Attack On Pearl Harbor example essay topic

Many have compared the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 to the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. They argue that both attacks were just as astonishing, unwarranted and unpredictable. The World Trade Center buildings in New York City still lie in ruin, an icy reminder of the terrorist attack. Both the U.S.S. Arizona and the U.S. S Utah remain on the floor of Pearl Harbor, each a ghostly, decaying tomb reminding all of the thousands that gave their life on that fateful day, also, they are both reminders of seemingly how easily the attack was carried out and of how America, the world's big brother and perhaps the most powerful nation in the history of the world, was caught with 'its guard down. ' The attacks are also similar in that, generally, those who lived through them divide time: time before the attack and time after. After Pearl Harbor, the United States declared war on Japan, and thus Germany and Italy with the signing of the Anti-Comintern Pact and latter the Tripartite Pact, and after was slingshot into the Cold War, and after the September 11 attack, concepts that may have been unthinkable before the attack are being considered such as torturing detainees and racial profiling and, arguably, security has been further fortified in airports and other public places.

Both attacks were turning points in American history; they had and will have profound effects on life after them. The details of the September 11 attack are still buried in distant lands while the on Pearl Harbor happened over 60 years ago; therefore most of the documents and information concerning the attack have been released. When analyzing the documents and accounts of the Pearl Harbor attack, historians are not able to avoid the fact that many warning signs of the approaching attack existed. The neglect of these signs can, in most cases, be attributed to some sort of human error in dealing with those signs. Although human error played a large part in the reason that those in power did not take further advantage of those signs, it was not the only reason. Most of the signs were neither tangible nor very specific of the location, date or degree of ferocity at which Japanese would attack.

Another reason is that for years before the attack, a feeling of isolation and thoughts that the United States need not interfere in European matters presided over the minds of many Americans. But those reasons aside, the United States should have been more prepared for the attack on Pearl Harbor. Japan's imperialistic and expansionist doctrines that dominated Asiatic and Pacific goings-on for years before the attack caused the Japan-United States relations, that had been deteriorating for years, become increasingly hostile. The United States also received general warnings of the attack from men, such as Joseph Grew.

However, perhaps the most convincing and specific signs, came in the early morning hours of December 7, from a string of radar that were to guard the harbor and from patrolling vessels that spotted Japanese submarines that morning. All four of these aspects should have warned Washington of the impending attack. On November 26, 1941, all six Japanese aircraft carriers and over four hundred aircraft left Hitokappu Bay, in northern Japan, headed for Pearl Harbor, the operating base for the United States' Pacific Fleet. Pearl Harbor is located on the southern end of Oahu Island, Hawaii. In the early morning hours of Sunday, December 7, they attacked swiftly and efficiently.

This is the account of George Phra ner, who was aboard the U.S.S. Arizona when the 1,760-pound armor-piercing bomb hit its forward magazine. He recalls: We could hear and see there were airplanes. I looked across the bow of the ship and could see large plumes of smoke coming up from Ford Island. At first, we didn't realize it was a bombing. It didn't mean anything to us until a large group of planes came near the ship and we could see, for the first time, the rising sun emblem on the plane wings... a deafening roar filled the room and the entire ship shuttered. It was the forward magazine.

One and a half million pounds of gun powder exploding in a massive fireball disintegrating the whole forward part of the ship. (Schaaf) This is just one of the eyewitness accounts from those who survived the attack. The consequences of the attack were devastating. There were "2,403 dead, 188 destroyed planes and a crippled U.S. Pacific Fleet that included 8 damaged or destroyed battleships" (Ibis). The U.S.S. Arizona and the U.S.S. Utah were completely destroyed and the U.S.S. Oklahoma capsized. President Roosevelt called December 7, "a day which will live in infamy".

