On December 7, 1941, the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor shocked the United States and drove it into World War II. Roberta Wohlstetter's influential work, "Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision," analyzes the intelligence failures leading up to the attack. Wohlstetter's understanding sheds light on why crucial information about the impending assault was not effectively interpreted or disseminated to American commanders. Exploring the complexities of intelligence gathering and the institutional challenges that hinder the communication of vital intelligence. The idea that information about the attack on Pearl Harbor was deliberately withheld from American commanders has been a topic of debate and speculation for many years. However, a thorough examination …show more content…
Scholars and historians who have extensively studied the events leading up to Pearl Harbor have concluded that the failure to anticipate the attack was more likely due to systemic weaknesses, bureaucratic inefficiencies, and cognitive biases rather than deliberate misconduct. Aspects such as the complexity of intelligence analysis, institutional rivalries, compartmentalization of information, and strategic misjudgments played significant roles in hindering the timely dissemination of critical intelligence. Roberta Wohlstetter's "Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision" remains a groundbreaking work in the study of intelligence failure and its implications for national security. By examining the events leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor, Wohlstetter provides valuable insights into the complexities of intelligence gathering, analysis, and communication. Rather than attributing the intelligence failure to deliberate wrongdoing, Wohlstetter emphasizes systemic weaknesses and institutional constraints that hinder the effective transmission of critical information to
Prior to the dispatch of September 24, the information which the Japanese sought and obtained about Pearl Harbor followed the general pattern of their interest in American Fleet movements in other localities. One might suspect this type of conventional espionage. With the dispatch of September 24, 1941, and those which followed, there was a significant and ominous change in the character of the information which the Japanese Government sought and obtained. The espionage then directed was of an unusual character outside the realm of reasonable suspicion. It was no longer merely directed to ascertaining the general whereabouts of ships of the fleet. It was directed to the presence of particular ships in particular areas; to such minute detail as what ships were double-docked at the same wharf….These Japanese instructions and reports pointed to an attack by Japan upon the ships in Pearl Harbor. The information sought and obtained, with such painstaking detail had no other conceivable usefulness from a military
Previous to the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour on December 7th 1941, tensions had been forming between the USA and Japan in the pacific. The US had cut of most supplies to Japan with the fear of Japanese expansion. The conflict that had been escalating between Japan and China since 1937 had the US treating Japan with great cautiousness. They had been monitoring Japanese Americans in anticipation of a surprise attack. However the attack on Pearl Harbour still shocked and outraged the American nation and affected the American psyche. After being assured that “a Japanese attack on Hawaii is regarded as the most unlikely thing in the world”(1), the sudden mass destruction of the U.S Navy’s Pacific fleet and deaths of roughly 2400 U.S soldiers and civilians as a result of such an attack undoubtedly lead to confusion and racial hatred amongst many US citizens. The assumption on the War Department’s behalf that Japan’s Navy were incapable of launching a full scale assault on the US Navy’s chief Pacific base was more than inaccurate. As a result, the US Naval base was unprepared and was quickly taken out. A hidden bias would soon become evident in both average civilians and higher positioned government officials. This bias against Japan aided in the formation of the Executive Order 9066, signed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) on February 19th 1942.
This paper will discuss similarities between 9/11 and Pearl Harbor that describe the Presidential responses to the attacks, as well as investigate the roles that class, culture, religion, and nations of superiority played in these attacks on the United States.
Thompson, Paul. “They Tried to Warn Us: Foreign Intelligence Warnings Before 9/11”. Web. 03 Aug 2011.
This paper will compare Gordon W. Prange's book "At Dawn We Slept - The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor" with the film "Tora! Tora! Tora!" directed by Richard Fleischer, Kinji Fukasaku, and Toshio Masuda. While the film provides little background to the attack, its focal point is on the Pearl Harbor assault and the inquiry of why it was not prevented, or at least foreseen in adequate time to decrease damage. Prange's book examines the assault on Pearl Harbor from both the Japanese and American viewpoints to gain a global view of the situation and the vast provision undertaken by Japanese intelligence. The film and book present the Japanese side, the American side, the events that lead up to the attack, and the aftermath.
