Attack on Pearl Harbor

Pearl Harbor

Pearl Harbor is a harbor complex and military base, located on the island of Oahu, belonging to the archipelago of Hawaii, famous by the surprise attack on December 7, 1941
Pearl Harbor on the part of Japan, before the economic blockade that was exercising the United States.  This attack caused the active participation of the United States in World War Two.  The Americans, although they seemed formally neutral, already participated in the war since its beginning offering support and supplies to the nations that were faced to the Axis to brake the Japanese expansionism.

The attack of Pearl Harbor was an air and sea operation
Air Tour that took place on December 7 1941, when naval forces and Japanese airplanes attacked the American naval base of Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor, in the Hawaiian Islands.  The attack, carried without a preventive declaration of war from the Japanese, caused the American intervention in the Second World War
Pearl Harbor 

The attack was conceived and driven from Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, who hoped to destroy the American fleet.  The operation was a large Japanese success, since in about an hour the 360 divided airplanes from the Japanese aircraft carrier sank 4 of 8 American ships, while the others had been run aground or underwent serious damage.  This victory allowed Japan to obtain, at the moment, control of the Pacific Ocean. 

In 1931, the Japanese stretched its boundaries to Manchuria and went to war with China.  These regions were poor of oil and raw materials: the expansion of the Japanese empire along these areas was needed for the acquisition of these resources.  In September 1940, Japan signed the three-party Agreement with the Powers of the board and occupied the north of the Indochina French.  The region had little defense and was rich of raw materials and of oil, of which Japan was poor. 

In 1941 Japan attacked Hong Kong, the Philippines, Wake Island, Malesia, and Thailand, and sank the British ships Prince of Wales and Repulse. 

The United States, thanks to its conquests, aimed to ensure itself the control of an also then precious resource: oil, whose production to the period was not sufficient to allow the full development of both of the powers. 

In 1940, Franklin Delanor Roosevelt introduced the embargo on gasoline, hardware, machine tools, and on the coming products from the Philippines.  July 25, 1941 froze the current accounts and the assets of the Japanese in the United States.  The American military fleet gave accomplishment to the embargo, blocking the ships directed by other states towards Japan with their loaded with oil, steel or iron.  Japanese ships were forbidden access to the Channel of Panama.  In the course of a negotiation with Japan, the United States insisted that Japan withdraw its forces from Asia, Japan refused. 

Oil was the main source of energy production and was essential to the military technologies in use in all of the armies during this time, including the Japanese army.  A block of the supplies of oil would have blocked aerial fleet, naval and the troops of land in case of an eventual conflict with America. 

The negotiations between Japan and America culminated in the Hull Notes of November 26, 1941, that general Hideki Tojo, Head of Cabinet of the Japan, defined as an ultimatum.  The Hull Notes in fact expected, in exchange for the maintenance of the peace in the Pacific Ocean, the immediate release of all of the Japanese troops from China and southeastern Asia.

The Attack

The target Utah was almost immediately demolished by two torpedoes, and began to skid. Also the cruiser Helena, docked in couple with the mine-laying Oglala, was hit from a torpedo: the Oglala, even though it did not get hit by the same torpedo, received more serious damage than that of the Helena and it was overturned slowly over a flank, sinking. 

This was the situation of Battleship Row, the avenue of the battleships: of 7 battleships that were docked, four (Oklahoma, West Virginia, California and Nevada) had been docked at the outside or totally exhibited; a fifth one, the Arizona, was protected alone in smaller part by the ship the Vestal.  Only two battleships had been protected:  Tennessee and Maryland, protected respectively by the West Virginia and Oklahoma, and the battleship octave, the Pennsylvania, flagship, however, was found in a dry dock and not in the "Battleship Row". 

The California was hit by at least four torpedoes; West Virginia and Oklahoma were hit in the center by a torpedo each, almost simultaneously, while the Arizona was hit by two torpedoes, one to the bow and one to the stern; the Nevada tried to go out from the port, but was blocked by a torpedo and by three bombs: in flames, devastated and with fifty dead, the battleship risked sinking in the port; to avoid that, the commander stayed aboard and immediately took appropriate actions. 

Meanwhile, the battleship the California, already seriously damaged, was hit by two other bombs; it was inclined slightly and sank on the low backdrops: Ninety-eight men had died. 

