why did japan think bombing pearl harbor was a good idea

Forget Chicago, Japan didn't have the logistics for Hawaii. That lent even more momentum to Tokyo’s plans for aggression. You should ask British military players about that one. Let’s ask “what if?” as we look back seventy-five years to the Japanese aerial assault on this place. But if the war should be prolonged into a second or third year, I am not confident at all.”. And perversely, Tokyo had an insatiable appetite for more sea space. Why did Japan do it? The idea was to cripple the American Navy by destroying it's aircraft carriers at Pearl Harbor and then make the war so bloody that the Americans would negotiate a peace treaty. The problem was that the US was neutral. Six months after Pearl Harbor, America was building that many combat aircraft every month. What should they have done? So let’s play critic. It would barricade them off from outsiders. Pearl Harbor was attacked after the US passed economic sanctions on Japan after hearing about their war crimes committed in China. Think about it. Japan knew that there was no reasonable possibility of bombing those industrial centers. For a bit of perspective, in 1941 the entire Japanese Navy air fleet was a little over 1,200 combat aircraft, total, which was roughly the same number fielded by the US Army Air Corps (this is before there was an Air Force). Which probably accounts for why the Americans are among the people least worried about militarism and hyper nationalism within their own borders in the present. ...but you know what they say about assumptions. Recommended: This Video Shows What Happens if Washington, D.C. Is Attacked with Nuclear Weapons, Recommended: 8 Million People Could Die in a War with North Korea, Recommended: Why North Korea Is Destined to Test More ICBMs and Nuclear Weapons. Attacking the US would definitely draw the US into the war. Japanese strategists set to work determining how to overcome another strong yet faraway foe—just as U.S. naval strategists in places like the Naval War College pondered how to project military might into a determined opponent’s home region, thousands of miles from American shores. is that true? So here’s a pearl of wisdom from the great Carl: no fair Monday-morning quarterbacking! In the surprise attack, Japan sunk several ships, destroyed hundreds of planes and ended thousands of lives. Nor should he have been. To oversimplify, they wanted to partition that ocean between Japan and the United States. Japan fundamentally misunderstood the nature of their opponent. The US passed crippling economic sanctions (oil) against Japan to punish them for their aggressive foreign policy. All of this, it is worth noting, is well known among Japanese historical circles but is almost completely ignored in American retellings. Maybe we would make ourselves better play-callers than Belichick or Brady through this learning process—a process we at the Naval War College call “critical analysis.”. But he was also wrong: by executing his plan to strike Pearl Harbor, the Imperial Japanese Navy guaranteed there would be no quick win. but IJN dropped the bomb while negotiations were still happening. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts, https://www.history.com/news/why-did-japan-attack-pearl-harbor. My former chairman George Baer, the author of an award-winning history of the United States Navy, reminds us that our navy’s shipbuilding budget for 1940 alone exceeded a decade’s worth of Imperial Japanese Navy shipbuilding budgets. Who knows? It's still up for argument whether the American strategy shifted this way because it was the best strategy, or because aircraft carriers was pretty much what they had available, but it was a revolution in naval warfare. Makes sense, doesn’t it? In this article, they talked about how the failure of Japan to destroy the bases on Pearl Harbor led to their ultimate surrender, but even if they had destroyed all aircraft and naval ships, wouldn't the world's superpower been able to pump up war supply production and crank out more aircraft and naval ships anyway? This is a roundabout way of getting to the beginning. Information about your device and internet connection, including your IP address, Browsing and search activity while using Verizon Media websites and apps. Yamamoto told his political superiors: “If you insist that we really do it, you may trust us for the perfect execution of a breath-taking show of naval victories for the first half-year or full year. Plenty of people in Japan understood the long term balance of economic power. To truly learn from them, we have to envision some alternative course of action that would have yielded better results than the one they took. What they did not understand was the political will of US society. By contrast, my opponent only has to be stronger than me at one point along the line. Every time Japan extended its defense perimeter eastward or southward was like extending the radius of a circle: it expanded the sea area Japan’s fleet had to police by the square of the distance from the Japanese home islands, which