The Importance Of The Attack On Pearl Harbor

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"We must be the great arsenal of democracy. For us this is an emergency as serious as war itself. We must apply ourselves to our task with the same resolution, the same sense of urgency, the same spirit of patriotism and sacrifice as we would show were we at war" (Roosevelt).
On the morning of December 7, 1941 at 7:55 a.m. Japanese planes bombed Pearl Harbor. This had a great impact on not only the United States and Japan, but also on the outcome of World War II. The attack on Pearl Harbor was important because it brought the United States into the war, changed the tide of the war, and brought about the creation and use of an atomic bomb. First the United States were not planning on entering World War II, but the attack on Pearl Harbor completely
First, let us discuss what happened to provoke it. The United States realized that by providing Japan with the resource they were fueling the war. Also, they were further supplying the enemy of their allies. On July 26th, President Roosevelt ordered the freezing of all Japanese assets in the United States and the placing of all petroleum exports to Japan under embargo subject to licence (http://web.b.ebscohost.com/). By the end of 1940, the United States had ended the shipment of scrap metal, oil, steel, and iron ore to Japan (ushistory.org). Limiting japan’s resources became known as the plan’s Achilles’ heel. Japan needed to find a new source of resources for the war and decided to advance into Malaya and the Dutch East Indies. However, the Japanese had a second reason to attack. Previously, the United States Naval Base was located in the Atlantic and the move to Hawaii posed a threat to Japan. In order to control the Pacific, Japan first had to destroy the United States Naval Base. They thought that this would help them gain more land and also keep the United States out of World War
The main goal of the attack was to weaken the United States Navy so that Japan could further expand and gain more providers of resources. In order to do this they needed to almost completely take out the Pacific fleet. Japan’s main target was the aircraft carriers. If they destroyed them, they would not have to worry about the United States retaliating for at least a few months. Many of the Japanese military officers thought that this was going to be an easy task. It was thought that after Pearl Harbor was bombed the United States would either be too broken to retaliate or just not be willing to join the war. The United States had sat back and watched Britain get beaten for the first few months of the war so it was not expected for them to want to join the fight. In Japan’s view, if the American Pacific carriers at Pearl Harbor were destroyed, America would not be able to stop their advance into the Pacific. The Japanese hoped that the defeat at Pearl Harbor would be so devastating, that Americans would lose their will to fight and immediately give up (pearlharboroahu.com). They believed that they were going to almost completely destroy the Pacific fleet, and even if America was planning to stop them they thought it could not be in the immediate

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