Remembering Pearl Harbour 7th December 1941.

[Vague_Boy]

74 years ago today the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour bringing America into the war.

7th of December 1979 saw another great American tragedy worth commemorating.

 

The official premiere of Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

[JFKvsNixon]

7th of December 1979 saw another great American tragedy worth commemorating.

 

The official premiere of Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

 

Why do I feel like I'm the only person who likes that movie? I admit it's not Wrath of Kahn, but I still enjoy it.

[blake]

Japan's view was that the sanctions that The USA had put them under would have had their country on it's knees in a few years. This ignores the reason as to why the sanctions where in place in the first place, which was their ongoing war in China and Japan's disgraceful behaviour in South East Asia.

 

The US only upped the sanctions to a really crippling level after the Japanese invaded Indo-China but it is still a bit of a mystery as to why Japan attacked on the incredible level that they did. They didn't just attack the United States empire but all the European empires in the hemisphere too - previously the French but also the British and Dutch. It was an incredibly ambitious undertaking. They didn't know the British were going to roll over so easily in Malaya, Singapore and Hong Kong. With the Americans as well on top of that. Really Pearl was just as, or at least almost as foolish as Hitler's invasion of Russia.

[JFKvsNixon]

The US only upped the sanctions to a really crippling level after the Japanese invaded Indo-China but it is still a bit of a mystery as to why Japan attacked on the incredible level that they did. They didn't just attack the United States empire but all the European empires in the hemisphere too - previously the French but also the British and Dutch. It was an incredibly ambitious undertaking. They didn't know the British were going to roll over so easily in Malaya, Singapore and Hong Kong. With the Americans as well on top of that. Really Pearl was just as, or at least almost as foolish as Hitler's invasion of Russia.

 

Before I start it needs reminding that imperial Japan was was racist state, they believed that was their right and duty to dominate South East Asia. Anything that stood in the way of this was deemed by them to be limiting their national independence.

 

It was predicted that Japan's oil supplies would drop to a level below what was needed to run their armed forces by around 1944 if they didn't take any action. Japan also predicted that the USA's armed forces build up for the coming war in Europe, would mean that they'd be too strong to fight by the end of 1942.

 

So Japan saw their only hope of retaining national independence as being able to strike at the USA to cause them so much damage that they'd be able to negotiate terms where they could retain their free hand in South East Asia. I don't think that Japan ever wanted to conquer the USA.

 

The big unanswerable question is, what if Japan managed to keep the USA on talking terms, ignored South East Asia and concentrated their forces in a move north into Russia?

 

That could have made the war interesting.

 

I do not believe that it would have been possible for Japan to stop the breakdown in their relationship with the USA, so in effect they only had two choices. Give up what they termed to be their national independence or fight America. If they were to fight America then an attack like Pearl Harbour was their only logical choice. Japan was also so locked into the idea of South East Asia belonging to them, so they were unable to look at a global strategy on how they might win the war.

[L00b]

Q (genuine): what on earth did Japan give, at the time, as a reason for such a crass and wicked action?

Putting aside the broader context of the socio-economic reasons already well explained above by JFK and blake (supremacist country in territorial expansion, US sanctions and stranglehold on oil sources, etc.), the Pearl Harbour strike was perfectly logical from a strategic point-of-view: to destroy the US Pacific Fleet in one fell swoop and take the US out of action for a good while in Japan's geopolitical sphere across the Pacific.

 

What Japan military strategists (particularly Yamamoto, chief architect of the PH strike) failed to predict/account for, was the political and economic consequences of the character of the attack (unprovoked and by surprise, i.e. a back stab writ large), namely the subsequent entry into war of the US and, far more importantly, re-purposing of just about the entire US national production apparatus to win it: had Japan not attacked Pearl Harbour the way it did, it is perhaps not beyond the realm of possibilities that the US would not have gone to war for many more years, if at all.

 

Although saying all that, there have since been recollections and accounts that Yamamoto did the best he could (he was a gifted strategist and tactician) under orders, but was personally dead set against striking the US at all, for fear of the eventual US retaliation.

[blake]

Yamamoto knew the US and was aware how powerful it could be unlike the jingoistic element who had no real idea of its massive industrial capability and superb organizational ability and who also expected them to be a bunch of drunken pansies in the field - which they definitely did not turn out to be.

 

However Japan's 1941-42 offensive was brilliant. More impressive than Germany's 1940 offensive in western Europe really. Not just Malaya and Singapore but their successful invasion of the Philippines, and Guam etc too. Ok the Americans were weak after the near-destruction of their fleet. But even so, very impressive.

[tzijlstra]

Another, very significant reason which hasn't been stated yet is that Japan had intelligence that led them to believe the significant majority of the US Pacific fleet was moored at Pearl Harbour at the time. They anticipated to find the carriers in particular but they had left port for a training exercise. The other part, that few people take into account when talking about pearl Harbour was that it was part of a coordinated wave of attacks on all allied holdings in the area.

 

Indonesia (Then Dutch Indies) and Malaysia offered oil, which they were desperate for and after claiming SE Asia (or Indochina) from the French the Japanese felt like they could dominate the seas if they took out or ruined the allied ports.

[geared]

Yep the Japanese plan was to knock out the pacific fleet (or most of it) which in turn gave them free reign to dominate south Asia and beyond.

 

If the Yanks weren't there to stop them then they'd have been all over Australia as well (as the country was far, far, far too big to properly protect)

[gamezone07]

Remember the TV series World at war talking about the massacre at Nanking and saying "Even the Nazis were shocked" , gives you some idea about how vile the Japanese occupation must have been.

 

Nanking

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0893356/

 

 

Indeed

 

though of course, this was early days Nazis, Dachau, in a few years they surpassed any other mass murderers in history.

[blake]

Yep the Japanese plan was to knock out the pacific fleet (or most of it) which in turn gave them free reign to dominate south Asia and beyond.

 

If the Yanks weren't there to stop them then they'd have been all over Australia as well (as the country was far, far, far too big to properly protect)

 

The Japanese had no real strategic interest, in Australia and they were definitely not going to invade it. That was a delusion a few of the British second-rate commanders got into their heads at that time. They prepared a defence which the Americans, who knew better, just laughed at. The Americans knew that the only thing to do, was attack the Japanese.

Edited December 9, 2015 by blake