The Super Summary of World History - Alan Dale Daniel [200]
The stage was set for the largest naval war in world history, and it started with the United States, Britain, Holland, and Australia being frequently humiliated at the hands of the experienced and well prepared Japanese.
PEARL HARBOR and the
JAPANESE CENTRIFICAL OFFENSIVE
1941 & 1942
In my opinion, war is the art of ambush, and Admiral Yamamoto’s attack on Pearl Harbor was an excellent ambush.[255] Redact out Japanese bad luck at Pearl Harbor and the war’s history is different. Most documentaries covering the Japanese attack detail US errors, bad luck, and missed clues to the coming surprise attack. Seldom do such programs point out the Japanese errors or their extremely poor luck.[256] The key Japanese error was failing to launch a planned third wave attack against oil and dry dock installations at Pearl Harbor. Their bad luck included not finding the American carriers in port and not getting the declaration of war delivered on time. Japanese errors and bad luck actually exceeded the bad luck and errors of the Americans.
Overwhelming US errors are well summarized in congressional investigations concluding there was a lack of “air mindedness” among American commanders. Also, while many calculated Japan would strike they assumed the strike location was the Philippines. Because of this false assumption when information came in suggesting an air attack on American units people were thinking Manila (in the Philippines) rather than Pearl Harbor. As a result surprise was total. The United States paid a heavy price for this surprise in men and material at Pearl Harbor.
The Western Democracies were unprepared for modern war. They were lacking the men, equipment, training, and the hard attitudes necessary for victory. Peace movements following World War I are partly to blame. Peace movements argued anything was better than war. The US only slowly awoke to the fact that some things are worse than war. Slavery and murder at the hands of power-mad dictators for example, but it took time for the average person to see the truth. War or slavery was the choice. War it would be, but a war the Western Democracies were ill prepared to fight.
Pearl Harbor was not the main objective of the overall Japanese offensive. Japan’s main goal was capturing the oil and resource-rich areas to the south of the Philippines, including Dutch Borneo, Sumatra, and Malaya. The attack on Pearl Harbor was aimed at crippling the striking power of the US Fleet long enough for the Japanese to seize their new empire and establish a defensive parameter. Japan needed to take key South and Central Pacific islands, build airfields, and fortify their positions against the eventual assault by the United States Navy.
Pearl Harbor
On Sunday morning, December 7, 1941, at about 7:50 AM, 353 Japanese aircraft, flying in two waves, struck the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.[257] The US Pacific Fleet was smashed in one of the most successful attacks in history. The United States was at peace when the attack struck. Japanese diplomats in Washington DC were required to deliver a declaration cutting off all negotiations about thirty minutes before the attack. This message substituted for a formal declaration of war; however, Japan’s Washington Embassy did not have a good typist that day (it was Sunday and the secretaries were gone) so translating and typing the document took too much time. The result was the critical message telling America that Japan was breaking off diplomatic relations (going to war) arrived over an hour late. By then Pearl Harbor blazed with the wreckage of the US Fleet, and over 2,400 Americans lay dead from the assault.
The late delivery of this crucial message was a political blunder of the highest order—right up there with