Consequences of the attack on Pearl Harbor facts for kids
Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor took place on December 7, 1941. The U.S. military suffered 18 ships damaged or sunk, and 2,400 people were killed. Its most significant consequence was the entrance of the United States into World War II. The US had previously been officially neutral but subsequently entered the Pacific War, the Battle of the Atlantic and the European theatre of war. Following the attack, the US interned 120,000 Japanese Americans, 11,000 German Americans, and 3,000 Italian Americans.
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American public opinion prior to the attack
From the outbreak of World War II on September 1, 1939, to December 8, 1941, the United States was officially neutral, as it was bound by the Neutrality Acts not to get involved in the conflicts raging in Europe and Asia. Prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, public opinion in the United States had not been unanimous. When polled in January 1940, 60% of Americans were in favor of helping the United Kingdom in the war. A majority of Americans believed that the safety of the United States was contingent on the UK winning the war, and an even larger majority believed that the UK would lose the war if the United States stopped supplying war materials. Despite this, the same poll reported that 88% of Americans would not support entering the war against Germany and Italy. Public support for assisting the United Kingdom rose through 1940, reaching about 65% by May 1941. However, 80% disapproved of war against Germany and Italy. The only areas where most people favored formally going to war against Germany and Italy were a few western states and southern states. Over 50% of those polled in Wyoming said "yes" when asked if the United States should formally enter the war on Britain's side. The state of Tennessee, the Tennessee Valley region of North Alabama, all of Georgia and the regions of Western North Carolina, Eastern North Carolina, the South Carolina Lowcountry, the Pee Dee region of South Carolina and Upstate South Carolina were all considered "hot-beds of Anglophilic sentiment" before Pearl Harbor.
Americans were more unsure on the prospect of conflict with Empire of Japan around the same time frame. In a February Gallup poll, a majority believed that the United States should intervene in Japan's conquest of the Dutch East Indies and Singapore. However, in the same poll, only 39% supported going to war with Japan, while 46% opposed the prospect.
Japanese views
On December 8, 1941, Japan declared war on the United States and the British Empire. The Japanese document discussed world peace and the disruptive actions of the United States and the United Kingdom. The document stated all avenues for averting war had been exhausted by the government of Japan.
Although the Imperial Japanese government had made some effort to prepare their population for war by anti-American propaganda, it appears most Japanese were surprised, apprehensive, and dismayed by the news they were now at war with the U.S., a country many of them admired. Nevertheless, the people at home and overseas thereafter generally accepted their government's account of the attack and supported the war effort until their nation's surrender in 1945.
Japan's national leadership at the time appeared to have believed war between the U.S. and Japan had long been inevitable. In any case, relations had already significantly deteriorated since Japan's invasion of China in the early 1930s, which the U.S. strongly disapproved of. In 1942, Saburō Kurusu, former Japanese ambassador to the United States, gave an address in which he talked about the "historical inevitability of the war of Greater East Asia." He said war had been a response to Washington's longstanding aggression toward Japan. Some of the provocations against Japan that he named were the San Francisco School incident, the Naval Limitations Treaty, other unequal treaties, the Nine Power Pact, and constant economic pressure, culminating in the "belligerent" scrap metal and oil embargo in 1941 by the United States and Allied countries to try to contain or reverse the actions of Japan, especially in Indochina, during her expansion of influence and interests throughout Asia.
Japan's dependence on imported oil made the trade embargoes especially significant. These pressures directly influenced Japan to ally with Germany and Italy through the Tripartite Pact. According to Kurusu, the actions showed that the Allies had already provoked war with Japan long before the attack at Pearl Harbor and that the U.S. was already preparing for war with Japan. Kurusu also stated, falsely, that the U.S. was looking beyond just Asia to world domination, with "sinister designs". Some of that view seems to have been shared by Adolf Hitler, who called it one of the reasons Germany declared war on the United States. He had many years earlier mentioned European imperialism toward Japan. Therefore, according to Kurusu, Japan had no choice but to defend itself and so should rapidly continue to militarize, bring Germany and Italy closer as allies and militarily combat the United States, Britain, and the Netherlands.
