Battle Of Midway: A History of the Attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese Navy

A day that will live in infamy, was what President Franklin Delano Roosevelt called December 7, 1941. Although World War II had been going on for quite some time, the U.S. had never wanted to become involved. They signed various peace treaties, such as the Neutrality Acts which stated that the U.S. would not help either side in the war. Although the U.S. was staying neutral, they had done many things to help the allied powers and diminish the possible communist takeover being sought by the axis powers.

The three communist leaders were Benito Mussolini, dictator of Italy, Adolf Hitler, dictator of Germany, and Joseph Stalin, dictator of the Soviet Union. The three leaders believed that Fascism was the best type of government (Richardson). They ruled over their people with terror. Hitler took it to the extreme and created Nazism, which gave him control over everything in his country. The U.S. knew that Fascism and Nazism were not the right way to run a country, but they did not want to have to enter the war unless it was completely necessary.

Then on December 7, 1941, Japanese B-17 fighter planes attack the U.S. Naval Base, Pearl Harbor, on the island of Oahu (Divine).

On the morning of December 7, 1941, two soldiers gave news to their commanding officer that their were B-17s coming to the mainland (Nixon). The officer ignored the message because he was expecting a friendly squadron of B-17s that afternoon, but thirty minutes later, the first bomb was dropped (Nixon).

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The Japanese sent 350 B-17 bombers on six aircraft carriers (Nixon). The reason for using B-17 s was because their primary objective was to destroy as many ships as possible. During the attack, eight American battleships and 13 other naval vessels were sunk or badly damaged, almost 200 American aircraft were destroyed, and approximately 3000 naval and military personnel were killed or wounded (Nixon). The day after the attack, December 8, 1941, President Roosevelt declared war on the Japan. Three days later, Italy and Germany declared war on the United States (Nixon). Two significant changes that resulted from the bombing of Pearl Harbor were U.S. involvement in World War II, and the dropping of the Atomic Bomb.

The introduction of the United States into the war was a direct result of the strategic bombing of Pearl Harbor enacted upon the U.S. Naval base in Hawaii by the Japanese empire. Without the U.S. involvement in World War II, the allies would have probably lost. President Roosevelt declared our war upon Japan on December 8, 1941 (Keegan). When the United States entered the war, the whole country supported it. The U.S. mobilized in many aspects of the economy (Keegan). The government directed science and technology to military purposes. Industry focused primarily on the war effort. The U.S. began to send more and more troops and supplies to the allied cause. They brought much needed weapons, supplies, money, and a boost in the morale of the depleted troops of the allies (Snyder). The United States and England began pushing towards Berlin in order to prevent the Soviet Union from spreading their communism. The U.S. helped take over and secure many Japanese islands to try and get closer to a conquering of Japanese powers. The U.S. had stopped the Japanese in the central Pacific in the Battle of Midway (Snyder). The U.S. had to do something in order to end the war. So they began to work extensively on the Manhattan Project.

The Manhattan Project was conducted in order to create a bomb so powerful that it could destroy enormous numbers of people and land, that had never been thought possible (Richardson). The U.S. withheld the fact that they had created an Atomic Bomb. However, they were forced to drop the bomb on Hiroshima when the fear that Russia would soon attack Japan and try to claim the spoils (Richardson). The first Atomic Bomb, little boy, was dropped on Hiroshima and killed approximately 70,000 people (Richardson). The next bomb, fat man, was dropped on the city of Nagasaki and took about 40,000 lives (Richardson). Japan agreed to Allied terms of surrender on August 14th. These are the only times that a nuclear weapon has been used in a conflict between nations (Richardson). The Atomic Bomb gave the U.S. superiority over every other country in the world. However, building information of the Atomic Bomb had been stolen by Germany, and a few weeks later, they too had the power of the bomb (Richardson). This created a nuclear arms race. Soon after the U.S. created a bomb 100 times more destructive called the Hydrogen Bomb, or H-Bomb.

The bombing of Pearl Harbor was a very strategic attack upon the United States by Japan. The events following the bombing had helped gain power for the Allies. The two significant changes that occurred as a direct result of the attack on Pearl Harbor were the U.S. entering the war and the dropping of the Atomic Bomb.