At 7:55 a.m. Hawaii time, a Japanese dive bomber bearing the red symbol of the Rising Sun of Japan on its wings appears out of the clouds above the island of Oahu. A swarm of 360 Japanese warplanes followed, descending on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in a ferocious assault. The surprise attack struck a critical blow against the U.S. Pacific fleet and drew the United States irrevocably into World War II.
With diplomatic negotiations with Japan breaking down, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his advisers knew that an imminent Japanese attack was probable, but nothing had been done to increase security at the important naval base at Pearl Harbor. It was Sunday morning, and many military personnel had been given passes to attend religious services off base. At 7:02 a.m., two radar operators spotted large groups of aircraft in flight toward the island from the north, but, with a flight of B-17s expected from the United States at the time, they were told to sound no alarm. Thus, the Japanese air assault came as a devastating surprise to the naval base.
Much of the Pacific fleet was rendered useless: Five of eight battleships, three destroyers, and seven other ships were sunk or severely damaged, and more than 200 aircraft were destroyed. A total of 2,400 Americans were killed and 1,200 were wounded, many while valiantly attempting to repulse the attack. Japan’s losses were some 30 planes, five midget submarines, and fewer than 100 men. Fortunately for the United States, all three Pacific fleet carriers were out at sea on training maneuvers. These giant aircraft carriers would have their revenge against Japan six months later at the Battle of Midway, reversing the tide against the previously invincible Japanese navy in a spectacular victory.
The day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, President Roosevelt appeared before a joint session of Congress and declared, “Yesterday, December 7, 1941–a date which will live in infamy–the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.” After a brief and forceful speech, he asked Congress to approve a resolution recognizing the state of war between the United States and Japan. The Senate voted for war against Japan by 82 to 0, and the House of Representatives approved the resolution by a vote of 388 to 1. The sole dissenter was Representative Jeannette Rankin of Montana, a devout pacifist who had also cast a dissenting vote against the U.S. entrance into World War I. Three days later, Germany and Italy declared war against the United States, and the U.S. government responded in kind.
The American contribution to the successful Allied war effort spanned four long years and cost more than 400,000 American lives.
And now we buy their Honda’s / Toyota’s / Lexus’s.
“surprise” attack. Like 9-11, nobody knew.
FDR knew it was coming.
The Japanese were baited and they took the bait. Once the attack took place, sentiment against Japan rose to a feverish pitch. FDR had then no trouble getting the country before both theaters of the war all the more as Nazi Germany made the strange gesture of declaring war first despite the Nazis having no involvement whatsoever with Pearl Harbor.
Add to this the strong and overt racism of 1940s America.
War posters always depicted the Germans with hideous caricatures of Adolf Hitler in what was a clear message: the enemy is Hitler and his followers, not the German people or German civilization (not the least because of the dozens of thousands of Americans of German blood who had arrived in the U.S. over the previous decades; Dwight Eisenhower himself was of German ancestry). In contrast, propaganda posters showed the Japanese as mice, snakes, monkeys, and semi-human beings with exaggerated features. This was to ensure that in the mind of the American public, Japan was a mass of strange, thoroughly alien, and completely un-American in character and spirit who should not be seen as equals and who deserved merciless payback for December 7, 1941. This is also partly why some GIs preferred to Europe; they felt that in facing the Wehrmacht, they were at least fighting real men who were like them. Fighting the Japanese was fighting beasts.
Within this cultural context, once Pearl Harbor happened, FDR had the country exactly where he wanted it, and fighting Germany and Japan would not be questioned. From the American public’s and soldier’s perspective, when it came to fighting the Nazis, it was a fight for civilization. But fighting Japan was a matter of personal and national revenge. Any mercy the Germans might perhaps have merited was to be summarily denied to the Japanese.
Stalin certainly knew of the “Surprise Attack”, it allowed him to pull divisions from the Russo Japanese war front and send them west where they were desperately needed.
And the mainstream media will be repeating the lies over and over in “remembrance.”
2,400 American lives lost and another 1,200 wounded defending Oahu, and Hawaii as a whole, from the Japanese only to find 40 years later (1980’s to today) the Japanese in control of the same island. Irony at its best. “MAGA”? Are you kidding? No, it should be, “GIAA” or Give It Away America. The Japanese only hire their own on our land and we allowed it. Just like the rest of our country.
“Much of the Pacific fleet was rendered useless”.
All the Japs did was junk obsolete gear. None of the carriers were at Pearl Harbour, what a coincidence. The ‘Enterprise’ was near enough for them to send in planes to counter the Japs, a number of which were shot down by friendly fire.
US naval strategy, correctly, was that air/sea power was determinative. US led in carriers followed by Japan. The war in the Pacific was won at Midway, about 6 months after Pearl Harbour. From then on it was simply Generals toting up the victories and soldiers dying unnecessarily. Japan is a group of Island w/o oil or other major resources. The US could have simply carried on wrapping up the Jap navy and then blockaded. The jap conquests would have just withered on the vine. No Iwo Jima, no Hiroshima. But where is the glory in that?
FDR did not want to wrap up the war in the Pacific, as it was all about going to war with Germany, as in comments below.