Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was an unannounced attack by the Japanese Navy against the U.S Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7, 1941. On December 6, 1941 President Roosevelt made a final attempt to the Japanese emperor for peace. There was no response. Later in the day the U.S code breaking service started receiving a 14 part Japanese message but could only figure out the first 13 parts. They then sent the messages on to President Roosevelt and the Secretary of State. They believe this to be a Japanese Attack but are unsure of where this would take place. On December 7, 1941 the last part of the Japanese message was delivered to Washington D.C at approximately 9 a.m.. Around an hour after that another Japanese message was intercepted and it instructed the Japanese embassy to send the message to the Americans around 1 p.m. The Americans then realized that this time was early morning for Pearl Harbor, which means they are several hours behind. The U.S. war department then sent out an alert on a commercial telegraph because the radio contact with Hawaii was broke. The delay of the alert caused the alert to be four hours late.
The Japanese first attack was taken off from the carriers located 230 miles north of Oahu and headed for Pearl Harbor. The second attack took off from the Japanese carriers and headed for Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor was not ready for these attacks once so ever. Many officers and crewmen were off duty because it was a Sunday morning. The Americans were socked and very much so, caught off guard. The first attack hit airfields and battleships. The second attack hit other ships and shipyard facilities.
On December 8, 1941 the U.S and Britain declare war on Japan. On December 11, 1941 Germany and Italy declared war on the U.S.
Thoughts and Opinions-
I learned a lot from this blog assignment. I really didn’t know the whole story on Pearl Harbor and it was very interesting. I believe that Pearl Harbor is the reason the U.S entered into WWII.
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