Preview

The Causes and Effects of Pearl Harbor This essay describes the important events that led to the Pearl Harbor attack and it describes the results of the attack.

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
866 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Causes and Effects of Pearl Harbor This essay describes the important events that led to the Pearl Harbor attack and it describes the results of the attack.
A surprise attack on Pearl Harbor left millions of Americans heartbroken. This dreadful event led to many extreme consequences. It is one of the most significant moments in American history. In just a short amount of time many things occurred. In the following essay we will observe the attack on Pearl Harbor and its effects on the United States.

Pearl Harbor is located in Oahu Island, Hawaii. In 1908 it was established as a naval base of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Various services provided on the naval base include a naval shipyard, a supply center, and a submarine headquarters.

During World War II, the Japanese were in desperate need of many natural resources. They decided to take control of the East Indies and Southeast Asia because those areas were very rich in raw materials. A pacific war was obviously unavoidable. Therefore, the U.S. began to propose peace negotiations with Japan. The Prime Minister of Japan at the time was Tojo Hideki. His corresponding messages to the U.S. proposals, during late November, gave the impression that he agreed with the negotiations and that the relationship between the two nations would soon be settled.

America was deceived. The Japanese government could care less about the peace agreements and had secretly decided on attacking the Unites States without declaring war. Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku was the commander in chief of Japan's fleet at the time. He was one of the people that conscientiously constructed the plans for the attack on Pearl Harbor. On November 26, 1941, a Japanese fleet sailed out to a point about two hundred seventy-five miles north of Hawaii. On December 7, 1941, an estimate of three hundred sixty planes were launched. At approximately 7:55 AM that same day, the first Japanese air crafts appeared. They included torpedo planes, bombers and fighters. An American Army private noticed the large cluster of planes approaching Pearl Harbor on a radar screen. Unfortunately he was told not to pay any attention to them

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    On December 7, 1941 the Japanese Navy attacked the United States airbase at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. This came as a surprise to the American government that had previously had a series of extensive peace talks with Japanese diplomats. Many have asked why the Japanese went to war against the United States and why the United States government “provoked” the attack. Diplomats from each government tried to attain peace, after a string of Japanese aggressions in China during July 1937. Among other policy makers, principally three Americans lead the peace talks, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Secretary of the State Cordell Hull, and Ambassador to Japan Joseph Grew. Peace talks transpired between Washington and Tokyo throughout the four years. The inability to compromise on peace agreements and the implementations of economic embargoes culminated in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.…

    • 2452 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Japanese fighter planes attacked Pearl Harbor near Honolulu, Hawaii. The attack lasted two hours destroying several naval vessels. This included eight battleships and 200 airplanes destroyed. This attack killed 2,000 American sailors, soldiers and wounded 1,000 more people. This was a quote from Donald Stratton one of the survivors of the Pearl Harbor attack. "We were just firing away at all those planes," he recalls. "They were coming in so close I could see the pilots when they went by. Some were waving and some were grinning." The day after this tragic event President Kennedy asked Congress to declare on Japan; the declaration was passed. On December 8th, 1941 the United States entered World War…

    • 1052 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    On December seventh, 1941, hundreds of Japanese bombers launched an attack on the US naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. They took off from Japanese aircraft-carriers which set out from Japan and remained radio silent and not detected. In this attack, the USS was badly damaged and almost lost the Pacific Fleet. Although the attack only lasted about 2 hours consisted of 2 waves of attack, over 2400 American soldiers lost their lives, more than 1000 soldiers were injured and 12 United States Navy vessels were destroyed, including the Arizona, the Oklahoma, the West Virginia, the California and so on. The American ground force did not respond quickly until the second wave of attack. Most of the soldiers in service in the Pearl Harbor were on…

    • 1880 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Japan knew that if they accepted these terms and surrendered, all their progress on becoming an imperial power would be lost. Japan refused to accept these term from the US and continued their activity in China. To protest this the United States placed an embargo on oil and steel from the US. America did not want Japan to have any more activity in the United States. The United States was Japan's main source of oil and the embargo threatened to cut off Japan's supply line and threatened economic problems.…

    • 1412 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Pearl Harbor took place on December 7th, 1941. Japan had surprised the United States when they attacked one of our military bases in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. They had attacked the US without warning. The Japanese had destroyed 21 American ships and almost 350 aircraft. They had attacked Pearl Harbor around 7:55 on a Sunday. The Japanese Commander yelled out “tora, tora, tora!” (“tiger, tiger, tiger!”) Which means they caught the Americans by surprise.…

