entitled December7, 1941 PEARL HARBOR America's Darkest Day, she says "There would be many problems to resolve before, Yamamoto's Hawaii Operation had any reasonable prospects 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. Dropped, from planes aerial torpedoes 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 maintain the critical element