Manuel Maez

Manuel Maez
Professor Ken Hansen
History1700-026
April 19, 2016

What caused the Japanese to attack

Pearl Harbor?
The attack on Pearl Harbor is not a result of any one event, in fact
there were many events that led up to Japan making the decision to take
swift military actions against the U.S. naval station Pearl Harbor. A major
reason for the attack can be related to the notion that the nation of Japan
was wanting to expand their power across the world and mainly in the
pacific. Japan is an island nation, it was isolated from many nations and parts
of the world. Which is credited to the choices made by Japan its self. By the
beginning of the 1900s Japan was starting to fall apart economically as it
was starting to run low in it storage and access of raw materials, and other
supplies. Japan figured if they wanted to survive as an island nation, it would
have to expand its land mass / territories in order to obtain access to more
materials. With that expansion needs and wants in place the Japanese were
faced with many barriers when it came to expanding its influence in the
world. Many questions like what direction to expand, whom do we go to war

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with, and who are, our allies / axis in this fight for individual nationally
growth.
The first steps taken by Japan, was the invasion of Southeast Asia in
order to gain natural resources, this step casted a cloud over Japan, and
heighten the concerns of what would be the Allied powers, informing them to
check a sharper eye on the Japan. During this same time the U.S. had been
growing the island of Oahu into a strong naval base since it became a U.S.
territory in July 1898. The U.S. voiced a clear dislike in the expansion plans of
Japan, which in turn caused the Japanese to see Pearl Harbor as a threat in
the pacific.
About a year before the Japaneses attacked Pearl Harbor, United
States government officials cracked a few of Japans secret diplomatic codes.
As a result, these government officials were able to intercept and translate
Japans secret plans involving an attack against the United States Naval
bases located in the Pacific. This information was very valuable in order to
get defenses in place within the pacific at U.S. occupied areas, but this
information was not one hundred percent true on which location was the
target. With this new found information, it speculated that that the
Japaneses would attack would be against Malay Peninsula or the Dutch East
Indies. On or around November 27, The Navy Department sent Admiral
Kimmel, Commander of the Pacific Fleet including Pearl Harbor, a war
warning telling him the dangers of attack in the Philippines, Thai, Kra
Peninsula, or perhaps Borneo. The warning orders went on to tell him to
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execute an appropriate defensive deployment to those areas as he see fit.

This war warning order does not specifically mention Pearl Harbor, but
common sense should have told Kimmel that when you have a naval base
with eight battleships, many smaller ships, some 400 airplanes, and
thousands of sailors and civilians sitting on an island in the middle of the
Pacific, within reach of japan and other Japanese occupied territories. You
should get in a defensive mode and prepare for some kind of attack on all
U.S. occupied territories within reach of the Japanese. The base was home to
many people the possibility of attacking Pearl Harbor was not some off the
wall idea thought up by a paranoid sailor. Henry L. Stimson, the United
States Secretary of War, in a report giving in the Joint Committee on
Investigating Pearl Harbor said, We had spent several million dollars in
defense of HawaiiThat Hawaii could be attack if Japan went to war
was obvious to everyoneThere was a certain part of the pacific
Ocean that we called the "Vacant Sea" in which there were
practically no ships and in which larger movements of ships could
occur without anybody seeing them. Stimsons above statement should
have made Pearl Harbor even more alert and prepared. However, the
command that maned Pearl Harbor seemed more relaxed and unconcerned
with the present danger than ever under the leadership of General Short.
Even though it seems that a lot of warnings went I none ear and out
the other when it came to the defense of Pearl Harbor. But not one man can
take full blame for what happened at Pearl Harbor and why the base seemed
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to be a very easy target, basically like shooting fish in a barrel. But if you
could break the faults in to percentage, General Short would have to take a
pretty big cut of the percent scale. One thing Short did that helped make
things easier for Japan to carry out their attacks with a very high success
rate was how the order and display of the base was laid out in a way that
was easy to destroy. He keep the planes in tight formation while they were
grounded, as he also had the ships in very tight formations at the docks. He
might as well have placed and painted them like a bulls eye to help the
Japanese practice aiming skills. Short said that the reason the planes were
packed so close was to help protect against sabotage. Again this only seems
to be encouraging damage to navy equipment because if someone was to
blow up one plane, the explosion and shrapnel would also decommission any
other nearby planes as well. Short had a laundry list of problems when it
came to the organization to the base, another mistake credited to Short was
he kept his antiaircraft ammunition stored in a way that it could not be
promptly and immediately available when need like in an attack for example.
Short had stick schedules that set up certain times in which the radar was to
be used to cut down on cost, which cut down the protection of the base and
citizens. For example, the radar was to be turned off after 7:00 am and not
ran during the daylight hours. This move is one of arrogance and stupidly,
while the safety of all citizens there are put at risk. The radar can detect
things farther and better than any man power can. By having the radar off
during daylight hours, valuable time is wasted from when the radar could see
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planes approaching. Valuable time could allow for base defenses to take
ground for any assaults, This time could be spent warning the sailors and
letting them get to their battle stations. Which would could have cut down on
battle losses and casualties.
The U.S. did prepare in some ways for a possible attack from the
Japanese, by increased aid to China, which in turn created a strong alliance
between the U.S. and china to have friends further out in the pacific. But the
Japanese wouldnt stop there assaults in Manchuria. Japan needed and
wanted more natural resources as they had very little of their own on their
small on their small island in the Pacific. So the Japanese saw Southeast Asia
as a place to get their hands on the natural resources they were after. This
was the same method that the Europeans used in order to get their colonies
across the world such as what the British had done to India, Singapore, and
Hong Kong.
Several things caused Japan to make a surprise attack on the United
States naval base of Pearl Harbor. At this point the Japanese are running of
materials at an alarming rate along with options on how to rebuild those raw
and natural resources. The Japanese decided to take out Pearl Harbor which
they believed to be the biggest threat to them in the Pacific, and they
wanted to send a message to the world/ U.S... The Japanese had many recon
missions in the Pacific testing the U.S. security measures in place so they can
see what leeway the U.S. defensive forces would give them, this helped in
the planning of their attack on Pearl Harbor. At this point the Japanese are in
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full throttle for the attack on Pearl Harbor, which means they are all in with
not option of backing out and or no other options on expansion. In order to
expand in the Pacific, the Japanese must take out the biggest threat in the
area which was the U.S. and its massive naval fleet at Pearl Harbor. The
Japanese decided a surprise air strike on Pearl Harbor was the best way to hit
that naval station and to secure an easy victory over the U.S., while
destroying a major threat that could not easy be rebuilt. So a big counter
attack could not be expected right away. Which would allow time for the
Japanese to fortify the islands throughout the Pacific in which they have
claimed and now could occupied without contest for at least the time being.
"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant"
The United States had tried for a long time to stay out of World War II.
Finally, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the United States had no
choice but to enter the war. The attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7,
1941, affected the United States greatly and also changed the course of
events that followed in America's history. By attacking an American territory
closest to the heartland as possible it was like a sucker punch to America
that hit the heart of the most dived and neutral state that America was in at
that. So in turn the Japanese did- awaken a "sleeping giant, that was the
Citizens of the United States.
Admiral Yamamoto said, "A brilliant man will find a way not to
fight a war". Most countries do not attack another country without a valid

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reason and the Japanese had many reasons for an attack on the U.S. which
they felt were valid, the outer most reason was to dominate all of Southeast
Asia, the Pacific islands, China, Australia, to include the Hawaii islands. The
plan to conquer all of Southeast Asia, the Pacific islands, China, Australia, to
include the Hawaii islands had be a plan that the Japanese had in motion for
a long time. This plan was assumed to have gone in action as early as the
1880s and the 1890s, Japan began to spend more money investing in a
stronger army, navy and nation. Although Japan was growing stronger
economically and in military strength, in 1898 the United States became a
very strong power in the Pacific Ocean as well after the Spanish-American
War which helped expand the United States influence globally. Even with the
American occupancy and influence in that area, the Japanese were eager to
spread their empire southward towards China and all along the coast to gain
power in the region/ access to its resources. After the Japanese started their
push for china and power of occupancy in china. The United States wanted
Japan to withdraw forces from China in order to prevent any further war and
or conflicts with affects that can be felt worldwide. In many ways the U.S.
tried to halt the progress train of power which was Japans land grabbing
hands. The main way the United States stopped selling scrap iron, premium
steel, and aviation materials to Japan, by doing this the U.S. hoped this would
force Japan to withdraw their forces from China, but it seemed to have the
negative effect. These actions angered Japan. In response to the United
States restrictions, Japan Germany, and Italy all signed the Tripartite Pact in
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September 1940. "The Tripartite Pact declared that the United States
was a mutual enemy to Italy, Germany, and Japan". In July 1941,
President Roosevelt announced that the United States was freezing Japanese
assets. He said that Japan could still trade with the United States, but all
trade must be approved by the government. Many people thought that trade
with Japan was to be totally cut off. However, many people feared that this
would cause a war with Japan because Japan depended on the United States
for many resources. "80% of Japan's oil came from the United States and this
posed a huge dilemma. Tojo Hideki believed Japan must go to war to
maintain its empire". During their expansion, the Japanese were in dire
need of the oil of the East, Southeast Asia and all over the Pacific. The United
States, having its fleet at Pearl Harbor Indies, was a huge obstacle in Japan's
plan to rule the Pacific. The attack on Pearl Harbor was an attempt to rid the
threat from the American navy in the Pacific Ocean. The American forces
believed an attack on the oil rich area, and only eighteen months before,
President Franklin D. Roosevelt had moved much of the US fleet to detour
Japanese aggression. To all of America's surprise, the Japanese attacked Pearl
Harbor.
More than 2,000 people died during the attack on Pearl Harbor. Many
ships were badly damaged and even completely destroyed. The U.S. Pacific
Fleet was a mess and basically completely out of commission. America
responded very quickly against after the attack on Pearl Harbor, in two ways
one being, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave a speech addressing the
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matter at hand, asking Congress to declare war on Japan. Roosevelt declared

December 7, 1941, "a day that will live in infamy." He also described the
plans of action that would be taken in order to reach the nation's goal to
enter the war. And two, with a small air strike on mainland Japan which was
took out major military targets like factories building war machines, but that
attack was in no way on the same scale as the attack on Pearl Harbor. The
American people as a whole responded quickly to the attacks on Pearl
Harbor, with a major increase of enrollment in the armed forces, women
were interested in becoming nurses, even factories banded together to stop
ever day item productions and focused on the war effort. By creating war
effort materials like tanks, planes, and weapons. Everyone from kids to
different majority groups wanted to help in any way that they could do so.
Congress did in fact declare war on Japan, the United States government and
military responded by bombing parts of Japan and even placing JapaneseAmericans in government created internment camps. The camps were used
in order to control the Japanese living in the United States because they were
considered a "threat" the country and were in fear to have been spies.
Pearl Harbor Day or December 7th 1941, is a day that should live in all
Americans minds and never be forgotten. It was the worst single defeat
suffered by the United States Navy with losses totaling more than all those
suffered in WWI. This attack is of course the fault of Japan, but Americans
have to take responsibility for it too. The question is who is responsible for
this grave disaster, Washington officials or those in command at Pearl
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Harbor? Some believe government officials caused Pearl Harbor because of

their failure to warn the fleet on time and for withholding valuable
information from the commanders in charge of Pearl Harbor. In turn fingers
all over can place blame on one another, and many people could have been
blamed but we will never know who exactly could have prevented this
horrible attack. All we can do is learn from this disaster and move forward as
a united nation. I think this disaster is what this nation may have needed in
order to unite as one and even which lead this great nation to be the great
nation we are known to be today. All because our enemy decided to awake
the giant from its slumber
"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant"

Citations
Clausen, H. C., & Lee, B. (1992). Pearl Harbor: Final judgement. New York:
Crown.

Santella, A. (2005). Pearl Harbor. Minneapolis, MN: Compass Point Books.

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What Were the Main Causes of World War II in the Pacific? (n.d.). Retrieved
April 15, 2016, from
http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/worldwarii/a/wwiipaccauses_2.htm

LESSON 1 The Causes and Effects of the Bombing of Pearl Harbor. (n.d.).
Retrieved April 16, 2016, from http://media.janm.org/projects/ec/pdf/EC-TXGutierrez-Lessons.pdf

Events leading to the attack on Pearl Harbor. (n.d.). Retrieved April 18, 2016,
from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Events_leading_to_the_attack_on_Pearl_Harbor

The American Cause: Why Did Japan Attack Us? (n.d.). Retrieved April 18,
2016, from http://www.theamericancause.org/patwhydidjapan.htm

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