Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 because it had resolved to conquer the natural resource area of Southeast Asia, and it regarded the presence of the U.S, Pacific fleet in Hawaii as a threat to its plans. From Japanese records, historians no know that the Navy under Admiral Osami Nagano was the main instigator of the decision to go to war with Britain and the United States rather than the Army under Premier Hideki Tojo, which had grave doubts about Japan’s ability to win a protracted war with the Western powers. Nagano insisted that war was inevitable and there was no hope for a diplomatic solution, especially since the U.S. oil embargo that went into effect in August 1941 meant that Japan would have no fuel reserves left by the end of 1942. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, who planned the Pearl Harbor attack and insisted on its approval over the doubts of Nagano and his superiors, also opposed going to war because he knew Japan would lose. Nevertheless, once the decision for war was made he intended for the attack to be as thorough as possible, and particularly hoped to sink the American aircraft carriers. In two hours on December 7, 1941, the Japanese sank or severely damaged eighteen ships, destroyed 188 planes on the ground and killed 2,500 Americans, but the carriers eluded them. Japan’s great victory was also the harbinger of its total defeat, though, as well as its ally Nazi Germany, for it finally aroused the U.S. to go to war completely united and determined to use all its resources in long war of attrition which tipped the strategic balance decisively against the Axis powers.
Admiral Nagano, the chief of staff of the Japanese Navy, was the real force behind the decision to go to war with the U.S. and Britain in 1941. Japan had already moved south to occupy French Indochina, and the U.S. retaliated with a total trade embargo, including oil, which went into effect in August 1941. Nagano and the other Japanese war planners knew that all “oil reserves would be exhausted” by the end of 1942, which meant that its navy and air force would be immobilized. Over the next three months, Nagano and the Navy leaders insisted in conferences with the Emperor Hirohito and the Army that the necessity for war was urgent, and they brushed aside all doubts and dissent, even though they were “not confident that Japan could win at all.” Since Japan had already embarked on a course of expansionism in China and Southeast Asia, they were also doubtful of reaching any diplomatic solution with the U.S., since Franklin Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull were insisting that they withdraw from these areas in return for lifting the embargo.
For the U.S. government and general public, Pearl Harbor became a Day of Infamy that was never forgotten, and from December 7th onward, the country was united as never before in its determination to join the Allied side a fight a total war to the finish. Secretary of State Hull swore and cursed at the Japanese envoys who delivered the belated declaration of war, using words that are not printable, and “ordered them out of his office.” In his speech to Congress, Roosevelt used words like “treachery” and “unprovoked and dastardly attack” while receiving standing ovations and a unanimous declaration of war. Japan’s leaders did not yet know it, but they would be faced with a total war that would “end only with unconditional surrender” and the destruction of almost every Japanese city. Yamamoto thought he would have a second chance to lure the American carriers into a trap at the Battle of Midway in 1942, which if successful would have led to the Japanese occupation of Hawaii, which he believed was necessary before making “peace overtures” to Washington. Even if Japan had won the battle, no such overtures would have been accepted, however. In any event, Yamamoto lost four aircraft carriers and Midway became the turning point in the Pacific War. After that time, Japan was on the defensive, fighting a war of attrition that Yamamoto knew would end in inevitable defeat.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Asada, Sadao. From Mahan to Pearl Harbor: The Imperial Japanese Navy and the United States. Naval Institute Press, 2006.
Rosenberg, Emily S. A Date which Will Live: Pearl Harbor in American Memory. Duke University Press, 2003
Stephen, John A. Hawaii under the Rising Sun: Japan’s Plans for Conquest after Pearl Harbor. University of Hawaii Press, 1984.
