PEARL HARBOR(On 7 December 1941)

On 7 December 1941, the Japanese surprise attack on the American (parça) portionof the U.S. Pacific (filo) fleet and thrust the United States into the Second World War. Following a moving speech by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Congress declared war on Japan the following day. Roosevelt stated that the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the empire of Japan. However, was the day which will live in (rezalet-alçaklık) infamy really a surprise attack, or were some high level American and British officials, possibly even Roosevelt and Churchill, aware of Japanese intentions well in advance?

The attack came on the heels of the Japanese governments decision, under Premier Hideki Tojo, that the United States would take an active role in the Pacific theater in the event that Japan attacked Southeast Asia. With the dramatic decrease in the amount of American oil and other ( ham) raw materials being shipped to the Japanese, they realized that the only way to maintain the (dürüstlük) integrity of the Japanese military machine would be to (üye olmak) assimilate the natural (kaynak)resources of Southeast Asia into the empire. Therefore, war with America was (kaçınılmaz)inevitable and ( önlenemez) unavoidable . With this in mind, the Japanese began (görüşme)negotiations with the United States while (aynı zamanda olan)simultaneously preparing invasion plans of the American Philippines, the Dutch East Indies, and British Malaya.

One major (parça-bileşen) component of these invasion plans was to (etkisiz hale getirmek)neutralize the greatest threat to Japanese operations, the American Pacific fleet. With the presence of such a formidable (rakip) opponent , which had established its home base at Pearl Harbor in May 1940, the Japanese realized that it would be difficult to (boyun eğdirmek)subjugate Southeast Asia. If the majority of the fleet was eliminated in one (ani ve büyük taarruz)massive assault, not only would they be able to (fetheden-zapteden)conqueorthese territories, but they would also be able to (güçlendirmek)fortifythem as well.

The attack on Pearl Harbor was (planlamak) devised by Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, commander-in- chief of the Combined Japanese Fleet. The surprise air attack against the American fleet was a very high gamble. First, the Japanese fleet of six (uçak gemisi) aircraft carriers , two (savaş gemisi)battleships, and a number of (kruvazör) cruisers, destroyers, and support ( gemi,tekne)vessels had to proceed undetected to within striking distance of the (liman ) port . Then, once the attack was completed, the fleet, with its (boşaltmak) depleted (cephanelik,silah deposu )arsenal, had to return under the threat of a counter attack.

Under the direction of Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, the attack fleet (toplamak)assembled near the Kurile Islands on 22 November after leaving Kure Naval base on 10 November. In order to avoid detection, the fleet followed a storm front and kept strict radio silence while Tokyo broadcast false commands to (tuzak) decoys in other locations. The Japanese fleet arrived to within 275 miles of Oahu and sent its first attack wave into the air at 6:00 AM. This force, composed of 49 bombers, 40 (torpil) torpedo planes, 51 dive bombers, and 43 fighters, arrived at Pearl at 7:55 AM (1:50 PM Washington time) and continued the (hücum,ani atak) assault until 9:45 AM. Shortly after the completion of the first attack, the second wave of 54 bombers, 78 (bombardıman uçağı) dive bombers , and 36 fighters arrived. In the end, nineteen ships were either disabled or sunk, including all eight American battleships. In addition, 164 U.S. planes were destroyed and 128 damaged while 2,335 American (denizci,bahriyeli) sailors , soldiers, and marines were killed along with 68 civilians and 1,178 were wounded. Although Yamamotos plan called for a third attack wave to destroy the 4.5 million gallons of fuel oil and support facilities, Nagumo felt that the threat of a counter attack was too great, so he ordered the fleet to turn towards home.

When the news arrived about the attack on the continental United States, the Americans were ( sersemlemek ) stunned . Immediately, any talks of (yalıtım)isolationism or (barışseverlik) pacifism were swept away. Yet, even though Yamamotos attack was a tactical success, it turned out to be a strategic failure. With the repair facilities and fuel ( depo) depots still (bozulmamış) intact , the Americans quickly returned six of the eight battleships to active service. Also, the (denizaltı) submarine facilities were still intact, allowing the American submarine fleet to immediately threaten Japanese shipping.

Perhaps the most important reason why the attack on Pearl Harbor was a strategic failure was the fact that the Pacific Fleets three aircraft carriers were not at Pearl. The (girişim) Enterprise was delivering aircraft to Wake Island, the Lexington was on a similar mission to Midway Island, and the Saratoga was being (yoklamak,onarmak)overhauled in California. Had these carriers been at Pearl Harbor on that ( hayati önemi olan ) fateful day, the war would have taken a dramatically different course. As the war progressed, the Lexington was lost at the Coral Sea after (yüklemek) inflicting heavy losses on the Japanese military; the Saratoga earned seven battle stars; and the planes from the Enterprise played an important role in the destruction of four Japanese carriers at the battle of Midway. Obviously, the loss of just one of these important vessels would have made the American cause very difficult if not (korkunç) dire .

