![]() ![]() Several planes are in the foreground, a consolidated PBY, Vought OS2Us and Curtiss SOCs. USS Nevada (BB-36) is also visible in the middle background, with her bow headed toward the left. Sailors stand amid wrecked planes at the Ford Island seaplane base, watching as USS Shaw (DD-373) explodes in the center background, 7 December 1941. aircraft were destroyed, and the heart of the Pacific Fleet was left sitting on the harbor’s bottom. What unfolded in the days to come is the story we’re more familiar with-2,403 Americans were killed,188 U.S. Three days later, the Japanese high command sent the message, “Climb Mount Niitaka,” to tell the listening Japanese carrier force to proceed with the attack. They pushed the deadline to November 29th. did not go as desired, Pearl Harbor would be attacked. Japan set an internal deadline: If negotiations with the U.S. could read Japanese naval codes, there was no radio traffic to intercept. had only broken Japan’s diplomatic codes, not their naval codes. The final orders to attack Pearl Harbor were delivered to the ships by hand before they sailed on November 26th.īurke noted that, at the time, the U.S. Even ship-to-ship communication was done using flags or blinker lights. Japanese carriers would take an extremely northern path to avoid shipping routes, and while travelling they were under complete radio silence. Few within the military were aware of what was conspired. The Japanese Marshal Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto knew that to be successful secrecy was key. Japan also hoped the attack would demoralize the United States into inaction. In that time, Japan could shift the balance of power and take Malaya and the Dutch East Indies. would prevent America from entering the war for up to six months. But to Japan, the potential reward outweighed the risks. Many within the Japanese military were wary of the risks-Japanese carriers did not have the range to make it to Pearl Harbor and would need to refuel at sea, a maneuver that was unfamiliar to their navy. “This is not a unanimously acclaimed idea,” Burke noted. Japan began to plan the attack on Pearl Harbor. Japan did the same math and realized they needed to act. believed that Japan would run out of necessary resources in six months and would have to agree to negotiations or cease military action. This cut Japan off from key resources like scrap iron and petroleum. had put embargoes on Japan in the past, in 1941 it completely froze all trade with Japan. This aggression launched major diplomatic negotiations between Japan and the United States that would continue up until the attack on Pearl Harbor. In the summer of 1941, Japan moved to take the rest of Indochina. If America wanted to declare war on Japan, they would also have to declare war on Germany meaning a fight across two oceans. Japan hoped the war would result in a boon of new resources and saw the alignment as a way to push back against the U.S. In September 1940, Japan aligned with Germany and Italy. The 1921 Washington Naval Treaty set out to prevent expensive naval building races between nations, but limited Japan to a much smaller navy than the U.S., a result that further soured the relationship between the two countries. Navy drafted plans for dealing with a possible war with Japan, known as War Plan Orange. that they needed to be prepared for a potential war with Japan.Īs early as 1911, the U.S. It was a 1905 win against the Russian Navy that shocked the world and alerted the U.S. Japan engaged in war in 1894-5 with China and in 1904-5 with Russia to secure resources. Iron and coal were key natural resources in the steam era at the end of the 19 th century, but were not available in any significance on the Japanese island. To compete globally, Japan needed resources-a theme that persistently pushes the narrative of Pearl Harbor to its climax. After more than 200 years of self-imposed isolation, Japan wanted to engage with the rest of the world. Perry sailed to Japan and negotiated the opening of Japanese ports for trade. To understand Pearl Harbor, Burke took the audience back to 1853-1854 when U.S. Today, on the 75 th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Curator Laurence Burke took a step back and explored the long and complicated history that led up to the Japanese attack.īurke, to an audience outside the Museum’s Sea-Air Operations gallery, said the story of Pearl Harbor often focuses on the events of December 7, 1941, but not what happened before the day that President Roosevelt called, “a date which will live in infamy.” ![]()
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