Pearl Harbor
The continued American embargo of vital war material, including oil, convinced the Japanese military that they would only be able to fully realize their goals through seizing the oil-rich islands of the Dutch East Indies (modern-day Indonesia) and Malaya. The problem, of course, was that such action would invariably lead to war with the United States. However, many within the Japanese Navy and Army had already come to the conclusion that war was inevitable, and so their focus turned to fighting a war that Japan would have a legitimate chance at winning. Any protracted war would lead to Japan’s ultimate defeat since the industrial power of the United States and its vast resource pool was something that Japan had no chance of overcoming. By the fall of 1941, the Japanese Army and Navy had agreed on a complicated plan of action that would involve an attack on British forces in Malaya and American forces in the Philippines followed by a quick seizure of the Dutch East Indies. Because of weather patterns and tides, any such attack had to be carried out by the end of December 1941 to increase its likelihood of success.
The continued American embargo of vital war material, including oil, convinced the Japanese military that they would only be able to fully realize their goals through seizing the oil-rich islands of the Dutch East Indies (modern-day Indonesia) and Malaya. The problem, of course, was that such action would invariably lead to war with the United States. However, many within the Japanese Navy and Army had already come to the conclusion that war was inevitable, and so their focus turned to fighting a war that Japan would have a legitimate chance at winning. Any protracted war would lead to Japan’s ultimate defeat since the industrial power of the United States and its vast resource pool was something that Japan had no chance of overcoming. By the fall of 1941, the Japanese Army and Navy had agreed on a complicated plan of action that would involve an attack on British forces in Malaya and American forces in the Philippines followed by a quick seizure of the Dutch East Indies. Because of weather patterns and tides, any such attack had to be carried out by the end of December 1941 to increase its likelihood of success.
The idea of an assault on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor had first been brought up among Japanese naval planners as early as 1936. Early in 1941, Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku commissioned a report exploring the possibility of a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor that focused on using air power to inflict maximum damage on the American fleet. The plan highlighted two potential difficulties with such an attack. First, in order to achieve maximum damage, the Japanese would need to develop a torpedo that could operate in the shallower waters of Pearl Harbor after being dropped by torpedo bombers. By the end of September, Japanese engineers had constructed a device that would allow their torpedoes to operate in such conditions. The second concern was that in order to achieve maximum striking power, it would be necessary for the Japanese fleet to approach within two hundred miles of Hawaii without being spotted. A Japanese ocean liner ran the proposed route in October 1941 without spotting a single ship, proving that such a surprise attack could be achieved.
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In October 1941, Yamamoto gained consent to proceed with the planning for his assault on Pearl Harbor. On October 16, Hideki Tojo, the Minister of War, was appointed the new prime minister. He was not a moderate, and on November 5, a meeting of the Japanese Imperial Conference decided that if no serious diplomatic breakthrough had occurred by December, then Japan would go to war.
Ambassador Nomura was ordered to offer two plans to the American government. The first was a repeat of traditional Japanese claims in the Far East. The second was a more promising offer. Japan offered to stop its expansion in Southeast Asia and to eventually evacuate from the Dutch East Indies if the United States would drop its embargo and end supplies to China. The American government rejected both options and offered its own counter-proposal that called for a complete Japanese abandonment of China and Indochina as well as an end to the puppet state of Manchukuo. Not surprisingly, the Japanese government rejected this, and on December 4 the Japanese imperial government officially adopted a decision to go to war, with December 7 as the target date.
On the morning of Sunday, December 7, 1941, six of the Japanese Navy’s eight carriers arrived undetected off of the northern coast of the island of Oahu. Two waves of torpedo bombers, dive-bombers, level bombers, and fighters would be employed in the attack. Thirty-eight cruisers and destroyers at anchor were damaged. In total, nearly 2,400 Americans were killed in the attack, the vast majority being the sailors and Marines killed in the sinking of the battleships Arizona and Oklahoma, and almost 1,200 were wounded. The Japanese lost only twenty-nine aircraft.
The attack had achieved its immediate goal of eliminating the Pacific Fleet as a threat, but in the long run, the attack on Pearl Harbor was not the victory the Japanese had hoped for. First, many of the vessels damaged were repaired and would see significant action in the Pacific fighting. Second, the Japanese failed to damage the crucial repair facilities and fuel dumps at Pearl Harbor. Third, the three American aircraft carriers in the Pacific were all at sea during the attack. This ensured that the American Navy would maintain its ability to strike back against the Japanese in the Pacific. Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, the attack on Pearl Harbor was the deathblow to an already weakened isolationist movement. The Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor galvanized the American public into widespread support for American entry into war.
Offensive in the Far East
Within hours of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese forces throughout Southeast Asia and the Central Pacific launched attacks on American and British possessions.These attacks aimed to provide the Japanese with a defensible line and were made in preparation for the attack on the Dutch East Indies and its vast oil reserves. Most of the smaller possessions of the Allied powers, such as Guam and Hong Kong, fell quickly to the Japanese. Allied forces gave tough resistance to Japanese forces in places like the Wake Island, Thailand, Malaya, and Burma.
Within hours of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese forces throughout Southeast Asia and the Central Pacific launched attacks on American and British possessions.These attacks aimed to provide the Japanese with a defensible line and were made in preparation for the attack on the Dutch East Indies and its vast oil reserves. Most of the smaller possessions of the Allied powers, such as Guam and Hong Kong, fell quickly to the Japanese. Allied forces gave tough resistance to Japanese forces in places like the Wake Island, Thailand, Malaya, and Burma.
The other significant strike that accompanied the attack on Pearl Harbor was against the Philippines. In order to strengthen the American position in the Philippines, the Roosevelt administration had made two key decisions. First, Roosevelt had recalled General Douglas MacArthur from retirement into active service to take control of American and Filipino land forces. The idea had been to impress the Japanese with the appointment of such a notable figure in order to dissuade them from an attack on the Philippines.
The second key decision was to reinforce MacArthur’s position with a sizable force of modern B-17 “Flying Fortress” bombers. These land-based aircraft could be used to wreak havoc on approaching naval armadas. In the end, the presence of the B-17s did nothing as they—along with a large portion of American airpower in the Philippines—were caught on the ground by Japanese aircraft and destroyed in the initial attack. The Americans would face the Japanese invasion without air support or naval support as American naval vessels were traveling to the Dutch East Indies in order to create an Allied fleet. While MacArthur held a numerical advantage, his men were deficient in terms of weapons, supplies, and training. On December 8, Japanese forces began making landings on Luzon, the largest island of the Philippines and home to Manila.
MacArthur rejected preapproved plans to withdraw American forces onto the Bataan Peninsula from which a protracted defense of Manila and its harbor could be carried out. This struck him as defeatist, and so he ordered an end to the stockpiling of supplies on Bataan. This decision would have serious consequences for the American effort to hold off the Japanese. The main Japanese force of two divisions came ashore on December 22 and was met by American and Filipino forces that attempted to put MacArthur’s plan of stopping the invasion on the shore into action. By December 26, though, it had become apparent that the Americans were outmatched.
MacArthur suddenly decided to follow through on the plan to pull back to Bataan and fight from there. McArthur’s forces would do so, however, without adequate supplies of food, ammunition, or medicine as 1941 drew to a close