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The United States had no plan of joining World War II, one event on December 7th of 1 941 would send the neutral nation into a long, brutal, and unsympathetic battle for the next three years. This event took many months of intense planning and training. The losses of the U. S. Side included aircraft, battleships, military buildings, as well as civilian and military lives. To this day, we still preserve the area of the attack on Pearl Harbor and grieve over this appalling event that forever changed the United States.
December 7, 1941 dawned a peaceful and quiet Sunday morning for the citizens of AAU, forever the Japanese fleet, planning their sneak attack, knew eight months of planning would finally pay off on this day. Records show that the planning of the attack began on April 1, 1941. On this date, the Japanese air fleet would be created with just four heavy carriers, but would soon be expanded to a total of six. By the attack, the air fleet had grown by 50% in terms of flight decks, voyage capabilities, and speed for launching aircraft.
One scholar of American naval intelligence recently remarked that quality information on Japanese capabilities ‘existed hardly at all for much of the interwar period. The U. S. Navy had no real knowledge of such prominent weapon systems as the Yamaha-class susceptibilities, the AM “Zero” fighter, or the advanced Type 93 “Long Lana??’ torpedo (Parsifal). Warned on December 5th via transmissions intercepted, the ignorance of the United States led to this message being ignored. According to historian Douglas Ford “U. S. Commanders tended not to monitor foreign doctrines and weapons development in a methodical manner.
Naval intelligence was subsequently not tasked to investigate ongoing innovations unless the Americans were simultaneously pursuing them”(Parsifal). What made the attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 1941 so devastating wasn’t just the loss of life and military assets, but also the ignorance of indisputable evidence of the substantial capability that no one had expected existed. Although Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor was devastating, many of their actions didn’t go as planned and could have resulted in much worse repercussions.
Admiral Usurious Hampton, commander in chief of Japan’s Combined Fleet, thought he saw a way to win an impossible war, beginning with a surprise attack against American battleships. He believed battleships possessed “intangible lattice effects internationally as a symbol of naval power. ” Sinking them, in tandem with capturing the Philippines, would so shock and demoralize the American people that their will to continue the war would sink along with the shattered battlefronts.
The Japanese Naval General Staff wanted to sink battleships, too, but for a different reason: they calculated (from some faulty initial assumptions) that crippling four of the eight battleships in port would prevent the Pacific Meet from sailing to relieve the Philippines for six months, allowing the Japanese to secure the flank of their southern advance (Swim). The original plan included 40 Making BUN carrier attack bombers, which would later be nicknamed “Sates”, each carried a Type 91 aerial torpedo.
The Japanese objective was to attack four designated US battleships, then switch their attention to carriers, back to the remaining battleships, and then to the cruisers. Later this plan was improved. Gender the new plan advisor, had produced a plan that would split 90 Sates into two roles: torpedo and level bombing. The 40 torpedo bombers were divided into four formations: 1 6 torpedo bombers in two formations would hit the carrier moorings from the West, and 24 torpedo bombers in two formations would attack Battleship Row from the east.
Fifty more Sates would attack from high altitude dropping 1,760 pound armor-piercing bombs on battleships sheltered from torpedo fire. The plan also created TV’0 waves of havoc. In the second wave, 81 Chichi ADD dive-bombers with 550 pound general purpose bombs would fly over, dropping these bombs on military buildings as well as civilian areas. Surprise was a key element during the plans and numerous attacks. The leader of the first wave was to send off one flare if surprise had been achieved and two if surprise was lost. The main goal of this attack was for the Japanese fleet to come in and be gone within 90 seconds.
Although their plan was not executed precisely, the Japanese were still successful. While the attack lasted eleven minutes, the devastation was catastrophic. At 07:45, the first wave of attackers hit Pearl Harbor. “In less than an hour the GIs would become the first American military personnel killed during the Japanese attack on AAU, and Bob Tyke would be the assault’s first civilian victim” (Harding). There would be a total of 183 Japanese torpedo bombers, dive bombers, and fighters, and 353 Japanese planes committed to the raid. On the U. S. Front, more than 200 aircraft were destroyed.
The death toll totaled 2403 military personnel and civilian dead and 1 178 wounded. “Torpedoes and armor-piercing bombs slammed the great gun line of the U. S. Pacific Fleet, anchored in pairs along Battleship Row. Utterly surprised, drowsy crewmen rushed form their racks or to rejoin their ships after a night of shore leave” (Dudley). The devastation that reined on this morning didn’t end with the loss of life but also the loss the military assets. During the havoc of the attack, numerous battleships on the U. S. Front were sunk. The most memorable is probably the Arizona.
This battleship was hit by numerous armor-piercing bombs which caused an explosion, killing 1177 of its 1 512 members. The West Virginia was hit by seven torpedoes and two bombs, but returned to wartime service after repair. Hit by five torpedoes, the Oklahoma fell onto its port side after just twenty minutes. It sunk while being towed back to California for scrapping. Despise being away from most the action, the California was hit by several bombs, but was repaired later. Hit by countless bombs, Maryland was the least damaged of all the ships. After pairs in California, Maryland rejoined the Pacific Fleet and went on to see combat in 1945.
As the news of the attack began to spread through the United States, many citizens wanted revenge. “The success of the Japanese air raid against pearl Harbor outraged an incredulous American public. Anger because the United States had suffered severe casualties, as well as extensive losses in aircraft and ships, mingled with fear because its armed forces had been humiliated by being caught off guard and by Japan’s strike force having escaped without being detected” (Burnets). After the wreckage of this sieve attack, an abundance of American citizens grew eager to gain knowledge of the upcoming events.
In the aftermath, government officials had various things to say about this now worldly known event. These men and women came to the conclusion that the unfortunate people killed due to the attack should have a memorial. In AAU, there sis 112-acre National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. This is a memorial for the 34000 dead and features a marble monument listing the names of the 29000 Miss from World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. Also at Pearl Harbor, is the Arizona Shuttered Hull, which was designed by Alfred Press. Fundraising for this monument began in 1950.
After the money was collected, the building began and was completed in 1962. The design was magnificent, spanning 1 84 feet across the center of the Arizona without touching the actual ship at any point. “It consists of three parts: the entrance, a central area directly above the Arizona, and a Shrine room. The central area is used for assemblies and ceremonies, and from here many visitors drop memorial leis of flowers onto the ship below’ (Parrish). In the Shrine room, there is a marble wall with the names of all those who died on that day on the Arizona.
Many pictures, paintings, and drawings came out of the attack on Pearl Harbor, but one of the more famous photographers has to be Edward Stenches. “The thousands of color and black-and-white images produced by Stenches and his team of photographers provided the core of a massive exhibition at New Work’s Museum of Modern Art in 1945. Now preserved in the National Archives, the photographs convey a vivid, fascinating and visceral picture of World War II in the Pacific and of America on its way to victory at sea” (Wider). That Monday President Franklin D. Roosevelt stood before
Congress, declared December 7, 1941 “a date that will live in infamy,” and asked for a Declaration of War against Japan. The following day, Germany and tally Japan’s allies, declared war on the united States, and Americans were plunged into World War II, shouting the slogan “Remember Pearl Harbor! ” (Parrish) Even though memorials have been built and the war is over, our nation still grieves and has immense sorrow for the lives lost on that Sunday morning in 1941 Just over seventy-two years after this brutal attack, the united States and its citizens still live with repercussions of an event that shocked the world.
After months of planning and careful training, the Japanese fleet attacked Pearl Harbor and cause major damage to military possessions. This attack would send the United States spiraling into World War II, in which they would beat the Axis powers.