Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941 (December 8 in Japan). The attack led to the United States' entry into World War II.
The attack was intended as a preventive action in order to keep the U.S. Pacific Fleet from interfering with military actions the Empire of Japan was planning in Southeast Asia against overseas territories of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the United States. Cause and effect of the attack |
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CauseThis has been said to be for many reasons. The reason that is the most common, and to be thought in historical manuscript, Pearl Harbor was attacked due to Japan's lack of territory in the war. Most of the major areas wer controlled by Germany, Great Britian, or Poland. This left the U.S. Naval Base of Pearl Harbor, as well as other stations in Hawaii and Alaska. The Japanese had attacked the harbor, hoping to be able to have a large area of control during the war. This, however, had done the opposite. The United States had declared war on Japan, and they had lost control of the harbor after a 2-Year time-span.
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Effect
The effect on pearl harbor was united states and japan went into war.The attack on Pearl Harbor immediately galvanized a divided nation into action. Public opinion had been moving towards support for entering the war during 1941, but considerable opposition remained until the attack. Overnight, Americans united against Japan in response to calls to "Remember Pearl Harbor." American solidarity in the war effort probably made possible the unconditional surrender position later taken by the Allied Powers.Some historians, among them Samuel Eliot Morison, believe the attack doomed Japan to defeat simply because it awakened the "sleeping giant", regardless of whether the fuel depots or machine shops had been destroyed or even if the carriers had been caught in port and sunk. U.S. industrial and military capacity, once mobilized, was able to pour overwhelming resources into both the Pacific and Atlantic theaters. Others, such as Clay Blair, Jr., and Mark Parillo believe Japanese trade protection was so incompetent that American submarines alone might have strangled Japan into defeat.
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