Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 at 7:55 a.m. This attack precipitated the United States’ entry into World War II. Prior to the attack, relations between the United States and Japan were rapidly deteriorating. It had invaded China and its alliance with Germany and Italy (the Axis Powers), along with its occupation of French Indochina strained diplomatic relations. The United States put a freeze on all of Japan’s assets and declared an embargo on oil and scrap metal shipments to Japan.
The oil embargo caused the most resentment, among the Japanese, because Japan did not have any oil of its own. Japan wanted freedom from their dependency on the United States. Japan declared war on the United States because of its national pride and the possibility of economic destruction.
Initially, Japan was going to invade the Philippines, not attack Pearl Harbor. The commander in chief of Japan’s fleet Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto believed that attacking Pearl Harbor would allow Japan to rebuild its defenses. With the destruction of Pearl Harbor, Japan’s military then be able to conquer all of Southwest Asia and open the Indonesian Archipelago. He plans the attack on Pearl Harbor with considerable care and trained his men extensively.
On the day of the attack three cruisers, two tankers, two battleships, six aircraft carriers, and nine destroyers sailed to a point north of Hawaii. From there, approximately 360 planes took off. Yamamoto planned to attack the naval base on a Sunday morning because he thought it would not be fully armed. The United States was unprepared for the attack, and Japan destroyed a majority of its planes. Four U.S. battleships was sunk, and the rest were badly damaged. The Japanese only lost twenty-nine aircrafts and less than one hundred aircrew members were killed. Because of the preemptive strike, Japan was able to carry out its plans for Southwest Asia and the Indonesian Archipelago.
Prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, what “staging” or preparations did the Japanese military make?
