Lost Evidence: "Pearl Harbor" 3 of 5

The 7 December 1941 Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor was one of the great defining moments in history. A single carefully-planned and well-executed stroke removed the United States Navy's battleship force as a possible threat to the Japanese Empire's southward expansion. America, unprepared and now considerably weakened, was abruptly brought into the Second World War as a full combatant.
Eighteen months earlier, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had transferred the United States Fleet to Pearl Harbor as a presumed deterrent to Japanese agression. The Japanese military, deeply engaged in the seemingly endless war it had started against China in mid-1937, badly needed oil and other raw materials. Commercial access to these was gradually curtailed as the conquests continued. In July 1941 the Western powers effectively halted trade with Japan. From then on, as the desperate Japanese schemed to seize the oil and mineral-rich East Indies and Southeast Asia, a Pacific war was virtually inevitable.
By late November 1941, with peace negotiations clearly approaching an end, informed U.S. officials (and they were well-informed, they believed, through an ability to read Japan's diplomatic codes) fully expected a Japanese attack into the Indies, Malaya and probably the Philippines. Completely unanticipated was the prospect that Japan would attack east, as well.
The U.S. Fleet's Pearl Harbor base was reachable by an aircraft carrier force, and the Japanese Navy secretly sent one across the Pacific with greater aerial striking power than had ever been seen on the World's oceans. Its planes hit just before 8AM on 7 December. Within a short time five of eight battleships at Pearl Harbor were sunk or sinking, with the rest damaged. Several other ships and most Hawaii-based combat planes were also knocked out and over 2400 Americans were dead. Soon after, Japanese planes eliminated much of the American air force in the Philippines, and a Japanese Army was ashore in Malaya.
These great Japanese successes, achieved without prior diplomatic formalities, shocked and enraged the previously divided American people into a level of purposeful unity hardly seen before or since. For the next five months, until the Battle of the Coral Sea in early May, Japan's far-reaching offensives proceeded untroubled by fruitful opposition. American and Allied morale suffered accordingly. Under normal political circumstances, an accomodation might have been considered.
However, the memory of the "sneak attack" on Pearl Harbor fueled a determination to fight on. Once the Battle of Midway in early June 1942 had eliminated much of Japan's striking power, that same memory stoked a relentless war to reverse her conquests and remove her, and her German and Italian allies, as future threats to World peace.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• pearl
• harbor
• attack
• japan
• empire
• axis
• allies
• pacific
• midway
• japanese
• suicide
• kamikaze
• Lost
• evidence

[millionairembryo]

It's a damn crying shame that we Americans have to live with (insert your expletive of choice) saying this attack was justified because of World Trade or Iraq or the Indians or Illegal Immigration or the English Lanquage or whatever.

It's just a damn shame.

Hats off to our veterans for their service and sacrifice.

[MaryFairyXM]

STFU! u racist ass-hole.

[Marzaq87]

@TheElephant79 so 3000 american lives are worth more than 80.000? i dont think either the victims of pearl or hiroshima deserved their fate

[madhammudeux]

@millionairembryo

This attack was justified because the Japanese knew about the Iraq invasion and the English language is confusing to them.

[TheElephant79]

Watchin this ít´s easy to say the Japs deserved the A-Bombs.

[pcaso100]

1 dislike? what a cunt

[MultiPlayaaa]

and the men who was at pearl harbour your the best

we love you all.........fuck the japs

[MultiPlayaaa]

the true heros are the men who fought and won ww2

thanks to all who survied and thanks to who died you will never be forgotton

[ryanfirewalker14]

at least we won ww2 so thts awesome

[mojoflo2528]

the only dislike is a japanese person

[MagnumPI4]

my great grandpa was on the CL-7 Raleigh manning a deck gun. the only thing he ever talked about in the war was when a zero flew right at his position and started lighting him up with its cannons and he started throwing led back and the zero just barely missed him high and clipped a battleship and blew up. He said he still had nightmares about that

[t0ny0ngBayawak]

if they did not ignored those two early radar warnings, it might not happen to Pearl Harbor and even in the whole Pacific Theater. That's a very early warning and almost 2 hours is a lot of time to be prepared for battle. ohhh crap.!