Observing Pearl Harbor

The US Naval Base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, was the target of a surprise attack by the Japanese forces on December 7, 1941. The United States had been supporting Great Britain in its war against the Nazis since the beginning of 1941. It had also been putting pressure on Japan to stop enlarging its armed forces throughout the Pacific and Asia. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor forced the United States to engage in active combat. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt of the United States requested and obtained a declaration of war against Japan on December 8. Germany, Italy, and Japan declared war on the United States on December 11. The US had joined the Second World War.

Captain Minoru Genta organized the Pearl Harbor attack, while Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto came up with the idea. Yamamoto derived the concept for Pearl Harbor from two sources: a historical attack and a book full of prophecies. The Great Pacific War was authored in 1925 by British naval authority Hector Bywater. It was a realistic portrayal of an American-Japanese conflict that started with the Japanese destroying the American fleet and ended with an attack on Guam and the Philippines. After Yamamoto’s belief that Bywater’s fantasy could come true was confirmed, on November 11, 1940, when the Italian navy was effectively assaulted by the British Royal Air Force at Taranto.

The United States intercepted a Japanese communication on December 6, 1941, asking for ship movements and berthing positions at Pearl Harbor. Her superior received the communication from the cryptologist and promised to get back to her on Monday, December 8. A radar operator on Oahu noticed a sizable number of aircraft flying toward the island on Sunday, December 7. When he phoned his supervisor, she informed him not to worry as it was most likely a squad of American B-17 bombers.

That morning at 7:55, the Japanese launched their attack on Pearl Harbor. The attack took only one hour and fifteen minutes in total. After flying over Oahu, Captain Mitsuo Fuchida code-named the Japanese fleet “Tora, Tora, Tora,” indicating that the Americans had been taken by surprise. In order to avoid breaking the first article of the Hague Convention of 1907, the Japanese intended to provide the United States a declaration of war prior to the start of the attack. However, their letter was sent too late and was not received by U.S. officials in Washington until the attack had already started.

Launched from four large warships, 353 aircraft made up the Japanese strike force. 40 torpedo planes, 103 level bombers, 131 dive-bombers, and 79 fighters were among them. Two heavy cruisers, thirty-five submarines, two light cruisers, nine oilers, two battleships, and eleven destroyers were also involved in the attack.

2,403 American soldiers, including 68 civilians, were killed in the attack, and 19 US Navy ships, including 8 battleships, were destroyed or seriously damaged. The U.S. Pacific Fleet’s three aircraft carriers were engaged in operations at sea. The American carrier fleet was spared when the Japanese were unable to find them and were forced to return home.

With its crew still on board, the battleship USS Arizona is still submerged in Pearl Harbor. At Pearl Harbor, Arizona was home to half of the fatalities. Above the submerged warship, which stands as a monument to all Americans lost in the attack, is a flag of the United States.

A steward on the USS West Virginia, Dorie Miller stood out for his bravery and commitment to duty during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. After helping his fatally injured captain, he successfully destroyed two Japanese planes by operating a machine gun, something he was not used to doing. For his bravery during the battle, he was the first African American to get the Navy Cross, the highest decoration in the service.

During the attack, the Japanese lost five midget submarines and 29 planes. 129 Japanese soldiers were slain, and one Japanese soldier was captured. Only one Japanese ship, the Ushio, made it through to the end of the war out of all those that took part in the attack on Pearl Harbor.

At Yokosuka Naval Base, it was turned over to the United States. Admiral Yamamoto was afraid that the United States, with its vast industrial potential, would quickly regroup and fight back when he found out that his forces had not destroyed the American aircraft carriers or the American fleet as a whole.

Indeed, the United States recovered, and far more quickly than Yamamoto had anticipated. In June 1942, at the Battle of Midway, the U.S. carrier fleet defeated Yamamoto’s navy in just six months by sinking four Japanese aircraft carriers. Following this American triumph, the United States launched an island-hopping operation that ultimately resulted in the Japanese Empire’s destruction in August 1945.