Pearl Harbor - Warning Signs
On November 26, 1941 a fleet of Japanese ships under the command of Chuchi Nagumo moved into a position 200 miles northwest of Honolulu, Hawaii. Their instructions, providing good weather, were to attack Pearl Harbor with maximum efficiency, "dealing the U.S. a mortal blow" (Stinnent 292) by destroying all battleships and airplanes in the vicinity. Nine days later, with good weather, Pearl Harbor saw the first wave of a crippling Japanese attack. 183 bombers, fighters and torpedo planes unleashed the initial and most killer wave of hostile fire. Just an hour and a half later the second wave of Japanese aircraft were returning to their respective carriers, while the U.S. forces at Pearl Harbor were not only shocked but also suffered damage in large amounts. 2,403 U.S. personnel were lost along with 188 airplanes. Eighteen U.S. ships were sunk or damaged. The most famous, the Arizona sank with most of its 1,300 men onboard. The Japanese lost a little fewer than 100 men and sixty airplanes, a very small loss compared to that of the U.S. Although the U.S. lost no aircraft carriers, the Japanese surprise attack hit the U.S. forces in the Pacific hard. The beautiful waters of a harbor known by the Hawaiians as "Wai Momi" (pear
There were several instances where high-ranking officials from other countries attempted to contact U.S. officials in order to warn of a possible Japanese attack, and there were many indirect actions by the Japanese that suggested attack as well. On November 26, 1941 Winston Churchill sent an urgent message to Roosevelt probably containing information about the Japanese surprise attack. The message was never released but contained information suggesting the movement of a Japanese fleet toward the Hawaiian Islands. There were other warnings from foreign officials as well. Three months before the attack a Peruvian envoy informed the State Department that he heard from sources of Yamamoto's plans involving a surprise attack. This caused the president to track more closely the Japanese fleet movements. Careful examination of these movements, again, suggested an attack on Pearl Harbor. However, none of these warnings were significant enough to cause the personnel at Pearl Harbor to be notified. The final step in Roosevelt's plan was a U.S. embargo of oil from Japan. On July 25, 1941 he "froze all Japanese assets in the U.S. cutting off their main supply of oil and forcing them into war with the U.S." (Willey). Roosevelt's plan continued as he expected. A little over five months after he decided to embargo oil from Japan the Japanese were attacking the U.S. forces at Pearl Harbor. Roosevelt's desire for war did not go unnoticed. During the Atlantic Conference in August of 1941 Prime Minister Winston Churchill noted the "astonishing depth of Roosevelt's intense desire for war" (Willey). Roosevelt and other high-ranking officials also took measures to prevent the commanders stationed in Pearl Harbor knowledge of an attack. Roosevelt was convinced that it was necessary for the attack by the Japanese to be a surprise to convince Hitler that U.S. could be defeated. And in turn cause Hitler to declare war on the U.S. so that the Americans could go to war in Europe. Roosevelt took all the steps necessary to do this. In an effort to express the large amount of warning signs ignored by the U.S. government suggesting that Japan was going to attack the U.S. at Pearl Harbor they must be organized into categories; intercepted Japanese messages, foreign spy knowledge and direct contact between foreign and U.S. officials. The first and most important Japanese intercept was the "bomb plot" message. The message from Japanese headquarters in Tokyo was sent to a Japanese Consulate in Honolulu and decoded on October 9, 1941. This "strictly secret" message requested exact locations o
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Approximate Word count = 1752
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)
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