Written by: Aashrab Khanal - 2022001, Grade XI
Posted on: 16 December, 2020
The attack on Pearl Harbor is a historical event in the history of the United States of America and the world. The attack on Pearl Harbor was commenced by the Imperial Japanese Navy on the American Naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. It was a massive coordinated attack on the United States by the Imperial Japanese forces and, in the end, 3500 Americans would be either wounded or killed. The Pearl Harbor incident is considered to be a pivotal moment in the second world war as it changed the tide of the second world war and ultimately led to the defeat of the Axis powers. The following paragraphs examine the cause and the effectiveness of the strategic attack on Pearl Harbor. After WWI, Japan started demanding more power and influence in Asia and primarily in China. Japanese leaders believed that Japan was destined to rule over China and other countries in Southeast Asia. On the other hand, the western powers staunchly opposed Japan’s view and wanted to prevent Japan from having a great amount of influence on its neighbors. By means of treaties like the Washington accords, the western powers tried to sabotage Japan's naval force by limiting their number of battleships. Since the U.S was the only relative threat to Japanese expansion in the Pacific region and sensing that America was trying to isolate and stagnate Japan’s military and economic growth, an assault on the American Naval forces was deemed necessary as a preventive attack to launch any offensive in SouthEast Asia. Thus, Pearl Harbor was the place chosen to destroy America’s might in the Pacific. The attack on Pearl Harbor was executed in the midst of diplomatic talks between Tokyo and Washington. The military had already started planning the attack on Pearl Harbor. The plan was carefully crafted under Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto and his military council with the goals of demobilizing the American Pacific fleet, reducing the morale of the American government and the American public, and seizing the British, French, and oil-rich Dutch colonies in SouthEast Asia. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan successfully took control of major British and American holdings including countries like the Philippines and British Hongkong, Malaya, and also French Indo-China. The Japanese were able to capitalize on the attack on Pearl Harbor and were able to execute their plan of getting resources. The Japanese military’s rapid success has indicated that the attack on Pearl Harbor was a brilliant strategy. But winning a battle does not win you a war. There were many factors that almost nullified the effectiveness of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The first one was the military’s belief that the future of naval warfare would heavily rely on battleships rather than aircraft carriers. Thus, the attack on Pearl Harbor as intended, destroyed all of the American battleships(8), including 3 cruisers and 4 destroyers. The American Pacific naval fleet was left with only aircraft carriers and submarines which was used to its full advantage to destroy the Japanese navy. The attack on Pearl Harbor also did not weaken American morale as the Congress declared war on Japan immediately. Also, the entrance of the U.S in the war did not help Japan’s allies in Europe. Since the Japanese did not damage Pearl Harbor’s navy repair yards, oil tank farms, submarine base, the Pearl Harbor Naval base was still operating and preventing any logistical difficulty to the Pacific fleet. The attack on Pearl Harbor was flawed and even Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto knew as he had intended the attack to be only a short term deterrent to the U.S. There was no way Japan could have won a years-long war against the U.S. It is the conclusion that Japan won at Pearl Harbor and lost the war.
References
Kagan, Neil & Hyslop G. Stephen(2018). Japan’s Pearl Harbor strategy revealed in rare World War II maps. National Geographic
Wikipedia.com (2020). Attack on Pearl Harbor
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