lay at the empire’s center. However, attacking the US and destroying the Pacific Fleet would guarantee the IJN had a chance at defeating the rest of the US fleet. They thought it was a good idea because it was surprise attack and they thought they could beat they because of the ships and weapons they destroyed. Had Tokyo exercised some forbearance, it may have avoided rousing the “sleeping giant” that Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto reputedly said he feared so much. As we afford our hallowed forebears the remembrance they deserve, let’s also try to learn from what transpired here seventy-five years ago, and see what it tells us about America’s future as an Asia-Pacific sea power. What made the biggest difference, though, was industrial capacity. As we know from the history books, the war did spill into a second year, 1942–43, and then into a third, 1943–44, and into a fourth. He can mass forces at some point along the line and punch through. To enable Verizon Media and our partners to process your personal data select 'I agree', or select 'Manage settings' for more information and to manage your choices. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast, Press J to jump to the feed. The waters, skies and landmasses west of Asia’s “second island chain”—a loose line of islands stretching from northern Japan through Guam down to New Guinea—would become a Japanese preserve. i see. Find out more about how we use your information in our Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy. Even if the US was neutral, it didn't mean the US wouldn't enter the war. If you really really really get into it. Let’s look at Japanese failures in strategy, and then consider the strategic import of Japanese tactical failures once Tokyo did send Admiral Chūichi Nagumo’s aircraft-carrier task force hurtling toward Hawaii on its errand of destruction. According to the best naval doctrine of the day - to which both America and Japan subscribed - Japan's first priority at Pearl Harbor was to put battleships out of the fight, and that's pretty much what they did. That’s a fallacy. It tried to defend the vast territories it overran in 1941–42—and never really adapted to the new circumstances it had created by poking a slumbering America. Bear in mind that Japan had already been at war for a decade by the time it attacked Hawaii; the Imperial Japanese Army invaded Manchuria in 1931 and China proper in 1937. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Your Privacy Controls. Point is, Japan was not entirely unreasonable in thinking it could smash the bulk of the US Pacific Fleet and essentially sit on an early lead. Weren't they intending to destroy aircraft carrier (which actually weren't there) too? We and our partners will store and/or access information on your device through the use of cookies and similar technologies, to display personalised ads and content, for ad and content measurement, audience insights and product development. So Yamamoto was right: Japan had to win quickly or not at all. The military expansion by the military into China was straining Japan's economy to supply its needs. It was constantly extending the defensive frontier—including at far-flung places like Guadalcanal, in late 1942. Admiral Yamamoto, to name one, caught sight of how the war would unfold. Without oil, Japanese leaders realized their economy would grind to a halt. In effect, then, Tokyo envisioned enclosing its territorial conquests and sources of natural resources within a long, distended defense perimeter that coincided, more or less, with the second island chain. Picking a fight with a stronger enemy, enraging that enemy and refusing to admit the likelihood of defeat—that adds up to “self-defeating behavior” of the first order on the part of Japan’s military rulers. Attacking Pearl Harbor stoked popular desire for vengeance. https://www.history.com/news/why-did-japan-attack-pearl-harbor. Think about what Japan was contemplating from a geographic and geometric perspective. This was a mammoth undertaking. Thus, in the minds of the Japanese, they had to either give up all their territory in China or attack the West. "Whatever the final score of the game, Japan, the country, loses the war.". And attacking West basically meant having to attack the US. The Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, brought the United States officially into World War II. The Western allies were limiting exports of goods such as rubber and oil to Japan which it needed to continue its war in China. Important note: if American aircraft carriers had been at Pearl Harbor, the Pacific War might have lasted much, much longer. Agreed on just about everything. And even if it did awaken the American giant, it would have avoided filling him with what Yamamoto called a “terrible resolve” to crush Japan. However, what people miss is that Japan's military leaders were not acting rationally. The mistake was not military but political. It worked for a short while, because obviously the US would destroy them.

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