The Arizona Battleship
USS Arizona was hit by two bombs and by a third bomb from 250kg, breaking through bridges and bulkheads coming down in the inside of the ship, resting in the ammunition depot. 

The explosion made the Arizona just literally in the air; the first tower of cannons went in pieces, the second one collapsed, the tripod collapsed on the.  Everything was overtaken by fire.  The dead had been 1,177
Shrine Room , including Admiral Kidd and the commanding Van Valkenburgh.  Of the 2,403 dead at Pearl Harbor, the dead on the Arizona had been almost half. 

The West Virginia was hit by five torpedoes and completely in flames; it sank in the mooring, with 105 dead.  The Oklahoma was hit by at least four torpedoes on the same side and began slowly to incline itself.  Gradually the skid reached 90 degrees, while the men on board who wanted to be saved clung to the balustrades on the bridge or were trapped in engine room. 

On the bridge, the crew slid along the bridge from one side to the other one, falling in water.  The tripod broke itself at the base and fell in the water; After about ten minutes the battleship had overturned itself completely (180 degrees.  429 had died. 

The lower airplanes bombarded the crews of the Oklahoma and of the West Virginia that swam near their ships. 

The Tennessee was hit by two bombs, causing 5 deaths, and the Maryland was also hit by two bombs and bombarded by the Japanese airplanes.  The Pennsylvania alone was saved.  The ship the Vestal was hit from two bombs while the seaplanes support of ship Curtiss was torn by at least one bomb; the tugboat Sotoyomo was also hit and sunk.  Meanwhile, the Utah, had taken serious damage, overturned itself. 

The second wave, composed of 173 airplanes, completed the attack. 

The Pennsylvania was hit from a bomb than happened to explode on the tanks of fuel, causing a huge fire and 18 dead, then it was hit also by a second bomb, while the destroyer Cassin and Downes - docked in the same field - were hit and damaged in a more serious manner: the Cassin was hit by a bomb and was overturned on to the Downes.

In the floating dock the destroyer Shaw was hit by a bomb in the ammunition depot, causing the ship  to explode and split in two; the bow was overturned and the stern sank. 

Toward the end of the attack, Pearl Harbor was a sea of flames.  Everywhere fire, flames, scraps and ships sunk. 

Of 96 American ships, 3 had been destroyed or upside-down in fixable manner (the Arizona and Oklahoma battleships, the Utah), 6 sunk, overturned or run aground and non-recoverable (the California, West Virginia, Nevada, the mine-laying Oglala, the destroyer Cassin and Shaw), 7 seriously damaged (the Pennsylvania, the ship workshop Vestal, the seaplanes support of ship Curtiss, the cruisers Raleigh, Helena and Honolulu and the destroyer Downes), 2 with average damage (Battleship Tennessee and Maryland) and 4 damaged lightly (3 cruisers and the destroyer Helm).  On the airfields of Oahu, 188 American and other airplanes had been destroyed, and 159 damaged; the human losses amounted to 2,403 dead Americans (2,008 of the Navy, 109 of the Marines, 218 of the army, 68 civilians) and 1,178 injured.  According to the calculations of Tokyo, the Japanese lost 29 airplanes; among which 9 were hunting, 15 bombers and 5 torpedoing; a large submarine and all five of the pocket submarines. 

On the Japanese side, the dead had been 64, of whom 55 were in aviation.  It is not known how many sailors were on board of the large submarine. 

The Admiral Nagumo confirmed to the supreme military authority the "kishu-seiko", the success of the surprise attack.  Seven hours later the Mikado affixed the first imperial seal imperial to the script that proclaimed the state of war with the United States of America. 

On December 8, 1941 the Congress of the United States declared war on Japan.

The attack was, meanwhile for the Japanese, a deafening success and a disappointing one as well.  A success because the Japanese considered that they had succeeded to obtain their purpose: to throw out the American Battleships. 

But also, it can be considered a failure for the following reason: 

Simply obtaining its purpose, the attack did not destroy key targets easily, like the large depots of fuel and of torpedoes.  Another large problem for the Japanese was that the three American aircraft carriers, the Hornet, the Enterprise and the Yorktown, were not in port at the moment of the attack.  These were the actual aircraft carriers that defeated the Japanese fleet at the battle of Midway, marking the inversion of war of the Pacific Ocean

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