A thunderbolt attack by Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii is known as Pearl Harbor Attack. Let’s travel to the past to know the basic reason for this attack. In the year 1860, Japan had to restore its economy under the pressure of America; which led to the expansion of Japan. After its expansion Japan won against Russia in the year 1905, becoming the first Asian power to defeat a European Power which brought confidence in the Japanese. Japan also declared war on China in 1947 leading to the Nanking Massacre and other atrocities. America wants to stop Japan from expansion otherwise this would lead to the control of Japan over the Pacific Ocean, a lot of diplomatic tensions were going between America and Japan, as America imposed sanctions and restrictions on doing business with Japan. In the year 1939, Hitler declared World War 2. Japan wanted America to enter into the War, so that America could not intervene with the planned military actions in southeast Asia against overseas territories of the UK, the Netherlands and those of the US. Since America was not entering the War Japan decided to attack America as a preventive action. Thus Japan started planning to attack Pearl Harbor; US naval base near Honolulu Hawaii. The order for the disaster was issued on November 5, 1941, before this the Japanese were trained for the attack. The training was carried on the similar island as Hawaii, where they trained to escape the RADAR by flying on lower altitude which would lead to a huge destruction and the commanders were instructed that the attack may be canceled in case of favorable negotiations. But unfortunately no such thing happened and a fleet led including aircrafts, battleships, cruisers and destroyers to 400 km from Hawaii. From there more than 420 planes in total were launched. 7 December, 1941, was expected to be a peaceful Sunday morning for the Hawaiians, but woefully the attack commenced at 7:48 AM and destroyed 188 US aircrafts, more than 2000 Americans including civilians were killed, 1170 Americans were wounded. But not everything is gloomy, some important base installations like submarine piers, headquarters buildings, power stations, etcetera were safe. The main goal of Japan was to destroy the Aircraft Carrier, in which Japan was not successful. The attack was scheduled in 3 turns and the interval between these attacks were 6-7 hours each.
Japan declared war on the United States and British Empire later on the same day, but the announcement was not delivered till the following day. It was clear that America and Britain would counter attack Japan. The British Government announced war on Japan as soon as they came to know that their territory had been attacked and finally on 8th December, United States congress also approved the declaration of war on japan and finally the battle of midway was fought. As was required by the Quebec Agreement, the consent of the United Kingdom was obtained for the bombing. Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata, and Nagasaki were chosen for bombing because these are urban areas and contains militarily significant facilities. Ultimately Japan was subjected by aerial bombing. Atomic bomb named “Little boy” and “Fat man” were thrown on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August respectively which killed around 250,000 people within few seconds. More than 1 lakh people were trapped within the fire and killed within a few hours, mostly civilians.
The Japanese government signed the letter to surrender on 2 September, thus ending the war. The cause and effects of bombing were studied by Scholars and there’s still ongoing debate behind the need to use Atomic Bombs. According to Supporters there was a need for using the atomic bomb to end the war with minimal destructions and casualties, while others points the moral and ethical implications and the death caused to the civilians.
Post World War II, the United States understood the importance of supporting and providing aid to Japan so Washington invested $2.2 billion or $18 billion for inflation in Japan’s reconstruction effort. Today Japan is one of the most important Allies of America. Japan also signed an alliance with the United Nations and provides host-nation support to the United Nations providing them land, labor and resources for stationing the cost of which ranges from $1.7 billion to $2.1 billion per year. Analysts throughout the world believe that the alliance has become more poised because Japan has boosted its defense capabilities and integrated more with the United Nations.
By Akanksha Paliwal
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