The Attack on Pearl Harbor
The sunken wreck of the USS Arizona serves as
a lasting testament to the dead of Pearl HarborStruck by a 1,760lb bomb, the ammunition onboard the
USS Arizona was detonated, killing 1,177 American sailors
in an instant. The Arizona sunk and has lain submerged off
the coast of Ford island ever since, with the wreck containing
the bodies of a large number of servicemen who could not
be recovered following the attack. In 1962, a white arched
memorial was constructed over (though not touching) the
wreck. Attracting around 1.8 million visitors a year, both
the ship and the memorial serve as a lasting reminder of the
horror of the Pearl Harbor attack.and fuel oil tanks mitigated the damage,
the attack was still devastating.
One question surrounding the attack
on Pearl Harbor, which still causes dispute
to this day, was how could it have been
allowed to happen? After all, despite
not having direct combat involvement
at this stage of the war, programs such
as Lend-Lease meant that the United
States had been supplying the Allied
forces with significant numbers of military
supplies since September 1940. Surely
then, American intelligence should have
been expecting some sort of retaliation
from the Japanese?
“My answer is that they should have
been expecting it,” says Kilton. “They had
received multiple tips, including from one
of the ambassadors of another country
who gave the US information that they
had heard about the attack coming. The
US was not paying attention to some of the
clues that were there. They didn’t cue into
any of them. They were more concerned
about sabotage or a naval strike out at sea.
They didn’t think it was quite as likely
that it would happen at Pearl Harbor. The
US, its ambassadors and the presidentkind of knew things were not going well
on the diplomatic front, and I think they
knew we were headed toward war, but
there was a bit of underestimation that
Japan would make the decision to attack
the US and have the capability to actually
reach out and do it.”
This catastrophic failure to predict the
strike on Pearl Harbor had devastating
consequences, with some 407,316 US
service personnel killed during the conf lict
it led to. “There was a lot of intelligence
gathered about a potential attack, and
most of it was misread,” laments military
historian Patrick O’Donnell. “Like a lot
of intelligence, it goes up the chain of
command and doesn’t get to the right
people to make the right decisions until
it’s too late.”
As well as being a deciding factor in
the USA’s decision to enter the conflict,
it can be argued that Pearl Harbor would
have a lasting and profound effect on the
American mindset. “The positive thing is
that we were a divided country politically,
and then Pearl Harbor galvanised America
like few other events could have in favour
of the war effort,” explains O’Donnell.
“The unintended consequence that Hitler
declared war on the US four days after theattack was incredible too. It was one of his
great blunders and if he hadn’t declared
war on the United States we would have
focused on Japan first.”
And for Kilton, the effect on the
American population was much more
than simply swinging public opinion in
favour of the war. “It was the beginning
of the concept of the ‘greatest generation’,”
he says. “The American people rose to
the challenge that was before them. Not
every decision made was a good decision,
but everybody mobilised in some way.
Even the media generated advertising
stuff, and the recycling of cans for making
equipment we needed for the war effort
took hold. It was a full-hearted response.
“We should also remember the role of
‘Rosie the Riveter’ and that women took
on more responsibilities in factories as
the men went off to war. These women
rose to the challenge, coming out of the
Great Depression where they had faced
hardships and then playing a crucial role
in a two-ocean war and succeeding.”
The Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor
is most often discussed in terms of how
it ultimately brought the US into WorldWar II, and this is perhaps most vividly
demonstrated by its use on several
propaganda posters that proclaimed
patriotic Americans should join the war
effort to “Avenge Pearl Harbor!”
“The attack on Pearl Harbor was the
seminal event of the Second World War,”
says Stille. “It brought the full power of
the United Sates into the war with enough
time to shape the outcome of the war. It
virtually guaranteed that the Americans
would fight the war to the finish. For the
Japanese, Pearl Harbor was the ultimate
folly. It undermined their vague notion
that the United States would succumb to
war weariness and lead to a negotiated
settlement. Not only was it the epitome
of poor strategic planning, but it provided
little military advantage to the Imperial
Navy as it opened the conflict.”
However, it was also a devastating and
surprising attack, springing from almost
a decade of growing tensions between the
United States and Japan, which deserves
to be remembered as such and not simply
as the impetus for a much larger conflict.
“You can still see the scars of the attack
80 years later,” says Kilton, “and we need
to never forget the lessons that we have
learned as we make decisions today.”“The attack on Pearl Harbor was the
seminal event of the Second World War”
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