Year’s prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor; the United States Government was intercepting and decoding secret messages from the Japanese Islands and the Japanese Government. During that time the relationship with the Japanese Government and the rest of the world, especially the United States, was extremely tenuous. To avoid a war, which had began to loom in the waters of the Pacific, off the coast of the Hawaiian Islands, a territory of the United States, Great Britain, the United States and other countries of the world called for all trade to the Japanese Islands be halted and assets to be frozen, which ultimately caused a near collapse of the Japanese economy. In the early Fall of 1941 the U.S. Government, knowing a possible war approached, secretly requested that those Japanese immigrants and the large population of Japanese- Americans (those born in the United States) be questioned as to their loyalty. “The President of the United States ordered a special intelligence finding investigation to be conducted” (Armor and Wright, 13-14). According to our reading of Shea, the President of the United States used his prerogative power to appoint a Representative of the State Department to conduct such an investigation (Shea, 259). “ The investigator provided a report to the President, which later became know as “The Munson Report”, which certified a remarkable, even extraordinary degree of loyalty among this generally suspect ethnic group” (Weglyn, 34). Due to this investigation and the information provided it indicated the Japanese were loyal and they were not a problem or threat, however with the concealment of this document pro-internment hysteria ran ramped throughout the West Coast and the remainder of the country. “Proclamati...
158-59. 8 Hamilton Fish, p. 139. 9 Bruce R. Bartlett, Cover-up: The Politics of Pearl Harbor, (New York: Arlington House, 1978), pp. 56-87. 10 Arthur Meier Schlesinger, p. 54.
Wirtz, James J. The Tet Offensive: Intelligence Failure in War. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1991. Print.
“AIR RAID ON PEARL HARBOR. THIS IS NO DRILL.” This is the message sent out by radioman Kyle Boyer at 7:58 a.m. Sunday December 7, 1941; a date which will live in infamy. The empire of Japan had attacked the United States’ Pacific Fleet based in Pearl Harbor. For months the US Intelligence community, as well as others around the world, had been intercepting and decoding transmissions from mainland Japan to their diplomats and spies in the US. We had cracked their Purple Code, and knew exactly what military intelligence was being transmitted back and forth. The Dutch also cracked Purple and informed our government of the Japanese plan and were shocked to hear reports that we were taken by surprised. Even more disturbing, months before the attack a British double agent, Dusko Popov, codenamed Tricycle, turned over to the F.B.I. detailed plans of the Japanese air raid, which he had obtained from the Germans. The government had the information, and did nothing with it.
Zimm, Alan D. Attack on Pearl Harbor: Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deceptions / Alan D. Zimm ; Graphics by Matt Baughman. Philadelphia, [Pa.: Casemate, 2011. Print.
Another surprise Attack on Pearl Harbor by Roger Parkinson. Roger Parkinson graduated in war studies and later obtained his masters degree in Strategic Studies at King’s College, London. After a period of newspaper reporting he became Defense Correspondent of “The Scotsman” in 1964. He wrote books on war such as “the Origin of World War I. The Origins of World War II. Clausewitz and Peace in Our Time.(dust jacket) he was educated and that influenced his perspective on Pearl Har...
25.Griffin, David Ray The New Pearl Harbor Revisited: 9/11, the Cover-Up, and the Exposé 2008, Olive Branch Press
In World War II their were a lot of battles. There were a lot of city’s bombed. How would you feel if you were in World War II ? I would be running from the Japanese and the Natiz . Also I would probably die or hide in a road gutter . The question is what would you do if you were in World War II ?
Introduction – Pearl Harbor was vulnerable to attack because of the obstruction of defense and warning.
It was a Sunday morning, on December 7, 1941 when Pearl Harbor, US naval base located on Hawaii, was attacked by the Japanese. They caught unguarded the whole nation, and for that, this attack is considered one of the top ten failures of the US intelligence. The Japanese were able to attack Pearl Harbor by surprise because of the mindset of US officials, whom they saw Japanese as a weak enemy, who wouldn’t risk attacking US territory, caused by a supremacy factor; As well as the not good enough US intelligence efficiency to encrypt Japanese codes, and the handling of such information. After the negotiations between the Japanese and the United States ended, there was no doubt that they would make an attack, but they didn’t know the target of it.