Attack On Pearl Harbor example essay topic
453 words
On December 7, 1941, at 7: 53 a.m. the Japanese intentionally and viciously attacked Pearl Harbor. A second attack came at 8: 55 a.m. and by 9: 55 a.m. the action was over, the Japanese were gone, and Pearl Harbor was left in ashes. The United States suffered 2,403 deaths while 1,178 men were badly wounded. Eighteen ships were either sunk or severely damaged, and 188 planes were destroyed. This date is often referred to as a "surprise attack", but many believe Roosevelt had ties with Japan and access to information from broken codes and Japanese officials to know exactly what the Japanese were planning against the United States. According to opinion polls in the summer of 1940, a majority of Americans did not think the country should be involved in the wars in Europe. However, Roosevelt and his military leaders thought a successful Nazi Germany would harm the safety of the United States and they felt America needed to enter the action. President Roosevelt's Head of Navy Intelligence in Washington, Lieutenant Commander Arthur McCollum, was a very important part of the plan to enter war. While overseeing the routes of communication intelligence to the president from early 1940 until the attack on Pearl Harbor, he provided reports of Japanese diplomatic and military line of attack. All of the information McCollum gave Roosevelt was collected from American radio intercept operators. McCollum thought that war with Japan was unavoidable, and wanted to provoke war at a time that would be convenient for the United States. He proposed eight steps that he assumed would lead to a Japanese attack on the United States: 1.
Make an arrangement with Britain for the use of British bases in the Pacific, particularly Singapore. 2. Make an arrangement with Holland for the use of base facilities and acquisition of supplies in the Dutch East Indies. 3. Give all possible aid to the Chinese government of Chiang Kai-shek.
4. Send a division of long-range heavy cruisers to the Orient, Philippines, or Singapore. 5. Send two divisions of submarines to the Orient. 6. Keep the main strength of the US Fleet, now in the Pacific, in the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands.
7. Insist that the Dutch refuse to grant Japanese demands for undue economic concessions, particularly oil. 8. Completely embargo all trade with Japan, in collaboration with a similar embargo imposed by the British Empire. McCollum's memo was dated October 7, 1940, and the very next day was put into effect, and Roosevelt ordered that the United States Fleets be kept in Hawaii..
