Japan's Infamy: The Battle Of Pearl Harbor

On the Japanese side of intelligence, Yamamoto believed to have the element of surprise at Midway, which was thought to draw the Americans out of Pearl Harbor. Yamamoto had numerical naval superiority in the Pacific to defeat the Americans at sea but remained unaware that the code breakers ascertained its operational and strategic plan to attack at Midway. Spector argues that Japanese submarines knew the American forces were planning something at Pearl Harbor, but the intelligence was never passed on to Yamamoto. Additionally, Yamamoto believed that two of the American carriers were sunk at Coral Sea, which the Yorktown was hastily being repaired in Pearl Harbor. In reality, the Japanese had no idea where the American fleet or carriers were leading up to the Battle of Midway.

Beginning of the year in 1941, FDR decided that the Pacific Fleet would move to Hawaii from San Diego in the hopes of discouraging the invasion of the Japanese. Negotiations between Washington and Tokyo had been going on for several months without a resolution. On July 2, 1941, the Imperial High Command was tired of negotiations with the United States and needed to proceed with their development within Asia even with the embargo in place and meaning it would be at a high risk of war with the US. [4] Therefore, the Japanese had deceived the United States, ignored the arbitration, and moved forward with their plans. The United States had hoped that this restrictive embargo would halt Japan’s assault as negotiations had continued well into November.

The American proposals included the following principals: respect for the territory and sovereignty of all nations, no interference in the internal affairs of other countries, equal opportunity, and support for the status quo in the Pacific by peaceful means. Secretary Hull promised to free Japanese assets and resume normal trade with Japan if these conditions were met. The Japanese asked for two weeks to consider the proposals and by November 26 the aircraft carrier force that attacked Pearl Harbor was already deployed for that task. American intelligence was expecting a large attack by Japan but believed that it would take place in the Philippines or Southeast Asia. President Tojo of Japan warned the U.S. and England on November 29 that British and American influence in Asia must be eliminated. Japan officially rejected the Hull proposals on December 1 and on December 6, President Roosevelt personally appealed to Emperor Hirohito to pursue peace and withdraw from Indo-China. Early on Sunday morning, December 7, 1941, Japanese air and sea forces made a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, a naval base of the United States. Simultaneously, Japan launched attacks on the Philippines, Guam, and Midway Island and against British forces in Hong Kong and the Malay Peninsula. There were eight battleships at pearl Harbor. The Arizona, California and Utah were sunk. The Nevada was grounded,

World War II was arguably the largest global conflict in history, and in my opinion, it’s also the most interesting. The majority of it took place in the Eastern Hemisphere, with the United States only joining for the last four years. The American public wished to avoid war after experiencing the effects of World War 1, but were dragged into conflict by the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941. I never understood why Japan thought bombing the United States would have any beneficial outcomes for them, and I thought reading this book would give me a good understanding. As for taking this course, although studying history isn’t one of my passions, it seems like an interesting and fun hobby. Also, I think how humanity evolved to its current state should be universally known, and taking this course over regular World History would give me a better understanding of it.

Infamy: Pearl Harbor and its Aftermath was written by John Toland, an American author and historian. He was a graduate of Williams College in Massachusetts and attended Yale School of Drama, with his primary goal of becoming a playwright. Some of his most famous books were written about the World War II Era. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his book The Rising Sun, focusing on the history of Japan during WWII from the Japanese point of view, rather than the American side. He also wrote Adolph Hitler: A Definitive Biography and Battle: The Story of the Bulge. Many of his books focused on the military, so he was quite qualified to write this book.

Pearl Harbor, the beginning of the war between Japan and the United States, was the start of dreadful war organized by Japanese aircraft. The attack was a withheld, destructive attack against the United State's naval base in Hawaii. This attack on December 7, 1941 was originally a plan to conquer the Dutch East Indies without being interrupted by the U.S. Pacific fleet. The Japanese were tired of negotiations with the United States, they wanted to continue their expansion, but the United States had placed an extremely restrictive embargo on Japan in the hopes of curbing Japan's aggression. This terrible ambush resulted in the United State's entry into World War II. The aerial attacks were sent in two waves, this resulted in the sinking of multiple U.S. Battleships, Destroyers, Cruisers, and Auxiliaries, which led to thousands of U.S. personnel casualties and many wounded army, marines, and navy soldiers including many citizens.

Despite all the success Japan had early in the war, they did not do as much damage to the United States Pacific fleet as they would have like to have done. This gave America a false sense of security at the time when Japan was preparing to take stronger action. Rear Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto’s plan was to draw in the remaining American ships into an area where they could be attacked and destroyed by a much greater number of Japanese vessels. Admiral Yamamoto thought that if Japan captured valuable territory like the Midway Islands that the United States could not afford to give up, he could destroy the remaining American ships with ease because the Americans would have no supply chain.

