True all the big islands near of Mainland Southeast Asia were definite targets. New Guinea, Indonesia and Malaysia (Dutch East Indies, etc), the Phillipines ...

The USA and UK presence in those areas were Japan's greatest obstacles from their perspective.

some consider the attack was pre-emptive,
have a read of this
http://www.ndu.edu/inss/books/Books_...ssays_2003.pdf
especially the first essay, which relates directly to pre emptive was, its a brilliant read

Pre-emptive? The US, especially the public, wanted nothing to do with the Japanese actions in the east. They didn't care.

Originally Posted by swordrapier

Okay so you described it better than I did.

That wasn't my goal at all. Just wanted to go into more depth about what you said. Sorry.

Originally Posted by Locke

some consider the attack was pre-emptive,
have a read of this

Whether the USA would have initiated hostilities or not is debatable, but there is no doubt that it was essentially pre-emptive. They took out the USA's retaliatory force first because they knew that if they went straight for the Philipines and other conquests in the South Pacific, they'd have seen that potent naval fighting force moving in to try and counter their every move. Had the USA's carriers not survived Pearl Harbor, it would have taken much longer for the USA to win that war.

Japanese hostilities in China and elsewhere had the American government bordering on the brink of declaring war, but the Isolationists would have had a heyday with that. "Why are we getting ourselves involved in everybody else's wars? What's it got to do with us??" I'm sure we'd have heard a lot of that. That said, a declaration of war against Japan would have been FAR easier to sell to the American people than Germany.

It was because of the oil, America put sanctions on Japan. Admiral Yamamoto went to an American college and had a very good understanding of American attitude. He really did not want to attack us but Japan was going to attack us regardless and he knew he was the only chance Japan had.

I still have the newspaper the the Star Bulletin sold the morning of the Pearl Harbor attack. My grandpa bought two copies of it and I have it sitting in some dark corner of the house somewhere. It's really interesting to read. There is a story about the Japanese making an amphibious assault at one of the beaches and some other stuff. When my grandpa was alive he was a contractor for the Navy and worked at Pearl Harbor. He wasn't there during the attack, but he told me that on his way there shells from the ships or bombs from the planes were ending up in neighborhoods all around Pearl Harbor.

Japanese surprise attacks were well documented before Pearl Harbor. Ask the Russians about Port Arthur at the dawn of the 20th century. They did it before that too. Ask the Chinese about the Sino-Japanese War.

As to why it happened, yes the oil reserves were a prime motivator, but much of it was about parity as well. The Washington Naval Treaty limited the major nations allotment of capital ships to 5 each for Britain and the US (the theory being that they had two oceans to contend with) and 3 only for Japan (as it had only one ocean to contend with). Japan saw this as a slight and an attempt to "keep them down".

Also the Japanese did not "wipeout the majority of the Pacific Fleet" They took out the battleships and a couple cruisers plus one destroyer. We had plenty of cruisers and destroyers left. The battleships were an antiquated means of naval warfare already by the time of Pearl Harbor as Nagumo's attack itself and Taranto before it clearly illustrate. If Nagumo had authorized the third wave attack and the fuel tanks had been destroyed _then_ it would have crippled us. Losing two battleships (Utah was reclassified as a target ship before the attack and had no guns) forever while having the remaining six rise from the waters to attack again was no victory. Kind of like slapping a gorilla. You only do it once.

pearl Harbour was a tragedy but USA diddent think that with 2 oceans in the way that they cpuld be attacked. They thought that would act as a guard.

But yet it was proved wrong. USA didn't realise how advanced air warfare was at the time.

Originally Posted by Anya1982

pearl Harbour was a tragedy but USA diddent think that with 2 oceans in the way that they cpuld be attacked. They thought that would act as a guard.

But yet it was proved wrong. USA didn't realise how advanced air warfare was at the time.

Please list the source of this information or if it is merely your opinion, clearly indicate it as such, thank you.

Originally Posted by Anya1982

But yet it was proved wrong. USA didn't realise how advanced air warfare was at the time.

Yeah Billy Mitchell was way off base when he proved Aircraft could sink battleships.

And that Marine Captain named Elliot (who wrote Plan Orange the US Pacific war plan) was full of it when he said Pearl Harbor would be attacked.