History of Pearl Harbor
by Staff WriterOn December 7, 1941, a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii (the Pacific Fleet of the U.S. Navy base) by the Imperial Japanese Navy, caught America off guard and shook it to its core. This attack propelled America headfirst into World War II. Because of the Pearl Harbor bombing, a neutral nation that had previously done its best to avoid any conflict that did not involve it, America now had no choice but to enter into what would be one of the worst battles anyone would ever see.
Background
Japan had been on the battle field since 1937, fighting China in the Second Sino-Japanese War over control of the Asian mainland. The result of the hostilities was an increase in military tension between Japan and the U.S. Through technically neutral in matters of international diplomacy, the U.S. and its ally Britain disapproved of Japan’s actions in invading China and implemented a scrap metal boycott as retribution. Followed by an oil boycott, a freezing of assets and the eventual shutdown of the Panama Canal to all Japanese shipping, the oil boycott was the most threatening for Japan, which had no oil resources of its own and relied solely on oil from outside the country.
Things came to a head in the matter with the Hull note of late November 1941, which then-Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tijo felt constituted an ultimatum that backed Japan into a corner. The nation was left with three courses of action: give in to the U.S. and U.K. and get out of china, allow the lack of fuel to cripple the Japanese military or escalate the conflict by trying to acquire oil resources in Southeast Asia. They opted for the third.
Inspired by similar British attacks on the Italian front earlier in WWII and by U.S. Army and Navy preparatory exercises (for exactly this sort of attack), Japan choose Pearl Harbor in the hopes of neutralizing U.S. naval power in the Pacific – even if it was only for a short time – and acquiring the oil resources it needed. Even the commander of the project, Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku, figured that the attack would only put the U.S. Navy out of commission in the Pacific for a year at the most.
Preparations for the raid had begun in January of 1941, with Japan secretly creating and testing torpedoes that could be launched in the shallow waters of Pearl Harbor. (Torpedoes normally need deep water for optimum effect.) They came up with the Type 95 torpedo; the one that ended up inflicting the most damage on the U.S. naval ships at Pearl Harbor.
On November 26, 1941, a fleet of six aircraft carriers, two battleships, three cruisers, nine destroyers and three fleet submarines left Japan bound for Hawaii, comprising the largest aerial strike force ever to emerge from Japan. The war was on, but the U.S. didn’t know it yet.
America’s Preparedness
Though the U.S. had sufficient military intelligence reports hinting toward a possible attack by Japan (including a number of warnings on the day of the attack itself), it neglected to heighten the level of security at Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7.
American commanders were also cautioned that the Japanese were fashioning shallow-water torpedoes that could pose a threat. They took no steps to acknowledge the gravity of the warning. No torpedo nets were installed and no additional planes were put in place to launch a reconnaissance mission. In short, the U.S. Navy in the Pacific looked more like a military in training than an army on alert at Pearl Harbor.
Bombing of Pearl Harbor
On the morning of December 7, the U.S. Army’s radar detection service detected the Japanese advance but dismissed it as simply an arrival of another U.S. aircraft, an arrival that had been previously anticipated. A second foreshadowing came in the radio distress signals sent by the U.S. aircraft that were shot down as they found themselves in the unfortunate position of flying along the same route the Japanese were traveling on as they made their way to Pearl Harbor. The messages either did not make it to the base or were unable to be pieced together by the soldier on duty.
At 7:53 a.m. (Hawaiian time) a wave of Japanese warplanes descended on the numerous bases on Pearl Harbor, showering the island with a hailstorm of bombs. A second wave of Japanese aircraft would arrive moments later to finish off what its sister fleet had begun. By the time it was all over a mere 90 minutes later, more than 2,000 American soldiers and civilians were dead, 200 aircraft were lost and 12 ships were destroyed, including five battleships totaled beyond repair.
Despite prior warnings, the Americans were caught completely off guard by Japan's arrival. Its ammunition lockers were locked making access to munitions time consuming and fatal, given that there was no time to waste. Fortunately however, the Pacific Fleet's three aircraft carriers were not in port that morning and were spared, as were oil tank farms and machine shops, resulting in a much quicker rebound from the attack than anticipated.
A few senior Japanese officers urged Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo to launch a third attack intended to obliterate the oil storage deposits, machine shops and dry docks that weren't devastated the first two times but he decided against it for several reasons:
• Another strike would likely only spell more casualties for Japanese pilots now that the Americans were on their guard and ready to better defend Pearl Harbor.
• All of the aircraft used in the first two strikes were so used up and it would take too much time to prepare more aircraft for a third. In doing so, Japanese forces would run the risk of being found and attacked by the U.S.
• Japanese planes were running dangerously low on fuel and remaining on Pearl Harbor any longer would have spelled danger.
• Launching a third strike would have meant that Japanese aircraft would have had to return to their carriers after dark. While this is not a problem today, in 1941 nighttime aircraft carrier ventures were in their infancy and no proper protocol had been established.
• Japan had pretty much completed its mission of neutralizing the American Pacific Fleet by its second operation, so why embark on a third?
• Japan had already fortunately managed to avoid being detected by the U.S. on their trip into Pearl Harbor so it was best to get out. The longer it hung around, the more it ran the risk of being uncovered by U.S. submarines.
• The attack on Pearl Harbor took Japanese resources away from their job of plotting an attack on the oil-rich areas of the Philippines, Burma, the Dutch East Indies and Malaya and Nagumo was advised not to put Japanese planes at risk any more than they had to be.
Japan wasted no time in attacking the above-mentioned nations almost immediately after the Pearl Harbor bombing. After setting the U.S. naval fleet back a good six months while it underwent the process of rebuilding and regrouping, Japan was able to ransack most of Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean and take much of the area for itself.
The Aftermath
The Japanese did a brilliant job in temporarily paralyzing the U.S. Navy in the Pacific but it turned out to be just that – temporary – as the sleeping lion that was America was now awake and ready to fight back with fervor.
On December 8, an outraged U.S. government officially declared war on Japan and immediately began mobilizing its troops. While the nation had previously been divided on the issue of going to war, the events of the Pearl Harbor attack instantaneously united Americans in their hatred for Japan and their eagerness to avenge what they considered to be a duplicitous attack.
The bombing of Pearl Harbor was considered a tactical victory for Japan but set in motion the wheels that would arguably change the course of the war. The U.S. military, once mobilized, had incredible power and resources behind it and has been credited by some with aiding in the Allies’ stance on unconditional surrender by its enemies. It was now in a position to use those substantial resources in both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters. (Germany also officially declared war on the U.S. on December 11, further outraging Americans and leading to the U.S. entering the war in Europe with vigor.)
In the long run, the loss of its battleships turned out to be less of a blow to the American naval fleet than previously anticipated. With their main source of weaponry now gone, the U.S. was forced to turn to aircraft carriers and submarines (essentially all they had left). The aircraft carrier soon established itself as the heart and artery of naval power, replacing the battleships of old and becoming the vessel that helped the U.S. win the war against Japan.
Back on the home front, the attack on Pearl Harbor spiked suspicions that Japanese Americans were somehow involved in plotting the assault through an espionage network, leading to the internment of Japanese Americans during the war. American citizens of Japanese origin were rounded up and sent to live in government housing facilities. The government apologized for the incident in the 1980s, admitting that the internments were born out of prejudice and “war hysteria” and paid reparations to the victims and their families.