Japan's leaders also saw themselves as justified in their conduct, believing that they were building the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. They also explained Japan had done everything possible to alleviate tension between the two nations. The decision to attack, at least for public presentation, was reluctant and forced on Japan. Of the Pearl Harbor attack itself, Kurusu said it came in direct response to a virtual ultimatum from the U.S. government, the Hull note, and so the surprise attack was not treacherous. Since the Japanese-American relationship already had hit its lowest point, there was no alternative. In any case, had an acceptable settlement of differences been reached, the Carrier Striking Task Force could have been called back.
Germany and Italy declare war
On December 11, 1941, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy declared war on the United States, and the United States reciprocated, formally entering the war in Europe.
German dictator Adolf Hitler and Italian dictator Benito Mussolini were under no obligation to declare war on the United States under the mutual defense terms of the Tripartite Pact until the US counterattacked Japan. However, relations between the European Axis Powers and the United States had deteriorated since 1937. The United States had been in an undeclared state of war with Germany in the Battle of the Atlantic since Roosevelt publicly confirmed shoot on sight on 11 September 1941. Hitler could no longer ignore the military aid the US was giving Britain and the Soviet Union in the Lend-Lease programme. On December 4, 1941, the Germans learned of the United States Armed Forces' contingency planning to invade Nazi-occupied Continental Europe by 1943; this was Rainbow Five, made public by sources unsympathetic to Roosevelt's New Deal, and published by the Chicago Tribune on that date. Moreover, with Roosevelt's initiation of a Neutrality Patrol, which in fact also escorted British ships, as well as orders to U.S. Navy destroyers first to actively report U-boats, then "shoot on sight", American neutrality was honored more in the breach than observance. Admiral Erich Raeder had urged Hitler to declare war throughout 1941, so the Kriegsmarine could begin the Second Happy Time in the Battle of the Atlantic.
Having been unaware of Japanese plans, Hitler was initially furious that the United States had been dragged into the war at a time when he had not yet acquired full control of Continental Europe — on the very day of the Pearl Harbor attack, Hitler himself had issued his Nacht und Nebel decree, concerning the suppression of resistance activities within Nazi-occupied lands. Hitler, who had previously declared the Japanese "Honorary Aryans" claimed that "this is what happens when your allies are not Anglo-Saxons". He decided war with the United States was unavoidable, and the Pearl Harbor attack, the publication of Rainbow Five, and Roosevelt's post-Pearl Harbor address, which focused on European affairs as well as the situation with Japan, probably contributed to the declaration. Hitler expected the United States would soon declare war on Germany in any event in view of the Second Happy Time. He disastrously underestimated American military production capacity, the United States' own ability to fight on two fronts, and the time his own Operation Barbarossa would require. Similarly, the Nazis may have hoped the declaration of war, a showing of solidarity with Japan, would result in closer collaboration with the Japanese in Eurasia, particularly against the Soviet Union and planned for in secret by Japan — something that would not materialize, due to existing relations between Moscow and Tokyo at that time. Soviet code-breakers had broken the Japanese diplomatic codes, and Moscow knew from signals intelligence that there would be no Japanese attack on the Soviet Union in 1941.
The decision to declare war on the United States allowed the United States to enter the European war in support of the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union without much public opposition.
Even as early as mid-March 1941, President Roosevelt was quite acutely aware of Hitler's hostility towards the United States, and the destructive potential it presented, in reference to Hitler's statement of a "new order in Europe" during the Führer's own Berlin Sportpalast speech of January 30, 1941, the eighth anniversary of the Nazis' Machtergreifung. In a speech to the White House Correspondents' Association on U.S. involvement in the war in Europe, Roosevelt stated:
...Nazi forces are not seeking mere modifications in colonial maps or in minor European boundaries. They openly seek the destruction of all elective systems of government on every continent, including our own. They seek to establish systems of government based on the regimentation of all human beings by a handful of individual rulers who seize power by force.
