If you're not already familiar with the battle of Pearl Harbor, or your high-school
history lessons are a little rusty, maybe this will jog your memory.
On the morning of December 7, 1941 the Japanese Airforce launched a surprise military attack
on a US naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
A total of 353 japanese aircraft, including fighters, dive bombers and torpedo bombers)
launched from six aircraft carriers attacked the Pearl Harbor base, sinking 4 US navy battleships
and damaging the remaining 4.
They also destroyed 188 U.S. aircraft and damaged 3 destroyers and 3 cruisers.
Over 2 thousand americans lost their lives and over 1 thousand were wounded.
The military operation was a complete shock and led to a declaration of war against Japan
the very next day and the entry of the US into World War 2.
But why did the Japanese attack the US?
The two countries weren't at war after all.
Well, to start off, we need to talk a little bit about Japan.
Since the 1900s, Japan had been on a mission to expand its territory.
One of the main motivations behind this was to get raw materials for its industry.
Japanese plantations in its colonial territories helped the country get materials like sugar
from Taiwan, soybeans from Manchuria and rice from Korea, and these commodities helped develop
the commercial side of Japan's economy.
Another reason for Japanese imperialism at the time was the view held by its military
leaders, who believed taking control of a larger area was important in order to secure
the country's position in the East Asia region.
Japanese nationalists promoted a government policy of what they called a Greater East
Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere meant to unify Asia under Emperor Hirohito's rule.
They had already succeeded in conquering Taiwan, the former German territories of Tsingtao
and some Micronesian islands, and annexing Korea; so it wasn't a surprise when Japan
started slowly expanding into China after its invasion of Manchuria in 1931.
In 1940 Japan invaded French Indochina in an effort to seize all imports into China,
including war supplies China had bought from the U.S.
At the same time, it also signed a pact with Germany and Italy, forming the Axis powers,
which guaranteed assistance if any of its members was attacked by a country not already
at war.
This was implicitly aimed at protecting themselves against the US joining the war.
Even though the US was officially neutral, when Japan invaded French Indochina, the US
started embargoing certain goods to Japan.
To make matters worse, the US started increasing its military presence in the Phillippines,
which escalated tensions due to its proximity to Japan.
But most importantly, the US implemented a strict oil embargo, soon joined by the UK
and the Netherlands, who stopped providing tin and rubber from their respective Asian
colonies.
This was a devastating blow to the Japanese, who needed oil, tin and rubber to continue
its war with China and had been importing almost 90% of its oil.
To give you an idea of how bad it was, the Imperial Japanese Navy estimated it had less
than two years of bunker oil remaining.
This move by the US, UK and the Netherlands forced Japan to either retreat or think of
alternative means of securing the oil it needed.
This led Japan to prepare to invade the Dutch East-Indies, which were oil rich areas.
The only problem was America.
The US had accumulated interests in the Pacific region, which Japan wasn't a fan of given
their fondness for unifying East Asia under their rule.
Also, the Japanese Navy was certain that invading the Dutch East Indies would cause the US to
declare war on Japan.
To put it simply, this would have sucked for Japan, as they would have likely lost given
that the US had a much stronger industry and resources.
Japan knew this so they decided the best choice was to launch a preemptive strike on the US
Naval fleet.
Even though this sounds like a crazy strategy, Japan had already used it successfully before.
Decades earlier, in 1904, Japan started a war with the Russian Empire over Manchuria
and Korea.
Everyone thought Russia would easily win, as their military power was overwhelmingly
bigger than Japan's.
However, Japan launched a crippling surprise attack on a major Russian naval base which
severely damaged Russia's navy and was enough to get Russia to agree to negotiate peace.
Japan wanted a repeat of this, and their idea was that a surprise attack on the US navy
would have similar results and keep America away from Japanese interests in the Pacific.
When you look at all of this, it seems strange that the US wasn't expecting an attack from
Japan.
Well, the truth is, it was.
The US knew war with Japan was inevitable, and was preparing for an impending attack.
In the Philippines.
It was much closer ground to Japan, and it seemed logical that the fight would take place
there.
And it wasn't just an assumption.
The US had a technology that intercepted and tracked Japanese naval radio traffic.
They could see a large movement of ships south towards the Philippines in the days leading
up to the attack on Pearl Harbor.
What they didn't know was that the Japanese knew this and had left the radio operators
from their carriers back in Japan to transmit false radio traffic.
In some ways the attack on the Pearl Harbor base in Hawaii was successful for Japan in
the sense that it was unexpected, and they did manage to damage a big part of the US
fleet; but ultimately a failure because the outcome was totally different than what they
intended.
The attack led to a strong American internal support for involvement in war.
The fact that the US was quick to rebuild its navy and lucky enough that its aircraft
carriers weren't in the harbor at the time of the attack meant that they remained significantly
stronger than Japan.
The war ended in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki accompanied by the Soviet declaration
of war and invasion of Manchuria on August 9th 1945, resulting in the Japanese announcement
of intent to surrender on August 15th 1945.
So that's if for today's video.
If you enjoyed this, please subscribe to Altopics and let me know in the comments if you want
me to make more history-related videos in the future!
Have an awesome day!
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