Attack on Pearl Harbor
Japanese aircraft attacked the American Pacific Fleet at anchor in Hawaii on the morning of 7 December 1941. The strategic logic was that of a gambler. The American oil embargo of July 1941, imposed after Japan occupied southern Indochina, had left Japan with about eighteen months of reserves and a choice between abandoning China and seizing the oil of the Dutch East Indies — and taking the Indies meant war with the United States, whose Pacific Fleet would have to be removed first. Yamamoto, who had studied at Harvard and been a naval attaché in Washington, planned the strike and told his government that he could run wild for six months and had no confidence beyond that. Six carriers crossed the northern Pacific in radio silence and launched 353 aircraft in two waves. They sank or damaged eight battleships, destroyed some 188 aircraft on the ground, and killed 2,403 people, nearly half of them when the Arizona's forward magazine exploded. Three things went wrong for them. The American carriers were at sea; the fuel storage and the repair yards were not attacked; and the battleships, sunk in shallow water, were mostly raised and returned to service. The declaration of war was to have been delivered before the attack and was delayed by decoding at the embassy. Roosevelt addressed Congress the following day, and the isolationist argument in American politics ended in a single morning. Germany declared war on the United States four days later. Yamamoto's estimate was almost exactly right. He ran wild for six months to the day, and Midway came on 4 June 1942.
- Year: 1941 CE
- Category: Military
