Pearl Harbor, Attack on (7 December 1941).U.S.‐Japanese relations, often tense after 1900, worsened as the United States extended assistance to China following Japan's 1937 invasion of that nation and imposed economic sanctions, including a ban on U.S. aviation fuel, steel, and scrap metal exports to Japan. Hoping to deter further Japanese expansion, President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt ordered the Pacific Fleet to remain forwardly deployed at Pearl Harbor in Oahu,
Hawai'i, after its 1940 maneuvers. Viewing war as inevitable, Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto, commander in chief of the Japanese navy, on 7 January 1941 began plans for an attack on Pearl Harbor. In October, a new, more militaristic government under war minister Hideki Tojo took power in Tokyo. On 26 November, a thirty‐two‐ship fleet under Yamamoto's command left the Kuril Islands. Thanks to intercepted codes, the United States knew that war was imminent, and warnings went out to all Pacific commanders on 27 November, but without specific mention of Hawai'i. Indeed U.S. officials expected that the first assault would come against the
Philippines or British or Dutch possessions in the Pacific.
On Sunday, 7 December, from a position 275 miles north of Oahu, Yamamoto launched two waves of planes against the U.S. fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor. Achieving complete tactical surprise, the first wave of 183 planes from 6 Japanese carriers struck U.S. airfields and U.S. battleships moored along Ford Island at 7:55 a.m. The planes reached their targets shortly before Japanese diplomats delivered a message to U.S. officials in Washington, breaking diplomatic relations. The 167 planes of the second wave, arriving at 8:40 a.m., continued the onslaught. U.S. losses included 2,403 killed and 1,178 wounded as well as 187 aircraft, 8 battleships, 3 cruisers, 3 destroyers, 2 auxiliary craft, a minelayer, and a target ship. Japan lost only 29 planes, 6 submarines, and 64 men. Only the absence of U.S. aircraft carriers, which were delivering planes to Midway, and Japan's failure to destroy repair facilities, submarine pens, and fuel‐storage tanks prevented total disaster. Addressing Congress, President Roosevelt called 7 December a day that would “live in infamy.” “Remember Pearl Harbor” became America's
World War II rallying cry.
On 22 December, a commission chaired by Supreme Court Justice Owen J. Roberts launched the first of eight investigations conducted over the next five years, none of which clearly fixed specific blame for the catastrophe. However, Rear Admiral Husband Kimmel and Major General Walter C. Short, the navy and army commanders at Pearl Harbor, were held negligent and relieved of duty. Debate continued for more than fifty years, some writers blaming Roosevelt and other officials in Washington, and others defending them. Still others lay a preponderance of blame on Short and Kimmel, or on British and Russian officials who, some have alleged, knew the Japanese fleet was sailing eastward but failed to inform the United States. No credible evidence supports the conspiracy theory that Roosevelt knew of the attack in advance but allowed it to occur to create a pretext for war.
Pearl Harbor is today a national historic landmark. The partially‐submerged battleship
Arizona, with the bodies of 1,103 U.S. sailors still entombed within, remains as a memorial of the attack. The battleship
Missouri, on whose deck Japanese officials signed surrender papers ending the war, is anchored nearby as a war memorial.
See also
Foreign Relations: U.S. Relations with Asia.
Bibliography
Martin V. Melosi , The Shadow of Pearl Harbor: Political Controversy over the Surprise Attack, 1941–1946, 1977.
Gordon W. Prange et al. , At Dawn We Slept, 1991.
Gordon W. Prange et al. , Pearl Harbor: The Verdict of History, 1991.
John Costello , In Days of Infamy, 1994.
James C. Bradford
