Pearl Harbor Attack

The Japanese desire to create an Asian empire was the prime motivation behind the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, Japanese attacks on eastern China in 1937, and the Japanese occupation of much of French Indochina in 1941. As a result of Japanese actions in Southeast Asia, Roosevelt froze all Japanese assets in the United States, cut off the sale of oil to Japan, and closed the Panama Canal to Japanese ships.

From July 1941 until the beginning of December, near constant negotiations took place between diplomats to regain normal trade relations with the United States, but American diplomats insisted that Japanese could never achieve their goal of a pacific empire as long as the United States was active militarily in the region. By December 1st the planning was complete for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

A few Japanese historians believe that Franklin Roosevelt of the impending attack on Pearl Harbor. The vast majority of historians believe that American intelligence knew the Japanese were going to attack somewhere, but did not know that the attack would be at Pearl Harbor; many in American military intelligence believed the Dutch East Indies would be the next target of the Japanese.

On December, 1941, 190 Japanese warplanes attacked the American pacific fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor. Many American airplanes damaged, six battleships were sunk, as were a number of smaller ships, and nearly 2400 Americans’ were killed during the attack. Luckily for the American navy, the aircraft carriers based at Pearl Harbor were out at sea on the morning of the attack.

Pearl Harbor Bombing:

Prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the war department assigned Japanese American men to white units. These men were drafted to serve in the United States military under the selective service training. Which stipulated that draftees and volunteers for military service would not be discriminated against because of race or color; they served in units with white soldiers such as the infantry regiments.

Bombing of Pearl Harbor brought the United States into the war, increasing the demand for labor as the country’s manufacturing industry tries went on a full wartime footing. As men entered the military, more and more women were drawn into industrial work, and white women who had pushed African Americans out of domestic work during the depths of the depression left those jobs for more lucrative manufacturing employment. Many black women moved back into domestic work. The main disadvantage of these jobs was the factory managers’ tendency to assign black women the most dangerous, most noxious tasks.

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor during World War II, people of Japanese ancestry were rounded up. Property was seized; families were separated. Many were sent to relocation centers or internment camps. Fifty years later, the United States government offered compensation for this mistake.

Pearl Harbor Timeline:

July 1937: Japan bombs Chinese cities.

September 1939: Nazi Germany attacks Poland and World War II begins.

December 1941: Japan attacks Pearl Harbor.

January 1941: Planning for the attack begins.

29 November: Imperial Cabinet votes for war.

7 December:

1) Dawn: Admiral Nagumo’s Combined Striking Fleet of six attack carriers, two battleships, three heavy cruisers and ten destroyers, northwest of Hawaii and undetected.
2) 06:00: The first wave of bombers and torpedo planes escorted by forty three fighters, takes off.
3) 07:15: The second wave takes off.
4) 06:55: The destroyer Ward alerts CinCPac that she had sunk a submarine in defensive area.
5) 07:40: Commander in Chief Admiral Kimmel is alerted.
6) 07:53: Fuchida signals ‘Tora, Tora, Tora’, the signal for success, as the first bomb crashes down on Ford Island.
7) 08:10: A one-ton bomb dropped from 10,000 feet blows the Arizona’s forward magazine apart.
8) 09:30: The destroyer Shaw is blown apart as her magazine is detonated, showering fragments into Honolulu itself.
9) 09:35: It is all over.