Pearl Harbor Reaction Paper

Pearl Harbor is an American military base located in Oahu, named after the pearls that were found there. This base was originally a normal bay until the late 1800s when an agreement between America and Hawaii was made. At this time, Hawaii wanted to make their sugar industry stronger by taking away the money needed to send sugar into America. America accepted this, but in return gained access to Pearl Harbor and changed it into a refueling station for its army. 10 years after this agreement, America won a war against the Spanish, and gained land within the pacific such as the Philippines. America needed an army to support these new lands so, they started to change Pearl Harbor into an enormous army base. Although it suffered an attack from

When the bombing of pearl harbor took place, many people thought the United states remained neutral in WWII prior to this devastating event. Cartoons were being drawn of the U.S showing no aid or support to our allies such as the cartoon in document 3. The United States remained politically neutral in WWII prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, however the U.S. was preparing for war behind closed doors.

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.

Assisting its European allies in the war against the Nazi’s, the U.S. was focusing much of its attention on the Atlantic and European theatre. During this time most of the United States was focusing on the war planes and sending soldiers to help fight. With the focus being almost entirely on the Atlantic the U.S. Navy was slowly cannibalizing the Pacific fleet to help block shipping lanes and fight the German U-Boats that were ravaging the Atlantic coastlines and shipping lanes. With the war raging on so far to our east and at the time, no viable threat laid to our west. During this year diplomatic peace talks had begun with the Japanese in the attempt to strengthen our relationships with non allied countries in the western pacific. The Japanese on the other hand had a different idea of things to come. Prior to 1941, the Japanese thought that if a war were to begin that the United States would be their only enemy, however, Japan's entry into the Tripartite Alliance and the United States' aid commitments to Britain had created a new international line-up which made previous Japanese naval planning obsolete. [1] With previous planning now obsolete a new concept to include war against the United States, Great Britain, and the Netherlands was now a necessity. In January of 1941 Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the commander-in-chief of the Japanese combined fleet conceived a plan of a surprise attack on the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl

By the early morning of December 7, 1941 the Japanese Naval force led by Admiral Nagumo had parked his fleet of 6 aircraft carriers 230 nautical miles off the north coast of the Hawaiian Islands completely undetected. The fleet had approximately 423 aircraft with a final destination of Pearl Harbor. At 600 a.m. the first wave of 180 aircraft were launch to attach the sleeping Hawaiian bay. At 702 a.m. an Army radar station sights the aircraft inbound and report to their direct officer who is aware of a squadron of B-17’s due in from the west coast and write off the sighting am friendly forces. This was the first of many mistakes that would become evident within the hour.

In January 1941, reports were received that Japan might attack Pearl Harbor but military officials ignored these reports. They considered attacks on the Philippines and other European countries to be more likely, underestimating Japan’s ability to conceal preparations for such an operation. Due to the success of the cryptanalysis machine called, Magic, American leaders started breaking Japanese military operational codes. The codes that were deciphered showed Japan was likely to take some type of military action (Irive). At that time, Japan had only a 12-month supply of petroleum to fuel its economy and war operations left. So the U.S. anticipated Japan would act quickly! The only questions that could not be answered were when and where (Woods). Pearl Harbor had been a major naval base since before 1898. In early

On November 26, 1941, the Japanese Task Force comprised of six aircraft carriers. A support force, which included two battleships, three cruisers, nine destroyers, three submarines, escorted it and eight oil supply ships, began their trek to Hawaii. They must travel four thousand miles across open sea and remain undetected by the UNITED STATES Forces. (Wisniewski 20) The UNITED STATES Military knew a surprise attack by Japan was possible and they thought they were prepared. Adm. Husband E. Kimmel and Lt. Gen. Walter C. Short, the commanders of the UNITED STATES Naval and Army forces in Hawaii, respectively, had regularly scheduled training exercises and had taken many precautions to avert disaster. (Pearl Harbor’s History, Filmstrip)

