Crucial Event For American History: The Attack On Pearl Harbor

The most tragic events concerning the history of the U.S. are the Civil War, Pearl Harbor, and September 11, 2001. Particularly, the Attack on Pearl Harbor marked the point of no return, when America could not refrain from the intervention in the Second World War. In 1941, for the U.S., this war burst out with an unexpected attack by the Japanese enemy and moral shock. Pearl Harbor also marked the initiation of a new era in naval affairs. Aircraft carriers replaced large artillery ships as the primary striking force. Beyond question, the success of the Japanese army was prominent, though not as devastating as it appeared initially, seeing that it induced the U.S. military paradigm to develop and thereby become better in technology, which ruined the colonizing ambitions of Japan.

In July 1941, Japanese naval torpedo bombers began training in Kagoshima Bay, reminiscent of Pearl Harbor Bay regarding general configuration. On September 5, Chief of General Staff Hajime Sugiyama and Chief of Staff of the Navy Osami Nagano reported to the emperor about their readiness (Yomiuri Shimbun War Responsibility Reexamination Committee, 2007, p. 206). At the same time, Sugiyama assured that retaliatory airstrikes on Japanese territory are technically impossible for the Americans. The main striking force was six aircraft carriers: Akagi, Hiru, Soryu, Shokaku, Dzyukaku, and Kaga, which housed 441 aircraft, including 144 Nakajima B5N carrier-based torpedo bombers considered to be the best in the world in its class. The guard consisted of two battleships, two heavy and one light cruiser, 11 destroyers, as well as six submarines (Smith, 2001). It is worth noting that the purpose of the attack consisted of eliminating the American fleet along with seizing air supremacy in the Pacific region. Nevertheless, the affected ships appeared to have been outdated, whereas the modern ones were left in a different place at that time during the attack itself. On the same day, the U.S. declared war on Japan.

Undoubtedly, Japan was not among the first ones who started establishing a powerful state, turning it into a colonial empire. Only in the second half of the nineteenth century, this country became capable of shifting from its endless isolationism towards external expansion. Nonetheless, the Land of the Rising Sun undertook the establishment of its area of influence with unprecedented pressure. Precisely, an extensive set of reform policies on par with extraordinary efforts have made Japan one of the first-class powers, with which military parity to reckon. The ambitious goals inherent in the new empire inevitably collided with the interests of the already developed countries. Japan itself was relatively weak concerning the possession of resources, yet nearby lay the vast territories of East Asia. According to Kiger (2018), “The Japanese Foreign Ministry wanted to present the United States with a declaration of war before the attack so that they wouldn’t violate international law” (sect. 2). The only problem distancing Japan from successful colonization was that all the areas representing the geopolitical interest were either directly part of the western colonial empires, or were under their control.

In conclusion, the notorious Attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 has already imprinted in the minds of humanity as a marker of the U.S.’s intervention into the Second World War. However, this event proved to have been not as devastating as displayed via television or newspapers. On the contrary, it allowed the U.S. to engage in the global conflict and apply new technologies, thereby enhancing the national engineering potential, thus ruining Japan’s colonization plans.