If some of the people in power-position in Washington would have realized the merit of analyzing Japan-United States relations and Japanese behavior in the years preceding the attack, then Pearl Harbor, and all who perished there, may have been spared or at least warned. One indicator of the possibility of Japanese aggression should have been their behavior in the years preceding 1941. Before 1941, the Japanese had been behaving very imperialistically. During the late 1800's and early 1900's, Japan had been invading and seizing territories on their conquest for what they called the 'Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere,' but what the rest of the world came to know as total Pacific domination. In 1895 Japan seized Formosa, in 1910 Korea, in 1914 the Marshall, Mariana and Caroline Islands, the list continues (Shapiro 91). In July of 1941, the Japanese Empire invaded the remainder of French Indochina.

The publicized reason was: with the complete embargo, the Japanese forces badly needed oil, rubber and other raw materials to support their conquests. It was theorized by some of Roosevelt's staff, however, that realistically, they did this to get ever so closer to the American outpost at Pearl Harbor, to gain a strategic area that would be very instrumental if Japan ever decided to expand towards the Hawaiian Islands and other south Pacific territories. Commercial access to these raw materials had gradually been reduced as their expansion continued and they 'stepped on peoples' feet' in the south Pacific: The Americans and British were also well aware that the economic sanctions which they had already imposed against Japan could prompt military retaliation. As an industrial power with few natural resources, Japan was vulnerable to a blockade in raw materials. Many of its east Asian neighbors were colonies of Britain, France or the Netherlands.

A US state department memo in December 1938 acknowledged the possibility 'that any attempt by the Unites States, Great Britain and the Netherlands to cut off from Japan exports of oil would be met by Japan's forcibly taking over the Netherlands East Indies. ' (Nass im) Even in this State Department memo, Japanese aggression is noted and warned against. One should have been able to deduce that, most likely, the aggression might continue towards the power that was instituting the crippling embargo. Also, in 1931, the Japanese provocatively invaded Manchuria, a province located in northeastern China, brutally killing tens of thousands of Chinese. Along with this invasion, they also withdrew from the League of Nations. Ultimately, the conflict came down to the fact that Japanese imperialism collided with 'western' imperialism, and it happened in the Pacific: The US was not along in its plans to seize the wealth and labor of southeast Asia [with the bloody seizure of the Philippines].

The British, French and Dutch imperialists had already invaded and carved out rich colonies for themselves... and everyone knew that Japan, which was emerging as a newly industrial nation, would be working to seize for itself secure sources of rubber, oil, and labor. (Revolutionary) Simply put, the western empires and the Japanese empires crashed in the Pacific and Japan was the first to strike; the United States had an empire that Japan wanted. However, government officials should have foreseen this problem and prepared one of the furthest and most diplomatically important military bases further against the possibility of Japanese aggression. However, Pearl Harbor was neither further prepared nor reinforced against the possibility that the expanding Japanese forces would come their way.

What should have been done, was that the military base on Pearl Harbor should have been further secured against a surprise attack, if it ever occurred, that is. As a result of the expansionist trends that Japan had been exhibiting in the years leading up to the attack, Washington should have realized as Japan expanded into Southeast Asia that Pearl Harbor would have been on their agenda as they expanded. Another sign was that the Japanese attack was not the first time that there existed hostility between the Japanese Empire and the United States. Earlier in 1941, the Japan-United States relations were already embittered and quickly deteriorating.

In July of 1941, the islands were put on alert when two American measures against Japan further weakened diplomacy: the complete embargo and the activation of American troops in the Philippines. The previous point of Japan's imperialism also correlates with the embargo: By 1941, the Japanese imperialists were starting to encroach on areas that the U.S. considered its vital interests including threatening key U.S. sources of rubber and tin in southeast Asia. On July 26, 1941, Japan began occupying the strategic rubber-growing area of southern Vietnam. The next day the U.S. froze all Japanese assets in the U.S. and forced Britain and Holland to follow suit. (Revolutionary) With Japan being a small, overpopulated, almost wholly non-arable island, far away from its Axis allies in Europe, the embargo thoroughly damaged their war effort and their way of life and forced them to rely on Dutch oil, which was also depleting quickly because of Allied pressure. In this case, Roosevelt was waging a form of economic and underground warfare that was so effective that it virtually crippled the Japanese.