    • 553 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    "The Pearl Harbor Attack, 7 December 1941." The Pearl Harbor Attack, 7 December 1941. Department of Defense. 50th Anniversary of World War II Commemorative Committee, 7 Dec. 1991. Web. 21 Nov. 2013. Web.…

    • 2469 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    On the early Sunday morning of December 7, 1941, the Japanese Navy Air Service commenced its preventative strike against the U.S. at the naval base Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. 1 The battle, though only lasting approximately two hours, took the lives of 2,500 Americans and damaged all eight of the U.S. Naval ships. Shortly after on December 8, 1941 Congress declared war on Japan while President Roosevelt addressed the attack through the Day of Infamy Speech.2…

    • 148 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    February 1923 The Japanese government approves a secret defense policy for Japan that sees a future war with the United States as likely and states the need for Japan to prepare for it.…

    • 756 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    December 7, 1941 is considered one of the most fateful days in the history of the United States of America. For those not aware, this marks the date of the Japanese bombing of United States battleships in the United States’ biggest naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Many people considered this barbaric attack on the United States a very random occurrence. And because of this attack, the United States had to go into world war two. But what people have failed to realize in today’s word is that there were many tensions growing into this catastrophe dating back to the 1930’s. So the goal of this paper is to show how the Japanese Bombing of Pearl harbor was the breaking point…

    • 2203 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Japan joined forces with Germany and Italy and became allies. Japan was afraid the U.S. would try to stop them from taking Southeast Asia, so they decided to attack Pearl Harbor, which was a large station for the military. They believed that a surprise attack would destroy the U.S. Navy and make it easier to invade Southeast Asia. The bombing began on Sunday December 7th, 1941 at 7:55 a.m.…

    • 290 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Pearl Harbor was deliberately attacked by the Japanese on December 7, 1941. Reports indicate that 2400 people were killed and 1300 were wounded. [1-ap] The reason Japan bombed Pearl Harbor was because that was where all of the U.S. Navy ships were positioned. The Americans went on the offensive against the Japanese in the Pacific in mid-1942.…

    • 1044 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The essay titled “Japan’s Decision to ‘Go South,’” by Sumio Hatano and Sadao Asada outlined the events that ended with Japan and the U.S. in war. They described that “to prepare for hostilities with the Anglo-American powers, Japan would have to march into Indochina to obtain raw materials; the United States would counter by imposing an economic embargo; this in turn would compel Japan to seize the Dutch East Indies to secure essential oil, a step that would lead to hostilities with the United States” (135-136). So, Japan felt threatened by countries like the U.S. and Great Britain for several reasons, the first being that Great Britain was at war with Germany, an ally of Japan, and the U.S. was as involved in the war in Europe as it could possibly be, without having actually declared war on Germany, by providing aid to Great Britain (7). Additionally, the U.S. provided aid to China in order to prevent the Japanese Empire from further taking over China. Because Japan felt this threat from the Anglo-American powers, they found it necessary to march into Indochina to procure the materials they needed to…

    • 1748 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The bombardment of Pearl Harbor is seen as significant not solely because of its level of catastrophe, but also considering the fact that it caused Americans to join together in a war effort. Before, Pearl Harbor, the country was divided due to the fact that not all Americans wanted to be a part of World War II; however, after Pearl Harbor, the decision to go to war became unanimous. Pearl Harbor motivated Americans to fight for what they believed in, even after World War I debilitated them of most of their supplies. The tenderness Americans felt can be best explained by the words of fleet Chaplain William A. Macguire "Don't say we buried our dead with sorrow. They died manfully.…

    • 526 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    To start off, the Japanese had planned their attack for months, but soon enough on 8 a.m. on December 7th, 1941, Japanese planes filled the sky while bombs were falling out of the sky in the blink of an eye. At 8:10 there was a 1,800 pound bomb that crashed through the deck of the battleship USS Arizona. There was one spy that was sent to Pearl Harbor to know how many ships there was and how many people were on them. Nobody knew that this attack was going to occur on American territory. It would be hard to fight this battle because Japan and Hawaii were about 4,000 miles away from each other.…

    • 443 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Imagine that you are sleeping and that all is peaceful and silent. Then, all of a sudden CRASH! BANG! BOOM! Now all is blurry, smoke has crowded your vision and all you hear is “HELP! HELP!” Since the smoke has gone down a little bit you get to safety, stunned at what has happened, and then hear of the terrible news that 3,500 of your comrades are dead. Pearl Harbor is a gigantic naval station located just off the coast of Honolulu, Hawaii, that had to suffer this feight that came by and surprised everyone. The life changing event of the bombing of Pearl Harbor surprised our nation with this attack and would start some very rough years ahead for our country.…

    • 642 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays