Rahul Bagga Mr.Campbell US History, Period 0 16 December 2015 Why did Japan attack Pearl Harbor? One day that will always be remembered by America is the date of December 7, 1941, which changed American history forever. December 7, 1941 was the day the Japanese warplanes attacked Pearl Harbor (Hawaii) which stationed many of American ships and airfields. Immediately after the bombings, United States President Franklin Roosevelt declared war on Japan, leading to a direct involvement into World War ll. Japan had many reason to do so but Japan attacked Pearl harbor for three reasons which were that they had a plan for a new world order, United States were expanding their number of naval ships rapidly, and an oil embargo was placed upon Japan …show more content…
Japan had first created a plan to bring new order in Asia of 1938 (Doc.C). Time went by and in the beginning of 1941, Japanese high schools and colleges were required to teach about the new world order idea to help everyone understand the process (Doc.A). Japan believed that the old order of both the Europeans and the American controlled systems was crumbling. They believed that their new order led by their emperor would take over and replace the old order (Doc. A). The new order is becoming a reality shown on the map where Japan has control of most of East Asia which consists of Manchuria, China, and French indochina by 1940 (Doc.B). So in order to carry out their plan, United States needed to be removed leading to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Japan attacked Pearl Harbor because the U.S. was becoming a threat with their rapid growth in their Navy. Naval Expansion Act was passed on July of 1940 which would allow the U.S. to triple their naval ships by 1944 (Doc.C). This starts to worry Japanese prime minister and war minister Hideki Tojo, who later meets up with top Japanese officials on November of 1941, to secretly talk about the United States Naval Expansion and how it is a danger to Japan future (Doc.E). So Japan attacks Hawaii, Pearl Harbor because they needed to stop the U.S. Navy before they became too strong to
The written work of Eri Hotta entitled Japan 1941: Countdown to Infamy, narrated the succession of events which took place between Japanese officials and leaders which led to the attack of Pearl Harbor. It showed the political unrest and civic instability of Japan that resulted into the bombing. Eventually, such attack was not condoned by the military forces of the United States and they countered the aggression by also bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Thousands of lives were lost and destroyed. Accordingly, the “ Japanese Emperor Hirohito was one of the Japanese officials who expressed reservations about going to war” (Timms).
In 1938, Japan announced its plan to constitute a new order in East Asia (Doc C). In this new order, the rule of the Japanese emperor would be drawn-out over Earth. This was a driving force for Japan’s invasion because of their ambitious desires. By damaging an American naval base, it gave Japan the ability to also occupy China and Manchuria leading to a rise in their military power (Doc C). Japan’s presence in more of East Asia brought them one step closer to expanding their authority.
Japan attacked the US at 8:00 a.m. on December 7, 1941 because of the embargo, fear of the US Navy expansion, and Japan wanting expansion made the Japanese people afraid of the US and caused them to react. Documents today state facts of why these are the reasons that mainly caused Japan to attack Hawaii. Pearl Harbor was a US Naval Base and was the closest and easiest way to get close to the the states. In the first day that Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor, more than 2,000 US soldiers and sailors had died and 1,000 were wounded. After the end of the first day President Franklin Roosevelt had talked to Congress and asked to declare war on Japan and 10 Naval Battleships had been sunk.
Navy. As shown by document C in 1940 Congress passed an act that promised to triple fleet size by 1944 and in document E, stated by Hideki Tojo the Prime minister and War minister of Japan, “When I think about the strengthening of American defences in the Southwest Pacific, the expansion of the American fleet, … I see no end of difficulties”. The evidence in document C shows that the U.S. was going to expand the Navy drastically to triple the size of the fleet, and as shown by document E Japan saw this fleet expansion as a big problem for their future plans, so an attack before the expansion of the expansion of the U.S. fleet can be seen as beneficial for
The Japanese mindset was simple; it was time to get the “easy” countries in the Pacific before Germany ended the war altogether. Easy was meant to mean large countries that the Japanese thought they could take down. Japan was convinced on a naval war because they believed that they had more supplies, ships, planes, and more overall more advanced than the Americans. Overall, they believed that they were qualitatively better than the United States. This mindset led them into some trouble regarding the outcomes of the
made an “embargo of aircrafts and aircraft parts against Japan.” In addition, the U.S. “freezes all Japanese assets and bank accounts” and placed another “embargo on oil shipments to Japan” right after they move their US Pacific fleet to Pearl Harbor, which they had planned to increase by three time within the next 3 years. Considering all the losses, and the poor treatment Japan faced by the U.S., Pearl Harbor seemed to be an important investment to America, as well as a perfect target for the Japanese to attack and show off their power through revenge. In Document E, Prime and War Minister of Japan, Hideki Tojo states that the U.S. never had a real reason to treat Japan in such a manner and “make[s] strong demands.” Part of the reason Japan attacked Pearl Harbor was because it was strategically necessary for
Overall Japan had new world order that they were going to enforce one the Americans did not fit
It was a cloudy morning, most men up and lounging around and some on duty. You could barely see the sun shining through the thick clouds. You could though, hear the buzz of a plane when flying through the thick white clouds. The Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor and America had joined World War Two. The event that changed the course of American History.
Instead of ships using their limited storage space and adding valuable pounds carrying extra fuel, they could make a stop in Hawaii and refuel for the second part of the journey. Hawaii came with Pearl Harbor, but with the acquisition of this new military base, where the United States stationed over one hundred ships, came a new military strike. On December 7, 1941, Japanese forces targeted the Hawaiian naval base of Pearl Harbor, sinking or severely damaging five battleships, three destroyers, seven other boats, and wrecking more than 200 planes. The United States retaliated, going into World War II, which then resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of
How Did the Tragedy of Pearl Harbor Changed America President Roosevelt announced December 7, 1941, as "A day which will live in infamy"("Attack"1). Pear Harbor was an event that changed the course of our history. The Japanese attack had a huge affect on tons of people in a way that would affect their life 's. Pearl Harbor caused so many people to lose their life 's, led the U.S. to enter WW2, and also cause the economic to change. The three main reasons as to why Japan decided to attack Pearl Harbor were oil embargo imposed by the U.S., Japan wanted to get rid of ships and planes that could possibly foil their expansion attempt and also, the Japanese wanted to invade Indochina. One September 1940, the U.S. put an embargo on Japan by not
“From December of 1941 to the spring of 1942, Japanese forces advanced virtually unimpeded throughout the Pacific and southeastern Asia while handing the Allies a string of humiliating defeats, first at Pearl Harbor, then at Guam, Wake Island, Singapore, and in the Philippines. By the spring of 1942, the outcome of the war was very much in doubt as Americans began to think that the Japanese military was invincible. "The Pacific situation is now very grave," cabled President Roosevelt to Winston Churchill in March of 1942, after the Japanese conquest of Java.”
Japan wanted to expand more and keep on attacking more people, while the U.S. had a different view on expansionism. The U.S. did not support Japan in their expanding, leading to Japan fearing of losing strength and power. These are the reasons that Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7th,
However, the U.S. Army War College suggests Japan’s end state was to seize Pacific countries to negate their dependency on U.S. trade and oil for to decrease their deficit (Record,
Imagine how the history of the United States and the lives of thousands of Americans would have been different if it were not for the attacks on Pearl Harbor. Is it possible the United States could have avoided the conflict? The day following, these famous words were said to the world. “December 7, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. ”-
The Attack on Pearl Harbor. The Attack on Pearl Harbor was a military strike by the Japanese Navy against a naval base in Hawaii. Pearl Harbor was attacked on January 7, 1941. The Attack on Pearl Harbor was directly related to the United States entering World War II.