[VIDEO] Have you heard about…PEARL HARBOR?
In this installment of our Have You Heard video series, Assistant Director of Programming Chris Richards discusses Pearl Harbor. Watch the video or read the transcript below.
A day which will live in infamy!
That is what then-president Franklin Roosevelt said to describe December 7, 1941, when America was shocked by a violent sneak attack by the Japanese navy.
Today, people refer to the event by the name of the military base where it took place, Pearl Harbor. The events of that morning loom large over the last century, so let’s take a closer look at this important and impactful day.
First, it’s important for us to know what was happening in 1941. Many countries across the globe were involved in the large-scale conflict that we now call World War II. In Europe, this saw Germany and Italy invading countries like Poland and France.
In Asia, Germany made an alliance with the Empire of Japan. Beginning in the 1930s, Japan had invaded a part of China called Manchuria, and the conflict soon spread. By 1937, China and Japan were locked in a full-on war.
The United States, meanwhile, was not directly involved with either conflict. America was selling weapons and ammunition to enemies of Germany and it supported the Chinese government’s fight against Japan. However, the US refused to send any ships or troops into the battle.
This was largely because the United States was still struggling with the fallout of the Great Depression, a period of economic hardship that began in 1929. That, combined with painful memories of World War I led many Americans to decide they wanted nothing to do with the troubles happening outside their borders.
To the Japanese, this situation looked very different.
The Empire of Japan was rising in strength. Japan is not a large country, and has few natural resources. For a long time, it had survived by remaining completely isolated from the outside world. However, the rapid progress of the previous hundred years had made such isolation impossible to maintain.
The Japanese government needed a way to survive in a rapidly-changing world. It looked at other countries and saw the benefits of military strength. Also, the United States controlled many islands throughout the Pacific Ocean, which the Japanese saw as a threat. They began to believe that the only way to secure their power in Asia was to control as much of it as possible, just as the British and French had done many years before.
While the United States wasn’t directly taking part in the war between China and Japan, it was clear which side the US favored. The US sent negotiators to Japan to keep from being pulled further into the conflict, while Japan wondered if there was another solution.
If they could severely damage the US Navy, if they could cripple the American ability to defend its Pacific territory, then Japan could take control of America’s Pacific island territory. Furthermore, if the American navy was destroyed, it could hardly afford to keep offering China their support.
The Japanese began to plan an attack to decimate the American Navy. It was important that they keep their plan as secret as possible: anything less than a killing stroke risked bringing America into the war against them directly. They wanted to bring about a swift surrender, but any hint of what was to come would ruin their plans.
So it was that on the morning of December 7, 1941, no one outside of the Japanese Military had any idea what was about to happen.
At 7:48am, swarms of Japanese fighters descended on the American navy base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Dozens of American ships sat in their docks, helplessly unable to maneuver. No one believed that an enemy force could approach the base without being noticed, but they were wrong. The bulk of the American fleet was essentially a sitting duck.
The attack was devastating. Japanese fighters launched torpedoes into the sides of the American ships and dive bombers pummeled the area with countless explosives.
Large ships like the USS Arizona were engulfed in flames. When it sank, more than 1,000 sailors were lost, many trapped inside as the ship capsized in the water.
However, the US forces wouldn’t go down without a fight. It wasn’t long before anti-aircraft guns filled the sky with fire, and the few American planes that made it into the air did their best to hold back the Japanese forces.
After ninety horrifying ninety minutes, the fighting was over. More than 20 American ships had been destroyed and thousands of men had lost the their lives.
Japan wasted no time launching more attacks, striking islands across the Pacific. Their stunning assault inflicted massive damage, and they conquered large amounts of territory. Initially, Japan’s plan seemed to have been a staggering success. However, the attacks had failed to accomplish their most important task.
The assault was meant to knock out the American military before it had a chance to fight. However, despite suffering massive losses, the American Navy wasn’t destroyed. Within days, plans were made to rebuild and expand the fleet. Car companies began building tanks and planes. Hundreds of thousands of men enlisted in the military, and women offered their services in factories and other jobs which had never been open to them before.
Indeed, the attack on Pearl Harbor had the opposite effect to what it was intended to do. Instead of snuffing out the American forces, the Japanese woke a sleeping giant. America entered World War 2, helping beat back the Germans in Europe and leading the Pacific assault against Japan, a long and brutal fight which wouldn’t end until the United States dropped the first two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
The legacy of Pearl Harbor is hard to describe. Without it, it’s hard to know when or if the US would have directly gotten involved in World War II, a conflict which shaped the decades that followed.
In one morning, thousands of people lost their lives and our world was forever changed.
December 7 is indeed a day which lives in infamy, and one which we should never forget.
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