Yes, these men and their hypnotized followers call this a "New Order." It is not new, and it is not order. For order among nations presupposes something enduring, some system of justice under which individuals over a long period of time are willing to live. Humanity will never permanently accept a system imposed by conquest, and based on slavery. These modern tyrants find it necessary to their plans to eliminate all democracies — eliminate them one by one. The nations of Europe, and indeed we, ourselves, did not appreciate that purpose. We do now.
Author Ian Kershaw records Hitler's initial reaction to the attack, when he was first informed about it on the evening of 7 December at Führer Headquarters: "We can't lose the war at all. We now have an ally which has never been conquered in 3,000 years". Well before the attack, in 1928 Hitler had confided in the text of his then-unpublished Zweites Buch that while the Soviet Union was the most important immediate foe that the Third Reich had to defeat, the United States was the most important long-term challenge to Nazi aims.
Hitler awarded Imperial Japanese ambassador to Nazi Germany Hiroshi Ōshima the Grand Cross of the Order of the German Eagle in Gold (1st class) after the attack, praising Japan for striking hard and without first declaring war.
British reaction
The United Kingdom declared war on Japan nine hours before the U.S. did, partially due to Japanese attacks on the British colonies of Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong; and partially due to Winston Churchill's promise to declare war "within the hour" of a Japanese attack on the United States.
The war had been going poorly for the British Empire for more than two years. The United Kingdom was by now the sole country in Western Europe unoccupied by the Nazis, other than the neutral powers. Prime Minister Winston Churchill was deeply concerned about the future; he had long attempted to persuade America to enter the war against the Nazis but had been continually rebuffed by American isolationists who argued that the war was purely a European issue and should not be America's concern, and who had prevented Roosevelt from involving the U.S. any further than selling food, weapons and other military materiel, and supplies to the British. On December 7, Churchill was at his country estate, Chequers, with a few friends and his family. Just after dinner he was given news of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Churchill correctly surmised the consequences of the attack for the course of the entire war.
So, we had won after all! …We had won the war. England would live; Britain would live; the Commonwealth of Nations and the Empire would live. How long the war would last or in what fashion it would end no man could tell, nor did I at this moment care. . . . but now we should not be wiped out. Our history would not come to an end. We might not even have to die as individuals. Hitler's fate was sealed. Mussolini's fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to powder. All the rest was merely the proper application of overwhelming force.
Investigations and blame
President Roosevelt appointed the Roberts Commission, headed by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Owen Roberts, to investigate and report facts and findings with respect to the attack on Pearl Harbor. It was the first of many official investigations (nine in all). Both the Fleet commander, Rear Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, and the Army commander, Lieutenant General Walter Short (the Army had been responsible for air defense of Hawaii, including Pearl Harbor, and for general defense of the islands against hostile attack), were relieved of their commands shortly thereafter. They were accused of "dereliction of duty" by the Roberts Commission for not making reasonable defensive preparations.
None of the investigations conducted during the War, nor the Congressional investigation afterward, provided enough reason to reverse those actions. The decisions of the Navy and War Departments to relieve both was controversial at the time and has remained so ever since. However, neither was court-martialed, as would normally have been the result of dereliction of duty. On May 25, 1999, the U.S. Senate voted to recommend both officers be exonerated on all charges, citing "denial to Hawaii commanders of vital intelligence available in Washington".
A Joint Congressional Committee was also appointed, on September 14, 1945, to investigate the causes of the attack and subsequent disaster. It was convened on November 15, 1945.
Rise of anti-Japanese sentiment and historical significance
The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor coupled with their alliance with the Nazis and the ensuing war in the Pacific fueled anti-Japanese sentiment, racism, xenophobia, and anti-Axis sentiment in the Allied nations like never before. Japanese, Japanese-Americans and Asians having a similar physical appearance were regarded with deep-seated suspicion, distrust and hostility. The attack was viewed as having been conducted in an extremely underhanded way and also as a very "treacherous" or "sneaky attack". Suspicions were further fueled by the Niihau incident, as historian Gordon Prange stated "the rapidity with which the three resident Japanese went over to the pilot's cause", which troubled the Hawaiians. "The more pessimistic among them cited the Niihau Incident as proof that no one could trust any Japanese, even if an American citizen, not to go over to Japan if it appeared expedient."
