Japan's Attack on Pearl Harbor Changed the Course of History

“On December 7, 1941, a day that will live in infamy”. Those words, expressed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt after the Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor, changed the course of American history. The occasions of that day guaranteed the United States would end its past reception of nonintervention and turn into a branch of the Allied Powers, attempting to crush Germany, Italy and Japan. The Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor constrained Americans to understand that they were not invulnerable from outside assaults.

Japan's occupation of the French Indochina in July of 1941 and Japan's invasion of Manchuria which was a natural resource rich place in northern china. This caused America and others to be every displeased with Japan because it violated the open door policy which the League of Nations supported. The rest of china was then later raided by Japan to try and get more land for more resources that they needed to be a successful country. This invasion led to the Nanking massacre which led to a lot of Chinese people getting killed. Japans whole intent was to try to gain more area for natural resources because the U.S froze the Japanese assets in the U.S.The U.S also declared an embargo on petroleum shipments and other vital war materials to Japan. By the late stages of 1941 the us had gotten rid of all relations with Japan. This caused prime minister Tojo Hideki to decide on war. The U.S supplied over half of Japan's resources so this was very hurtful to them and their economy. In December Japanese planes sunk the Panay an American gunboat in the Yangtze River, murdering three Americans.Despite the fact that Japan said it was a mix up and paid reparations it still made the U.S have even more hatred for Japan.

The Japanese’s plan was very simple and that was to destroy the Pacific Fleet. They did this so the U.S would not have the ability to battle back as Japan's military spread over the South Pacific. On December 7, the Japanese finally took on the task of attacking Pearl Harbor after some practice.

The United States had some knowledge that an attack was coming but never never expected Hawaii to be a target because they weren't on the potential targets list. The assault at Pearl Harbor was at the hands of admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the commander in chief of the Japanese combined fleet and vice admiral Chukchi Nagumo who both contended it would give a lethal hit to the enemies moral. The Japanese army included six plane carrying warships, 24 supporting boats and a huge amount of submarines.

The attack happened Just before 8 a.m. on that Sunday morning. The people at Pearl Harbor were not ready for that kind of attack because they never expected for any one to attack them. This was an easy win for Japan because of that. An interesting fact is that a pilot saw the planes on his radar but didn't care because they were supposed to have US planes arriving at the same time. So later on Japanese military aircraft arrived on the base, where they figured out how to crush or harm about 20 American maritime vessels, including eight tremendous war vessels, and more than 300 planes. More than 2,400 Americans passed in the assault, including citizens, and another 1,000 individuals were injured. The day after the ambush, President Franklin D. Roosevelt requested that Congress announce war on Japan.

Probably the most important ships that was destroyed was the USS Arizona and the USS Oklahoma because they were so iconic during the battle. Half of the losses at Pearl Harbor happened on this war vessel, which was hit four times by Japanese planes and after a while sank.Their were about 1,177 crew members on board which all of them died. Among those on USS Arizona was twenty three sets of twins which died in that ship during the battle. Till this day the USS Arizona still leaks about 9 quartz of fuel into the harbor each day. The USS Oklahoma had about 400 sailors aboard and only some survived. People that were injured on the Arizona or in other words the people who survived and lived chose the Arizona as where they wanted to be buried.After Arizona sank, its superstructure and primary combat hardware were rescued and reused to help the war exertion, leaving its structure, two weapon turrets and the remaining parts of more than 1,000 crew members in 40 feet of water. The landmark was devoted on May 30, 1962, and pulls in more than 1 million guests every year thanks to Elvis Presley because he raised over 50,000 dollars for the cause.