Chichi Nagumo's Attack On Pearl Harbor

he 7 December 1941 Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii by Japanese Admiral Chichi Nagumo's naval strike force suddenly and fully thrust the United States into World War II, a war which would last for nearly four years and cost 407,316 American military lives and wound another 671,846.[1] Nearly every year since this attack, on its anniversary, Pearl Harbor has been commemorated by veterans and non-veterans alike, and rightly so.

What is not as well known is that the attack on Pearl Harbor was just a part of the Japanese offensive planned for 7 December. The overall plan called for simultaneous attacks not only on Pearl Harbor, but also on several other American and Allied locations throughout the Pacific. Most of these simultaneous attacks went as planned.[2] However, due to bad weather over the Island of Formosa—the location of the airbases from which the Japanese were to launch their bombers and fighter planes against the Philippines—the initial air strike on the American protectorate of the Philippine Islands was delayed for several hours.

Expecting an imminent attack by the Japanese and armed with the knowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack, prudent actions by those in command in the Philippines should have alleviated the chance of a total surprise attack in the Philippines, and the initiation of proper defensive, if not offensive, operations could possibly have saved the Philippines.

However, the failure of General Douglas MacArthur, the commander of United States Army Forces Far East (USAFFE), to initiate these and other actions directly led to the defeat of the American-Filipino forces in the Philippines during the initial phases of the Second World War, causing thousands of American and Filipino military and civilian personnel to suffer through years of brutal captivity at the hands of the

Japanese.

It had been well known and expected that an attack by the Japanese against American Pacific possessions was imminent. Diplomatic relations between the United States and Japan had been increasingly deteriorating since the 1 July 1937 ‘China Incident' in which Japanese soldiers of the Kwantung Army opened fire on Chinese National troops.[3] On 12 December of that same year, the USS Panay, an American naval gunboat flying an "outsized" American flag, was bombed by Japanese Imperial Navy bombers on China's Yangtze River, killing an Italian journalist and two American sailors.[4] Within a year, most of the fertile portions of China had fallen to Japan[5] and by 1940 tensions in Shanghai, China between the several European contingencies and the Japanese, including the Americans, were close to powder keg proportions.

As a member of the United States 4th Marine Regiment stationed in Shanghai to protect the American interests, Corporal Edmond Babler recalls:

During the latter months of 1940 and early 1941 we began experiencing trouble with people infiltrating into the American sector and starting riots. It was, incidentally, the Japanese who were creating many of these disturbances, including the starting of strikes and setting of fires….In the early spring months of 1941 the fires, rioting, robberies, and murders began occurring more frequently. The daily newspapers were filled with stories of these incidents and I could feel the tension mount among the Chinese. They became worried and nervous because of the fear they had for the Japanese, who would not hesitate or stop at anything at intimidation, even resorting to murder.[6]

Author Eric Morris writes that "The International Settlement [in Shanghai] had been coming apart at the seams ever since the outbreak of the war in Europe."[7] In addition, from across the Soochow Creek, a tributary of the Whangpoo River and the same creek at which Corporal Babler manned his guard post,[8] "the Japanese had been waging a ceaseless campaign to undermine and intimidate the position of the Western powers."[9]