The Pearl Harbor attack led to eight investigations between 22 December 1941 and 15 July 1946. During these (celse) sessions , a presidential commission, headed by Supreme Court Justice Owen J. Roberts, found the commanders of Pearl Harbor, Rear Admiral Husband Kimmel and Lieutenant General Walter C. Short, guilty of dereliction of duty due to the fact that there had been enough (dokunulabilir) tangible evidence to show that an attack was (yakında olacak) imminent .The commission concluded that the political crisis alone was grounds for the commanders to place the entire facility on alert.

In order to (desteklemek ) buttress the ( suçlama,itham ) accusations , the Roberts commission also found four major ( büyük hata ) blunders on the part of Kimmel and Short. First, they discovered that in August 1941, the Army Air Corps had warned Pearl Harbor of the possibility of a Japanese attack and that is would probably occur on a Sunday — a period of relative inactivity for the facility. Then, on 27 November, intelligence officers in Washington ( bildirmek ) notified Kimmel and Short that Japanese ships and troop carriers were moving south along the coast of China and that war would come at any day. Rather than concluding that this aggressive Japanese move was a sign of a ( kararlaştirilmamiş,askida ) pending attack on American ( tesisat,donanim ) installations , Kimmel and Short decided to turn their attentions to the prospect of sabotage activities, since there was a large Japanese population on Oahu.

A third finding which led to the (terketmek) dereliction of duty charge was the fact that on the morning of the attack (4:00 AM), the American destroyer Ward intercepted and fired upon a Japanese ( çok küçük ,mini ) midget submarine trying to enter Pearl Harbor. Although there were witnesses to the action who claimed that the Ward had struck the submarine so as to create a visible hole in its tail section, a report of the event did not reach headquarters for several hours. There was even speculation after the attack that this vessel had actually made it through the outer defenses and sunk the U.S.S. Arizona. The fourth argument by the Roberts commission dealt with the apparent sighting of a large force approaching Oahu from the northwest at 7:10 AM by the new Opana radar station. The crew at Opana misinterpreted this as a group of B-17 bombers arriving from the continental U.S., even though these American bombers would naturally be arriving from the northeast.

After the war, a committee was formed again in order to (araştirmak) investigate the bombing. This (iki partili ) bipartisan committee, which met from 15 November 1945 - 15 July 1946, obtained classified documentation regarding the MAGIC system, a method by which the U.S. could (şifresini çözmek) decipher diplomatic codes sent through their Purple machine. After (dikkatle bakmak,incelemek) scrutinizing this information, their results were inconclusive. They found that although there was intense ( denetlemek ) monitoring of Japanese naval radio traffic in December 1941, the U.S. only had access to diplomatic (bildiri) communiques (In fact, from March to December 1941, the U.S. missed only 4 messages out of 227 which were sent from the Japanese (konsolosluk)consulate .) It wasnt until the development of ULTRA in 1942 that the Americans could decipher any Japanese military codes. Ultimately, the ( tartışma ) debate over who was to ( suçlamak ) blame for the blunder at Pearl Harbor became a partisan (ağız kavgası-tatışma) squabble . Republicans criticized the Roosevelt administration for their (ilgisizlik) lax attitude while the Democrats placed the blame entirely on the shoulders of Kimmel and Short. In the end, no one ever assumed the (ağır yük) burden of responsibility. Kimmel and Short were not court (savaşla ilgili) martialed .

Today, as more evidence comes to light, some scholars have claimed that Roosevelt knew of the attack beforehand and that he allowed it to occur in order to silence the isolationist-interventionist debate and enter the war in full (uzun adım) stride . However, no smoking gun has ever turned up to support this theory even though some of the details are quite compelling. Since 1940, the U.S. had been supporting the British in their attempts to hold back the Nazi threat while Japanese-American relations were worsening by the day. American involvement in the Second World War was not only becoming probable, but a ( zorluk- yoksulluk ) necessity to the free nations of the world.

There is even ( tahmin ) speculation that British intelligence had broken the Japanese Navys main administrative code, JN25, in 1941 and Prime Minister Winston Churchill refused to (açığa çıkarmak) reveal the ( olması yatkın ) impending attack to the Americans so as to draw the U.S. into the conflict. Also, British double agent Dusko Popov, in what became known as the Tricycle Affair, reported that Berlin had asked him to procure information about Pearl Harbor in mid 1941 — information which would have been ( nöbetleşe çalişmak ) relayed by the Japanese consulate in Berlin to Tokyo through the Purple machine. Finally, Kimmel and Short were not informed that spies were transmitting information from the Japanese consulate at Honolulu about the disposition of the Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor; an event which surely would have place the entire installation on alert. All in all, there is enough evidence to keep historians questioning what actually occurred in the events leading up to 7 December 1941 — a day which will live in infamy but may always be shrouded in mystery.