US vs Japan: Pearl Harbor Attack - Maps and Timelines in World War 2

Pearl Harbor Attack | Past to Future
This video presents Pearl Harbor Attack - a devastating surprise aerial attack of Japan on Pearl Harbor, a U.S. naval base on Oahu Island, Hawaii.

After annexing Korea in 1910, Japan continued its expansionism to achieve economic security and solve its demographic problems during the 1930s. As early as 1931, the Empire of Japan invaded Manchuria, a small, resource-rich province in northern China. The following year, in 1932, a puppet state called Manchukuo was established by the Japanese, cementing their hold on the region.
In July 1937, Japan declared war on China, resulting in the bloody Nanking Massacre in which hundreds of thousands of people in the Chinese city of Nanking – including both soldiers and civilians – were brutally murdered.

In December of the same year, Japanese Army mistakenly, as it defended itself, bombed the American gunboat Panay anchored in the Yangtze River outside Nanking, killing three Americans. In response to this aggression, in 1938, the US government extended its first loan to China.
On July 26, 1939, the U.S gave a formal notice for termination of the 1911 Treaty of Commerce and Navigation with Japan, which was officially abrogated in January 1940.

On September 27, 1940, Japan joined the Axis powers formed in response to its ally with Germany and Italy through the signing of the Tripartite Pact in Berlin and then managed to enter parts of French Indochina (modern Vietnam). In July 1941 Japan extended its control over the whole of French Indochina.

In retaliation for Japanese action, on July 26, 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt froze all Japanese assets in America and ended sales of oil to Japan, resulting in Japan losing three-fourths of its overseas trade and 88% of its imported oil. During months of negotiations between Tokyo and Washington, D.C., neither side would budge. Japan decided to continue its diplomatic talks with the United States while at the same time secretly visualized a bold attack against U.S. Pacific Fleet under the leadership of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the commander in chief of the Japanese Combined Fleet. The surprise attack acted as a preventive action to cripple the U.S. Pacific Fleet, a formidable obstacle to the Japanese conquest of Southeast Asia and give Japan time to consolidate its new empire.

On November 5, 1941, the Top Secret Order No. 1 was issued to the Japanese Combined Fleet, detailing the plan for the attack on Pearl Harbor. On November 26, the Japanese attack force, including six aircraft carriers, 2 battleships, 3 cruisers, and 11 destroyers, sailed from Hitokappu Bay in the Kuril Islands to a staging area some 230 miles off the Hawaiian island of Oahu.
From there, 360 planes were launched in two waves. The first wave of the Japanese fleet with 189 aircraft heading towards Pearl Harbor came at 7:55 AM on December 7. At around 8:50 AM, the second wave of the Japanese included 171 aircraft began, but this time, it had to deal with a much more coordinated defensive response. Nonetheless, the US base was still subjected to savage damage. At 10:00 AM, the Japanese planes headed back to carriers, and ultimately came back to Japan.

The attack killed 2,404 U.S. personnel, including 68 civilians, wounded more than 1,177 service members, and damaged and destroyed 19 U.S. Navy ships, including 8 battleships. The Japanese losses included 29 aircraft, five midget submarines, and 129 attackers killed and one taken prisoner.

No one could doubt that the Pearl Harbor attack caused devastating damage to the U.S. base. However, the assault had failed in its objectives to completely disable the U.S. Navy. No U.S. aircraft carriers were present at Pearl Harbor that day, and Japan was unable to destroy the U.S. vital infrastructure on the island.

And instead of goading the United States into an agreement to lift the economic sanctions, the Japanese attack or the “date which will live in infamy,” as U.S. Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt termed it, unified the American people in determination to enter the war for the first time during years of discussion and debate.

In June 1942, the failure at Pearl Harbor came to haunt the Japanese, as the Battle of Midway marked the first major US victory against Japan and was a turning point in the Pacific War.

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