Pearl harbour

The USA was in their way. They had drawn on a map the region they needed to conquer to become self-sufficent. That circle just happened to incluce (among many other things) the Phillipines which was held by the USA. You saw a Naval arms race -- Japan vs the USA -- throughout the 30's. The USA knew Japan wanted the Phillipines and other US holdings in the Pacific. We knew they would likely resort to military attack.

The USA planned its strategy based on the belief that the Phillipines would be attacked first. The bulk of the USA's Navy was relocated from San Francisco and Los Angeles to Pearl Harbor in Hawaii -- where it would be better positioned to counter-attack in the event of a Japanese attack on the Phillipines. The Phillipines were equipped with numerous anti-naval artillery pieces throughout its ports.

The Japanese out-thought the USA and attacked the naval forces at Pearl Harbor, wiped out the majority of the USA's Pacific Fleet, and THEN invaded the Phillipines. Essentially, they wiped out our counterstrike first, then went for the goal. It was pure luck that the Carriers were out of port that day.
 
The attack on Pear harbor was never meant to be a suprise. The Japanese ambassador was waiting with a declaration of war in hand but was not seen, buy the US, until after the attack had take place. This is important to remember because the attack was supposed to cripple frighten and force the united states to bargin with Japan. The objective was to strike fast and hard forcing the united states to the bargining table early so that Japan would not have to face the united States in a drawn out confect over who had control of the pacific.

Unfortunately for Japan the suprise of the attack angered the United States bringing the United States into the war.

The Japanese admiral in charge of the attack on learning that the attack came as a suprise said "we have awoken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."
 
swordrapier said:
The attack on Pear harbor was never meant to be a suprise.
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Not quite true, but I will explain.
swordrapier said:
The Japanese ambassador was waiting with a declaration of war in hand but was not seen, by the US, until after the attack had take place. This is important to remember because the attack was supposed to cripple frighten and force the united states to bargin with Japan. The objective was to strike fast and hard forcing the united states to the bargining table early so that Japan would not have to face the united States in a drawn out confect over who had control of the pacific.
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Okay, so to clarify: The Japanese team of Ambassadors had been sent to the USA with the mission of working to foster better relations between the USA and Japan. They left Japan without any idea of Japan's true purpose for sending them. It was either the day before, or the morning of the attack by Japan on Pearl Harbor that the Japanese government had them contacted and instructed to hand the USA a Declaration of War at a specific time and date.

The attack on Pearl Harbor was intended to occur only a couple hours after the Declaration of War had been delivered -- not affording nearly enough time for the USA to have contacted the military to notify them, but still doing it "by the book". It was always intended to be a surprise attack. For a variety of reasons, there was substantial delay on getting the Declaration of War delivered, partly because the Ambassadors didn't know how to type in English well enough to have the Declaration ready until 3 hours late.

swordrapier said:
Unfortunately for Japan the suprise of the attack angered the United States bringing the United States into the war.

The Japanese admiral in charge of the attack on learning that the attack came as a suprise said "we have awoken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."
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That was Yamamoto. Admiral Yamamoto was never all that excited about the prospect of attacking the USA. Other military leaders, most of the very warhawkish, pushed the war agenda forward against the better advice of Yamamoto. One of the few relatively accurate war movies ever made -- "Tora, Tora, Tora!!!" tells it very well.

The mistaken assumption (that Yamamoto never personally bought into) was the idea that the shock would end up with the USA running with its tail between its legs.
 
Okay so you described it better than I did.

The Idea that I was trying to convey is this: to the Japanese culture the idea of killing someone while they are sleeping is dishonorable. However, it is perfectly acceptable to kick them awake then kill them before they have a chance to defend themselves. This is what they intended to do at pearl harbour.

It was supposed to be a suprise attack but, not a sneak attack. They wanted to kick the United States awake just before they kill him.

I agree that Japan assumed that the shock would send the United States running. It didn't work.
 
Amazing paralell with the 9/11 attacks, don't you think? Osama and terrorists in general think they are going get the USA to do or not do what they wish by attacks of that sort. That also didn't work out so well for them. Two nations that were safe ground for terrorists on one level or another with -- Afganistan and Iraq -- are somewhat limited as terrorist bases of opperations now.
 
Japan's oil supplies were being hurt by the US Navy and the Royal Navy. When Pearl Harbor was attacked, so was Singapore at pretty much the same time.
By knocking both navies out of the picture, Japan could get its oil from Indonesia without much issues.
The Army was pressing the Navy to do this because it needed fuel to run its army against the Chinese.
 
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.
 
Pre-emptive? The US, especially the public, wanted nothing to do with the Japanese actions in the east. They didn't care.
 
swordrapier said:
Okay so you described it better than I did.
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That wasn't my goal at all. Just wanted to go into more depth about what you said. Sorry. :oops:

Locke said:
some consider the attack was pre-emptive,
have a read of this
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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.
 
ok

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.
 
Re: ok

Anya1982 said:
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.
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Please list the source of this information or if it is merely your opinion, clearly indicate it as such, thank you.
 
Re: ok

Anya1982 said:
But yet it was proved wrong. USA didn't realise how advanced air warfare was at the time.
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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.
 
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