WITHIN 50 years of the awakening of Japan from its isolation under the shadows of US Navy Commodore Perry’s guns, it became a technically advanced and industrially strong nation, thanks to the skills of the Japanese people and inflow of western investments and technologies. Intent upon embarking on neo-colonialism of its own kind on the Asian mainland, militarily it stood shoulder to shoulder with other European nations which had held their sway in Asian lands and the sea around Japan in the 19th century.
In 1894-95, Japan waged a war with the then weak China. In 1900, its armies joined the international garrisons in Peking, which brutally quelled the Boxer Rebellion against European control — a “Rebellion” as recorded by European Historians — but a national uprising as it was against western over-lordship. In 1904-05, Japanese armies defeated Russian forces in Manchuria and destroyed the Russian Baltic Fleet at the Battle of Tsushima. For the first time in modern history had an eastern country defeated a European power. With these successes and leaping economical progress at home, Japanese expansionism took sway. In the 1930s, Japan again waged a long war on China, occupying its coastal cities and industrial towns. The rising national socialism in Germany and rightist regimes in Europe had also embarked upon their own militarism, which started World War-II in Europe and after the defeat of France by Hitler in 1940; Japan took possession of French Indo-China. At the same time, the war ingrained Togo became Japan’s Prime Minister, giving fillip to Japan’s militarism.
In 1940, Japan announced its area of co-prosperity stretching to all lands and islands in the Central Pacific, including US outposts of the Philippines, Guam, Hawaii and southwards. The US Government carefully watched the event in the Pacific and tried to perceive Japanese aims. But diplomatic negotiations over the issue between the US and Japan remained deadlocked, and the Japanese decided to circumvent their intended march to control South-East Asian lands and islands by taking the Americans head-on by destroying their naval-air power in the Pacific.
This strategy was the brainchild of Admiral Isoruko Yamamoto, C-in-C of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s combined fleet. America’s great naval and air base at Pearl Harbour in the Hawaiian Islands was chosen as the primary target. If the American fleet at Pearl Harbour was destroyed, the Japanese military could quickly move to conquer the Philippines and the mineral-rich Dutch-East Indies and the islands beyond, right up to northern Australia.
Plans were accordingly drawn to neutralize American power in the Pacific by a swift surprise attack at the American base at Oahu in the Hawaiis. An impressive armada of Japanese ships was gathered in Hitokappu Bay in the Kuriles. It practised in secrecy in the terrain similar to the Hawaiian harbour. On November 26, 1941, the vessels sailed out of the bay in strict radio silence on a diversionary course towards their target, Pearl Harbour. This strike force consisted of six Japanese carriers, two battleships, three cruisers, eight destroyers and three submarines. When dawn broke on the December 7 (December 8, on east of the International date line), this massive Japanese fleet was just 200 miles form the Hawaiian island of Oahu.
At 6am, Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, Commander of the Japanese task force, ordered the mission to proceed. The six aircraft carriers began the launch of 183 aircraft, the first of two waves that would ultimately include 360 aircraft: 40 torpedo bombers, 135 dive bombers, 104 horizontal bombers and 81 strafing planes. The Japanese carriers turned into the wind and one-by-one the first wave was airborne, each plane circling slowly until the entire flight was assembled. Then the force began the nearly two-hour flight to Pearl Harbour.
When Japanese planes reached the Hawaiian Island’s coastline, the sailors at Pearl Harbour were completely unprepared for the events that were about to unfold. Anchored in neat rows around Ford Island were the finest of the American Navy’s Pacific fleet. On the southwest side of the island lay seven huge battleships: Arizona, California, Maryland, Nevada, Oklahoma, Tennessee and West Virginia. In the dry dock nearby was the battleship USS Pennsylvania, along with the USS Shaw, USS Cassin and USS Downes. Throughout the harbour were quayed or anchored additional ships of the Pacific fleet, more than 100 of them in all. They represented almost half of the entire fleet. The USN aircraft carriers were out to sea.
The surprise was complete. No one believed an attack from 4,000 miles away was possible, and the alert level was very low. At the airfields, American planes were parked in neat rows. Aboard the big destroyers, anti-aircraft guns weren’t manned and most weaponry and ammunition were securely locked up. It was a day designed for relaxation and rest...or for unexpected disaster and infamy.
When the first Japanese planes sighted the American ships in the harbour there was exultation. Though their intelligence had been quite thorough and accurate, none of the Japanese commanders had expected to find such a shooting gallery...all of the big battleships of the US Navy’s Pacific fleet in one “basket”, so to say. Less than 10 minutes before the 8:00 assemblies aboard the American ships, Japanese Flight Commander Mitsuo Fuchida ordered the attack to commence. Moments later, at 7:53am, the radios in the airborne Japanese armada came alive with Fuchida’s pre-arranged battle cry, “Tora! Tora! Tora!” Immediately, the Japanese planes descended upon the peaceful harbour to unleash death and destruction.
Within two hours of air action, the Japanese attack had sunk or damaged eight battleships, three cruisers, three destroyers, four auxiliaries and 188 aircraft on ground at the cost of 29 Japanese planes. The Americans suffered 2,400 men killed and 1,100 wounded, and a national “infamy” in the words of President Roosevelt. Within three days, the US and Japan were at war; America also having declared war against Germany and Italy at the same time.