Because the effect of the embargo was so paralyzing and provocative, Washington should have realized that this might bring about some sort of Japanese aggression towards those imposing the embargo, which could encompass anything from activation of Japanese troops to attacking the fleet. Also in July of 1941, only four months before the attack, Roosevelt activated troops in the Philippines, which were purposely close to the Japanese Empire and, more importantly, ever so closer to the territories that Japan had hoped to 'acquire' through its imperialism. Roosevelt's justification for activating the troops was that when the Japanese invaded Manchuria and other provinces in Asia, they 'stepped' closer to the United States and other western powers as well as committed numerous war atrocities against Chinese civilians; he therefore wished to indirectly caution the Japanese against their imperialistic plans and the means by which they carry them out. He wanted to warn the Japanese Empire against expanding too far because its expansion aspirations might have eventually been aimed towards the newly formed and democratic south Pacific countries and other sensitive areas. This generally imperialistic behavior and forceful manner should have been interpreted as dangerous to American military bases, especially outlying ones that interfered with Japan's growth, and therefore defensive measures at those outposts, such as Pearl Harbor, should have been augmented as a precautionary measure. Another tense period was in October of 1941.

The reason was that the Kono ye Cabinet, a generally moderate and peaceful ruling cabinet, was replaced by the Tojo Cabinet, headed by General Hideki Tojo, which was, because of its Prime Minister, extremely militaristic, aggressive and imperialistic in nature (Wohlstetter 71-140). In this case, when a extremely militaristic and ferocious cabinet replaces a moderate one, this should have set off 'bells and whistles' in the United States government because in such a case it means that, in most cases, some sort of aggressive behavior, or more aggressive behavior than before, will be exhibited because the cabinet was correcting their previous leniency and liberalism by electing Tojo. "His accession marked the final triumph of the military faction which advocated war with the United States and Great Britain" ("Hideki"). Washington knew the nature of the Tojo cabinet, and yet they did nothing.

In both cases, no one monitored anything or anyone more than before; no one improved the isolated, out-lying military installments that would be a great deal more susceptible to a surprise attack; no one seemed to pay any mind at all. Because everyone was so preoccupied with what Roosevelt was doing as immediate retaliation, no one stopped to think that there might be some sort of Japanese retaliation against the United States' crippling embargo and devious activation. For these reasons, an attack should have been expected. There was also ample warning of the coming attack earlier in 1941.

For example, on January 27, 1941, "Dr. Ricardo Schreiber, the Peruvian envoy to Tokyo told Max Bishop, third secretary of the US embassy that he had just learned from his intelligence sources that there was a war plan involving a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. This information was sent to the State Department and Naval Intelligence and to Admiral Kimmel at Hawaii" (Willey). Also on January 27, Joseph Grew, United States' ambassador to Japan, notified Washington that the "Japanese military forces planned, in the event of trouble with the United States, to attempt a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor using all their military facilities" (Shapiro 40). Two warnings, on the same day, both from diplomatically reliable sources, the same predicted place, however not on what scale the attack would be, yet still no one did anything noticeable. There is also evidence that Roosevelt knew of the attack on Pearl Harbor, yet did nothing because of his want of war. On November 25, 1941, "Secretary of War Stimson noted in his diary 'FDR stated that we were likely to be attacked perhaps as soon as next Monday' " (Willey).

Even the President of the United States, the man elected to protect the United States and its territories from powers like the Japanese Empire, suspected the coming attack. On November 29, 1941: The FBI embassy tap made an intercept of an un coded plain-text Japanese telephone conversation in which an embassy functionary asked, "Tell me, what zero hour is. Otherwise, I won't be able to carry on diplomacy". The voice from Tokyo (K. Yamamoto) said softly, "Well then, I will tell you.