The attack, the subsequent declarations of war, and fear of "Fifth Columnists" resulted in internment of Japanese, German, and Italian populations in the United States and others, for instance the Japanese American internment, German American internment, Italian American internment, Japanese Canadian internment, and Italian Canadian internment. The attack resulted in the United States fighting the Germans and Italians, among others, in Europe and Japan in the Pacific.
The consequences were world-changing. Prime Minister Winston Churchill knew that the survival of the British Empire depended on American aid, and since 1940 had frequently asked Roosevelt to declare war. Churchill aide John Colville stated that the prime minister and American Ambassador John Gilbert Winant, who also supported the British, "sort of danced around the room together" as the United States would now enter the war, making a British victory likely. Churchill later wrote, "Being saturated and satiated with emotion and sensation, I went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved and thankful."
By opening the Pacific War, which ended in the unconditional surrender of Japan, the attack on Pearl Harbor led to the breaking of an Asian check on Soviet expansion. The Allied victory in this war and the subsequent U.S. emergence as a dominant world power, eclipsing Britain, have shaped international politics ever since.
Pearl Harbor is generally regarded as an extraordinary event in American history, remembered as the first time since the War of 1812 that America was attacked in strength on its territory by foreign people – with only the September 11 attacks almost 60 years later being of a similarly catastrophic scale.
Perception of the attack today
Some Japanese today feel they were compelled to fight because of threats to their national interests and an embargo imposed by the United States, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. The most important embargo was on oil on which its Navy and much of the economy was dependent. For example, Japan Times, an English-language newspaper owned by one of the major news organizations in Japan (Asahi Shimbun), ran numerous columns in the early 2000s echoing Kurusu's comments in reference to the Pearl Harbor attack.
In putting the Pearl Harbor attack into context, Japanese writers repeatedly contrast the thousands of U.S. citizens killed there with the hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians killed in U.S. air attacks on Japan during the war, even without mentioning the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States.
However, in spite of the perceived inevitability of the war by many Japanese, many also believe the Pearl Harbor attack, although a tactical victory, was actually part of a seriously flawed strategy against the U.S. As one columnist wrote, "The Pearl Harbor attack was a brilliant tactic, but part of a strategy based on the belief that a spirit as firm as iron and as beautiful as cherry blossoms could overcome the materially wealthy United States. That strategy was flawed, and Japan's total defeat would follow." In 1941, the Japanese Foreign Ministry released a statement saying Japan had intended to make a formal declaration of war to the United States at 1 p.m. Washington time, 25 minutes before the attack at Pearl Harbor was scheduled to begin. This officially acknowledged something that had been publicly known for years. Diplomatic communications had been coordinated well in advance with the attack, but had failed delivery at the intended time. It appears the Japanese government was referring to the "14-part message", which did not actually break off negotiations, let alone declare war, but did officially raise the possibility of a break in relations. However, because of various delays, the Japanese ambassador was unable to deliver this message until well after the attack had begun.
Imperial Japanese military leaders appear to have had mixed feelings about the attack. Fleet Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto was unhappy about the botched timing of the breaking off of negotiations. He is on record as having said, in the previous year, "I can run wild for six months ... after that, I have no expectation of success." The reports of American reactions, terming it a "sneak attack" and "infamous behavior", confirmed that the effect on American morale had been the opposite of what was intended.
The Prime Minister of Japan during World War II, Hideki Tōjō, later wrote, "When reflecting upon it today, that the Pearl Harbor attack should have succeeded in achieving surprise seems a blessing from Heaven."
In January 1941 Yamamoto had said, regarding the imminent war with the United States, "Should hostilities once break out between Japan and the United States, it is not enough that we take Guam and the Philippines, nor even Hawaii and San Francisco. We would have to march into Washington and sign the treaty in the White House. I wonder if our politicians (who speak so lightly of a Japanese-American war) have confidence as to the outcome and are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices?"