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the Commander-in-Chief of the Japanese Combined Fleet, was the principal architect of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Yamamoto himself was personally opposed to war with the UNITED STATES, but knew that Japan’s only hope of success would be to achieve a quick and decisive victory. Japan needed to knock out the UNITED STATES Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. (Pearl Harbor’s History, Filmstrip)

Pearl Harbor is a strategically placed naval base located near Honolulu, Hawaii. It defends the United States’ interests in the Pacific Ocean and Asia. Japan’s strategy was to expand its empire across Asia capturing parts of China, Singapore, Philippines, and the Dutch East Indies. Crippling the U.S. naval fleet at Pearl Harbor would have enabled the Japanese to capture these Asian regions without the interference of the United States Military (Higgs, 2006) (See Appendix B for map of Hawaii and Japan).

Japan’s wanted to attack Midway to gain power in the Pacific Ocean and to eliminate the United States Navy for a long time. Since the U.S. suffered a major defeat at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet, felt he could take advantage of the U.S. since they were weak in his mind (Hone). Japan was fixated on settling their differences with the U.S., so they began risking large naval units in Pacific battles. An article posted in the Los Angeles Time, “Japs Risk Large Naval Units in Blows at U.S.” says, “For the sixth time in six months Japan made a deadly bid to capture the mastery of the Pacific, and for the sixth time she has failed after paying a price that is fast becoming prohibitive,” (Symonds). Posted just after the Battle of Midway it showed that the Japanese had been planning this.

Planning had begun early in 1941 under the oversight of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. He won approval for formal planning and training for an attack from the Imperial Japanese Navy General Staff, but only after much conflict with the Japanese Naval Headquarters (Parshall, 2011). Over the next several months, pilots were trained, equipment was prepared, and intelligence was collected. Despite these preparations, Emperor Hirohito did not approve the attack plan until November 5, 1941. By late 1941 many people in the United States and the general public in Japan believed that the conflict between the two nations was imminent. While United States Pacific bases had been placed on high alert on many occasions, but U.S. officials doubted Pearl Harbor would be the first target; instead, they expected the Philippines would be attacked first. They also believed that Japan was not capable of mounting more than one major naval operation at a time (Parshall, 2011). Ever since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, there has been much debate as to how and why the United States was caught off-guard by the attack, and how much American officials knew of these Japanese

“December 7, 1941 - A Date Which Will live in Infamy.” (Roosevelt, Franklin D.). Even today, nearly seventy years later, we still remember the Pearl Harbor attack launched by Japan. This catastrophic attack on the United States naval base in Hawaii was what pushed the United States of America into World War two. A Japanese Admiral decided to attack the base secretly hoping to cripple the U.S. fleet, this eventually led to United States involvement in the war and prove to be a huge mistake for the Japanese. Today we can witness the long lasting affects Pearl Harbor had on us. We can see the affects it had on Japan because of our retaliation for the bombing and attack of Pearl Harbor. The cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki are witnesses to what the Pearl Harbor attack eventually led too. The United Sates government declared war on Japan, which led to fighting in the Pacific, which eventually led to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the surrender of the Japanese government. Even until today Japan has restrictions on its military capacity. The infamous day of The Pearl Harbor Attack and its aftermath affected both the United States and Japan greatly and even today, nearly seventy year later, we can still witness some of the long lasting effects.

suffered a major defeat at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet, took advantage of the situation the U.S. was put in after its losses during Pearl Harbor (“Japs Risk Large Naval Units...”). With the backbone of U.S. Pacific Fleet torn out, Japan made several attempts to dominate the Pacific. Japan was anxious to settle their differences with the U.S., so they began risking large naval units in Pacific battles. An article posted in the Los Angeles Time, “Japs Risk Large Naval Units in Blows at U.S.” says, “For the sixth time in six months Japan made a deadly bid to capture the mastery of the Pacific, and for the sixth time she has failed after paying a price that is fast becoming prohibitive,” (“Japs Risk Large Naval Units...”). This article was posted days after the Battle of Midway, on June 7th, 1942 reflecting the actions of the Japanese Navy in the previous months. The Japanese were anxious to pounce on the weakened U.S. after Pearl Harbor, backing their attacks with large naval units. The Japanese felt that they needed to take over Midway Island in order to claim dominance over the U.S. in the Pacific.

More important, however, was Yamamoto's belief that the Americans had been demoralized by their frequent defeats during the preceding six months. Yamamoto felt deception would be required to lure the U.S. fleet into a fatally compromised situation.[16] To this end, he dispersed his forces so that their full extent (particularly his battleships) would be unlikely to be discovered by the Americans prior to battle. However, his

Shortly before 8am on Sunday 7 December 1941 , the first of two waves of Japanese aircraft launched a devastating attack on the U.S. Pacific Fleet, moored in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The raid, which came with no warning and no declaration of war, destroyed four battleships, leaving an additional 4 damaged in merely two hours. The attack destroyed 188 US aircraft, killed more than 2,400 Americans, and injured another 1,200 . Although remembered as “the day that will live in infamy”, the exact reason behind the attack on Pearl Harbor still remains unknown. Some believe that the Japanese were galvanized by Germany to attack the United States because of the assumption that the United States would be unable to concentrate all of its resources toward the fight with Japan. Germany desired assistance in the fight during World War II and, because of that, nearly guaranteed the United States’ defeat if Japan attacked. On the other side, it is believed that the Japanese prompted the Pacific war with the attack on Pearl Harbor in order to eliminate their primary competitor for resources in the Pacific and fulfill its destiny of creating a “greater East Asian co-prosperity sphere” .