Zero hour is December 8 (Tokyo time, ie, December 7 US time) at Pearl Harbor". (Willey) In this message received by the FBI, the United States learned of an exact date and place. No one even informed General Short or Admiral Kimmel of this intercepted conversation so they might perhaps prepare for the attack, intercept the Japanese en route or perhaps even send a scouting plane on the morning of the seventh, if nothing else, to satisfy a curiosity (Willey). Even if it was a hoax, better to be safe than sorry. On December 4, 1941, "US General Thorpe at Java sent four messages warning of the [Pearl Harbor] attack. [Washington] DC ordered him to stop sending warnings" (Willey).

Another General, someone who was concerned for the people, the only real one so far, sent warning, yet the United States government stopped him from doing so. These should have been the most convincing signs because of their origin. The final example, is on December 6, the night before the attack, at 9: 30 p. m., about nine hours before the first wave of Japanese aircraft were to pass over Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt read a portion of the newly decoded "diplomatic declaration of war and said 'This means war'... When he returned to his 34 dinner guests he said, 'The war starts tomorrow' " (Willey). Even if President Roosevelt wished for war, he could have at least warned the soldiers and civilians to take cover. There are many more examples of signs ignored by the people in power.

When evaluating these instances of received warning signs, it should have become increasingly obvious to Washington that Pearl Harbor would be attacked. There were also two clear signs, early on the morning of December 7, of the coming attack. At 3: 42 a. m., three hours and eighteen minutes before the Japanese planes would make their first pass over the island, the minesweeper Condor sighted a periscope off Honolulu Harbor, it then notified the patrol destroyer Ward and it moved to investigate the sighting. The Ward goes to the wrong location, a sterling example of human error. The Ward radioed to the authorities that it had observed a submarine (obviously not American) at 3: 42 a.m. in a restricted area, and yet nothing happened. Not one scouting plane was sent out; no vessels were sent out to investigate where the submarine came from; no one did anything at all.

Then at 6: 30 a. m., the Ward was notified of another submarine sighting, this time by a supply ship near the entrance of Pearl Harbor; a naval patrol plane was then dispatched to the scene to investigate and perhaps assist the Ward if any defensive measure were to be taken against the intruder. At 6: 45, the Ward opened fire on the target and the "first shot sailed harmlessly over the Japanese submarine, but the second shot smashed into the conning tower. Four depth charges finished the job, the sub went to the bottom" (Shapiro 57). At 6: 53, Captain Outer bridge, commander of the Ward, sent a message to the commandant of the 14th Naval District saying, "We have attacked, fired upon and dropped depth charges upon [a] submarine operating in the defensive sea area" (Schaaf).

Another, different submarine was sighted, in a different location, and again, nothing happened; no scouting planes were sent out to investigate the nature of these submarines or to investigate their origin. Twice in three hours the Japanese forces had been sighted, one of their fleet was sunk and nothing happened. Twice they were discovered but the men in charge did nothing. If just one plane was ordered to go north, the direction from which the submarines had come, it would have seen the massive six carrier Japanese Fleet approaching, and radioed home for preparation or interception. However, even if warning of the incoming fleet was actually conveyed it is doubtful that it would have helped. The communication line was unreliable, which is evidence of human error in the creation of the communications system: How this line [of communication] would have functioned in an emergency is difficult to say... but it seems probable that it would have taken a good half-hour for a message to reach the Navy.

Whatever such a patrol might have discovered in the way of a hostile air attack would have provided at most a few minutes' warning... On the morning of December 7 it was not functioning. There were no army aircraft in the sky. (Wohlstetter 6) Human error on the part of the American military allowed the Japanese to attack that morning; their cover of surprise had been blown, twice, which was the only thing that they had going for them. There was another hint of the impending attack that morning. It was picked up on one of the radar that existed on the island.

