Pearl Harbor Research Paper

Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor seems unwise, ill-judged, and senseless. The attack was meant to keep the U.S. out of the war, but had the opposite effect and instead made them want to fight and join it. Japan, at this time, was not a major power and having them attack one of the biggest major powers by bombing the U.S. naval base in Hawaii didn’t appear like an appropriate idea for them. Then why did they do it? Japan’s reasons for attacking Pearl Harbor was their plan for a ‘new’ world order, the U.S. oil embargo, and the relocation and expansion of the U.S. naval fleet.

The first reason for the bombing on Pearl Harbor was Japan wanting a New World Order. The old order was crumbling during this time of the attack and Japan wanted a new order (Doc A). The reason for wanting to

Have you ever wondered why the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor? There were 3 primary reasons that added together to lead up to the Japanese attacking Pearl Harbor. The Japanese wanted to create a new world order, they were in desperate need of oil, and they didn't want the United States naval fleets to grow too big to the point where they would be unstoppable. The Japanese were running out of time for all of those reasons, they needed to make a move quickly. They were running out of choices.

When the bombing of pearl harbor took place, many people thought the United states remained neutral in WWII prior to this devastating event. Cartoons were being drawn of the U.S showing no aid or support to our allies such as the cartoon in document 3. The United States remained politically neutral in WWII prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, however the U.S. was preparing for war behind closed doors.

It was predicted that the invasion of the Japanese mainland at the Island of Kyushu, scheduled for November of 1945, would be even worse. The entire Japanese military and civilian population would fight to the death. American casualties for just the initial invasion to get a foothold on the island of Japan would have taken up to an estimated two months and would have resulted in up to 75,000 to 100,000 casualties and potentially up to 20,000 dead. And that was just to secure the beginning of the invasion. "If we were to go ahead with the plans for a conventional invasion with ground and naval forces, I believe the Japanese thought that they could inflict very heavy casualties on us and possibly as a result get better surrender terms.” said General Carl Spaatz who was in charge of the Air Force operations in the Pacific. He expresses in his words that he strongly believes that the Japanese knew they had a good chance of overcoming this invasion due to their potential to cause mass destruction in terms of outnumbering the American troops. Thus, due to the undesirable costs the alternative of invasion presented, the USA was justified in using the atomic bomb on Japan as the more ideal alternative.

The Pearl Harbor memorial is a beautiful sight to see. The memorial is over the USS Arizona but it is still recognizing all the ships that were sunk that day. A fair amount of people from Japan come to visit the memorial because it was a big deal for them too. Tons of people come to visit the memorial each year.

Dropping the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was justified under the information they had at the time. When criticizing the actions of the Truman administration one needs to consider the effect of knowledge in hindsight. Truman was working under the knowledge that dropping the nuclear bombs would bring a short and fast victory to the Pacific front of the Second World War. As the war had already ended in Europe by this time, leaders were looking to end the campaign in the Pacific as quickly as possible. From a cost benefit perspective dropping the bombs on Japan meant that very few American lives were lost, and the cost of building the bombs compared to the cost of a minimum six month continuation of fighting.Additionally, there was no testing

This was the time when the United States and the Japanese had an extreme rivalry between each other. After the Japanese attacked a US territory, killing 2,403 people, the US promptly declared war on Japan, entering themselves into a second world war after being significantly provoked. Germany and Italy declared war on the US after the US declared war on Japan. Later on, after defeating Germany, the USSR agreed to help the US defeat Japan ninety days after the Nazi surrender, so the US had a six month period before the USSR could come and help them defeat Japan. The US did not want to give up any territory to the USSR like they did with Europe, so the US had to attempt to end the war themselves prior to the ninety days. To end the war between the US and Japan prior to the agreed date by the USSR, J. Robert Oppenheimer invented something that would later murder 105,000 people and injure 94,000 more.

The bombs were intended to cause Japan to surrender to the allied forces and to bring about the end of WWII. The United States bombed Hiroshima towards the ending of World War 11. On august 29 1945, the U.S. launched the Manhattan Project to produce an Atomic bomb. The reason why they choose Hiroshima was because it was still intact. The city was the perfect size and shape for the destructive power of the bomb. In the final year of the war, the Allies prepared for invasion of the Japanese mainland. This was preceded by a U.S. destroying 67 Japanese cities. On May 8, 1945,= The Japanese, refused to accept the Allies' demands for surrender and the war continued. August 1945, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the japanese cities of Hiroshima

The bombing of Pearl Before was a bombing that the country of Japan had declared on the United States and had planned prior to the event. Japanese had many reasons why they bombed the Naval Base of Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor was bombed by Japan following the decision of the Governor of Premier, Hideji Tojo, that the Roosevelt administration would not abandon the regions of South East Asia and China to the Japanese military or continue to supply Tokyo with oil and other valuable resources that they would need in the war. The Emperor of Japan, Emperor Hirohito, wanted to enlarge the territory and power of Japan. Japan wanted the natural resources of oil and aluminum that are found in the Netherlands East Indies, but in order to gain these resources they had to get through the United States first (Quiroz 2). In July of 1939, President Roosevelt decided to end the 1911 Japan Treaty of Commerce and Navigation with the Japanese. In reaction of President Roosevelt doing this the Japanese were getting furious with The United States of

On the date of December 7th 1941 just before 8am a naval base called pearl harbor which was near honolulu was attack by over a hundred japanese planes with a barrage that would last two hours they destroyed 20 american naval vessels destroyed 300 airplanes and killed over 2,000 american sailors and soldiers (1,000 were also wounded) Later this day we would declare war on japan

Dropping the atomic bomb on the two Japanese cities might seem like it was the wrong thing to do but dropping the bomb is what helped us win the war. How? The dropping of the bomb convinced the Japanese to surrender to us.

In July 1940, the U.S. placed an embargo on Japan, hoping they would restrain Japan 's military aggression in China. Japan, a proud nation, would not hear of being dictated to by the United States and began to prepare for the attack on Pearl Harbor in early 1941. Meanwhile, there was some warning of the attack on America, but it went without being duly acknowledged. The day before the attack occurred, a code-breaker intercepted a message from the Japanese concerning the movement of ships at Pearl Harbor. The operator relayed the message to the superior officers who said they would get back to the radioman on Monday, December 8, 1941 (Socolow 43). Also, on the morning of the attack, a radar operator saw a large group of airplanes on the radar screen, and when he reported this, the senior officer said it was probably just some US Bombers and not to worry about them (HistoryNet.Com). The Japanese planes flew under the radar by flying through a pass in the mountains called Kolekole Pass. This maneuver added to the surprise of the attack. The frantic attack began on Sunday at 7:55 in the morning. A little before ten the entire attack was over (Pearl Harbor, Attack On). The men of Pearl Harbor fought with valor.

Intense moral justification was needed in order to make the decision to drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki however, President Truman was ultimately the man who made the final decision to launch ‘Little Boy’ and destroy Hiroshima, Nagasaki and their civilians, thus forcing an end to the war. Although there were many alternatives presented to President Truman, it is unknown as to whether they would have actually succeeded in ending the war or producing less casualties. Truman made the decision to drop these bombs in the heat of war but his justification of having a military target appeared extremely unrealistic, as both cities were full of innocent civilians. The morality of the bombs have been debated over the years, however the publication of the actual damage to civilian life caused a strong voice opposed to the usage in the 60 years following the action.

Hiroshima was such an ideal target for American bombing. According to the book, this was because the city was considered an important place for establishing a military command center. Another reason was that it was a place where communication would be coordinated from. It was the perfect city for militaries to station their operations in.