Did you hear the big explosion this morning

[+shopthebookworm]

It may have just been in someone's memory, but I heard it. Ok, could have been a dream.

This is a infamous day in history and we will hope that our history section will bestow some great books on what NOT to do again as well as interesting facts on some many days to remember or not to forget. 20% all books from that section. GREAT gift ideas can be found there.

Now for your education:

 

 

Pearl Harbor Raid, 7 December 1941

Overview

 

 

The 7 December 1941 Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor was one of the great defining moments in history. A single carefully-planned and well-executed stroke removed the United States Navy's battleship force as a possible threat to the Japanese Empire's southward expansion. America, unprepared and now considerably weakened, was abruptly brought into the Second World War as a full combatant.

Eighteen months earlier, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had transferred the United States Fleet to Pearl Harbor as a presumed deterrent to Japanese agression. The Japanese military, deeply engaged in the seemingly endless war it had started against China in mid-1937, badly needed oil and other raw materials. Commercial access to these was gradually curtailed as the conquests continued. In July 1941 the Western powers effectively halted trade with Japan. From then on, as the desperate Japanese schemed to seize the oil and mineral-rich East Indies and Southeast Asia, a Pacific war was virtually inevitable.

By late November 1941, with peace negotiations clearly approaching an end, informed U.S. officials (and they were well-informed, they believed, through an ability to read Japan's diplomatic codes) fully expected a Japanese attack into the Indies, Malaya and probably the Philippines. Completely unanticipated was the prospect that Japan would attack east, as well.

The U.S. Fleet's Pearl Harbor base was reachable by an aircraft carrier force, and the Japanese Navy secretly sent one across the Pacific with greater aerial striking power than had ever been seen on the World's oceans. Its planes hit just before 8AM on 7 December. Within a short time five of eight battleships at Pearl Harbor were sunk or sinking, with the rest damaged. Several other ships and most Hawaii-based combat planes were also knocked out and over 2400 Americans were dead. Soon after, Japanese planes eliminated much of the American air force in the Philippines, and a Japanese Army was ashore in Malaya.

These great Japanese successes, achieved without prior diplomatic formalities, shocked and enraged the previously divided American people into a level of purposeful unity hardly seen before or since. For the next five months, until the Battle of the Coral Sea in early May, Japan's far-reaching offensives proceeded untroubled by fruitful opposition. American and Allied morale suffered accordingly. Under normal political circumstances, an accomodation might have been considered.

However, the memory of the "sneak attack" on Pearl Harbor fueled a determination to fight on. Once the Battle of Midway in early June 1942 had eliminated much of Japan's striking power, that same memory stoked a relentless war to reverse her conquests and remove her, and her German and Italian allies, as future threats to World peace.

 

Edited to ADD LINK:

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/wwii-pac/pearlhbr/pearlhbr.htm

Edited December 7, 2010 by Billy Jo Bradley

[xxrsellars]

It may have just been in someone's memory, but I heard it. Ok, could have been a dream.

This is a infamous day in history and we will hope that our history section will bestow some great books on what NOT to do again as well as interesting facts on some many days to remember or not to forget. 20% all books from that section. GREAT gift ideas can be found there.

Now for your education:

 

 

Pearl Harbor Raid, 7 December 1941

Overview

 

 

 

 

Thanks for the history info

[FreeBird]

technically, the "big blast" has not occured yet - but it is coming up shortly..... (posted 11:46AM EST)

[+shopthebookworm]

technically, the "big blast" has not occured yet - but it is coming up shortly..... (posted 11:46AM EST)

 

 

Noted, but since I was asleep and only dreamed I heard it, it still counted.

 

Your Welcome RAYS, I always try to give some fact with my fiction

[Elwood]

Dang it, you got me again...

[+shopthebookworm]

Dang it, you got me again...

 

 

Then my job, today, is complete!

[+nschur]

I saw special on Pearl Harbor not too long ago. One of the things they discussed was a "what if" scenario. that being if we had headed the warnings and put to sea for battle with the Japanese fleet. The War College came to the conclusion the the US faired much better as it was. We would likely have lost more men and ships would have been sunk in deep water and unsalvagable.