There was an Aircraft Warning System (AWS) in place in which Fort Shafteer and six other mobile radar, which where on trucks, patrolled the area, but the problem was that they were for only high altitude (between 30 and 130 miles up, no aircraft below that could be detected) and they could not detect any aircraft within 30 miles of the radar. Even with the system, there were glitches in the communications that was a direct result of human error in the set up of the system. Other than slow and unreliable conventional telephones, there was no communication between the operators of the small, mobile radar and the information center, and there were not even any ground observers: [The] radar sets [were] not being operated on a regular 24-hour basis on December 7... no liaison officers [were] present or even assigned, therefore there was no possibility of correct and rapid identification and interpretation of aircraft... Even with these officers present at the drills, there had been "considerable confusion", because of the great number of aircraft operating around the islands at all times... no one knew who possessed the final command responsibility for defense of the Hawaiian Islands in the event of an enemy attack.

(Wohlstetter 9-10) At 7: 02 a. m., an unidentified blip was picked up on a radar at the Opana Radar Station (one of the mobile radar), which was located twenty-five miles north of Pearl Harbor on Kahuku Point, northernmost tip of Oahu. The two privates, Pvt. Joseph Locka rd and George Elliott, had decided to stay latter than the normal 7 a.m. shut down time because one of them wanted a little more practice operating the new equipment. They picked up what appeared to be a flight of unidentified aircraft bearing in 132 miles north of Oahu. Then, at 7: 10, one of the privates phone the information to Fort Shafteer, where Private Joseph MacDonald recorded what Elliott had to say and went to read it to Lieutenant Kermit Tyler, who had begun his training four days earlier. After five minutes of deliberation, he reached the conclusion that the unidentified aircraft were a group of B-17's that were scheduled to arrive at eight o'clock. He then instructed the two privates at the Opana station to shut down and said "Well, don't worry about it", but instead the two privates decided to continue to monitor the planes.

It was 7: 15 and the blips were 88 miles out. Then at 7: 39 they lost the aircraft on radar 20 miles off the coast of Oahu due to the 'dead zone' caused by the surrounding hills. Even though there was no confirmation of the hunch that it was the B-17's, it was dismissed, ignored and paid no attention to. The times that the radar were monitored is another example of direct human error: On December 7, the AWS radar centers were manned from 4 to 7 a.m. These hours had been instituted by General Short on November 28, in response to a war-warning message from Washington. Before that date these hours had been 6 to 11: 30 a. m., plus a few hours in the afternoon, but Short figured the period from 4 to 7 a.m. to be "the most dangerous hours" for an enemy attack by aircraft taking off from Japanese carriers.

(Wohlstetter 10) If General Short had have been responsibly thinking, he would have had the radar stations be operational all day or nearly all day, especially after receiving a 'war warning' only a few days before. When summarily reviewing all of the warning signs, earlier that year as well as during the years that preceded attack, it becomes simple for most historians to deduce that there were ample reliable signs of the impending Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and that some one should have prepared the base for it. There were the hints from the Japanese expansionist behavior, from the Japanese-United States relations before the attack, from Grew and other trusted men, and from the radar and patrolling ships that were located on or near Oahu Island on the morning of December 7. The attack on Pearl Harbor formally brought the United States into World War Two and would eventually compel them to drop two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and become victorious over Italy, Japan and Nazi Germany in the war. However, the attack still left a scar on the hearts and minds off all who lived through it.

Many swore that it would never happen again on United States's oil, yet here it is again. But here it is again, but this time within the continental United States. Were there as many warning signs of the World Trade Center attack? This time, after the United States has been 'hit' twice, will the people in power recognize the warning signs if they should appear again? Did the United States 'learn its lesson?' No one can completely answer these questions yet and one might hope that no one ever has to ever again.