By Elizabeth H
Elys
In a straight line between the US and Japan, Hawaii is the first piece of
land due west of San Francisco.
In 1941 its shallow-water port, Pearl
Harbor provided the best place to anchor in the whole Pacific. There, at 7:48
am Hawaiian time on December 7 of that year, a first wave of torpedo began to
destroy the US Pacific Fleet.
In 1887, the US government obtained
exclusive use of the inlet called Pearl Harbor and the right to maintain a repair
and coaling station for ships. The area was established as a naval base in
1908, and then in 1911 dredging of a channel from the sea was completed. This
made that channel accessible to largest naval vessel.
During the Japanese attack, this
center for US military action in the Pacific Ocean was nearly completely destroyed.
Between the middle of the 19th
and the beginning of 20th centuries, Japan looked to transform
itself from a closed, feudal society into a modern industrial and military
power. In 1937, conflict began between Japan and China, near the Marco Polo Bridge
in Beijing. This conflict led to a full-scale war knows today as the
Sino-Japanese War, which was one of the bloodiest in history and lasted until
the defeat of Japan in 1945.
In 1939, WWII began with a string of
German victories. These successes included the defeats of Poland, France, and
England. Many European nations that Germany now controlled had control of
important colonial empires, the East Indies and Singapore and Southeast Asia. These
empires were of interest to Japan because they had the natural resources oil,
coal, and rubber. Japan began their expansion with the seizure of Indochina in
mid-1941.
Pearl Harbor, conducted by Japanese aircraft
was the beginning of an awful war between Japan and USA. It was an announced brutal
attack upon the US naval base in Pearl Harbor. That unexpected attack on
December 7, 1941 was originally just a preventive effort from keeping the US
Pacific fleet from influencing the war Japan was planning to start in Southeast
Asia. The aerial attack bombs resulted in the United States entry into WWII.
Six Japanese aircraft lunched two aerial attack waves, sinking four US Navy battleships
and damaging two others.
The Japanese raid took about 2400
lives and 1. 178 personal were wounded, 19 ships burned or exploded and more
than 120 aircraft were destroyed. Pearl Harbor has been compare to the dropping
of the bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Pearl Harbor basically sums up previous
bad relationship between the US and Japan.
The whole point of the bombing was a
warning for the US to stay out of their war with Southeast Asia. The US took
that as a calling out and entered the WWII with determination.
To punish Japan after Pearl Harbor,
the USA cut back on its trade with them. Stopping the flow of oil and rubber effected
Japan’s war efforts; at they needed supplies for war tanks, ships and airplanes.
The US was the thing standing in Japan’s way to conquer Southeast Asia and
Western Pacific Ocean.
The Japanese knew that after Pearl
Harbor, Americans determination for revenge would be at its peak and the only possible
way to defeat them would be invading other countries and taking supplies.
Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, commander
in chief of Japan’s combined fleet, was the brilliant architect of Pearl
Harbor. He had trained at Harvard University and broadly wanted to avoid war
with America. In January 1941, Yamamoto wrote: “As I read the results of
repeated war games, the Imperial Navy has not once achieved a great victory.”
Much has changed in the past 75
years. Much has been remembered, but much has been forgotten. Pearl Harbor will
always be remembered.
No comments:
Post a Comment