On December 6, President Roosevelt made his final plea to the Japanese Emperor for peace.4 The Japanese did not respond. Later that day the U.S. received and decoded 13 out of 14 messages from Japan. These messages led the U.S. to believe that Japan was on the verge of attacking somewhere in Southeast Asia. On December 7, the U.S. received the final part of the Japanese message that all diplomatic relations were to be severed. Another message was intercepted about an hour later. Due to delays the message could not be forwarded to Pearl Harbor until noon, 4 hours after the attack started. The first attack by Japan consisted of 183 planes, and took off for Pearl Harbor at 6 am. At 7:02 Army operators detected these planes and alerted Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor mistook these planes for American B-17’s due from the U.S. West Coast. At 7:15 the second group of Japanese planes took off for Pearl Harbor. At this point Pearl Harbor did not see itself in any danger and did not see an attack coming.5

On December 7, 1941 Japan stealthily attacked the U.S. Naval base located at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii resulting in many casualties. This IMC plan will outline the objectives, strategies and tactics in order to promote awareness of the attacks as well as develop positive community involvement.

intelligence was aware that the Japanese fleet was on the move in late 1941. In the book, Day of Deceit by Robert Stinnett, he stated “they were able to intercept information from the Japanese fleet as they were crossing the Pacific, including information that the Japanese carriers were west of Hawaii on the evening of December 6th.” (Smiley, G., 1970) Japanese messages were intercepted and deciphered showing Japanese spies were asked to gather detailed information about the base at Pearl Harbor, but sadly this information was never given to the U.S. leaders to analyze. (Attack on Pearl Harbor, Why, 2016)

Hart (2007) describes the Pearl Harbor incident as a failed “level of naval preparedness” due to the disregard by Admiral Kimmel of the warning signs sent from the White House. The U.S. Navy believed that the Japanese would not dare make an assault on U.S. soil, nor did they have the technology to perform an attack across the 4,000 miles of blank sea. This egotistical decision making, or the lack of, had devastating effects that consequently led the U.S. into declaring war on Japan the following

Yamamoto had a complex invasion plan that included a second operation against the Aleutian Islands near Alaska, however, because of the damages sustained at the Battle of Coral Sea, his Carrier Strike Force consisted of only four aircraft carriers defended by only a handful of cruisers and destroyers (“HIGH NOON ON THE HIGH SEAS”). Even with the depleted fleet, the Japanese remained confident that the upcoming battle would be a swift victory for their advancement into the Pacific. Little did the Japanese know that U.S Intelligence was hard at work gathering intel to thwart an offensive on Midway.

First off, the Japanese totally threw off the US and pulled off a true surprise attack that was completely unexpected. According to Pearl Harbor Raid Information, the Japanese had the U.S. thinking that they were going to attack the Indies, as the Japanese were natural resource deficient. Also, the “diplomatic codes” America thought they were reading supported this claim. But what the US didn’t know is that the Japanese planned on disabling the naval base in Pearl Harbor, where reinforcements had come in a month prior. The Japanese wanted full reign over the Pacific Ocean, so they could

They had also issued radar equipment able to detect planes up to 100 miles away, in darkness, storm or daylight and advised that war was imminent and reconnaissance should be undertaken. They had no idea the war had already begun and in 11 days time America would be on the forefront of a Japanese attack.

The event that brought forth the Idea to attack japan and destroy the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was Pearl Harbor. Japan had a history of executing surprise attacks before declaring war; one main example is when japan invaded Port Arthur in the Russo- Japanese war which would prove to be very successful . Many books were written prior to 1941 predicting an invasion of the Hawaiian Islands to gain access to the United States mainland including ‘The conflict of nations’, and ‘The valor of ignorance’ . The United States saw the military base on Hawaii as a point of power in the pacific and a last defense of their home land. Japan saw Hawaii as at point of expansion and an easy way for the United States to launch an attack on them. Attacking Pearl Harbor was not the original plan for japan. Japan wanted to bring the United States to them, but Japanese commander- in –Chief Isoroku Yamomoto pushed for an attack on the United States .pearl harbor was the home to the United States naval fleet and many fuel reserves. One of the main objects of japan was to destroy aircraft carriers and sink battle ships to put the United States fleet out of action and to discourage the people of the United States to not join the World War. The Japanese army spent over a year planning the attack and training pilots. The Japanese even created special torpedoes to operate in pear harbors shallow waters .