Monday, December 9, 2013

Pearl Harbor. Day that will live in Infamy

Actually Pearl Harbor day was two days ago, 7 December.  This one event changed the course of WWII.  Prior to Pearl Harbor, the US population was isolationist, what would be called anti-war 25 years later.  America had entered WWI, the results at the peace table were less than expected, writers had been blaming WWI on munitions makers attempting to boost sales, and the population was bound and determined that the US would not, repeat not, get mixed up in another European war.  This feeling was so strong, that Franklin Roosevelt, one of the canniest and most powerful presidents of the 20th century, was unable give support to Britain.  What little he could do, destroyers for bases and lend lease,  was hotly opposed in Congress. 
   Pearl Harbor turned all that around instantly.  As Admiral Yamamoto put it, " I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve."   It took us three years, but we sank their fleet, killed their soldiers, nuked their homeland, did regime change on them, and occupied the place.  And, had the Japanese understood Americans, they would have realized that they could have continued their aggression against China, and seized the oil fields of Dutch Indonesia without starting a war with the Americans.  It is clear to all American historians that we would have done nothing more than send diplomatic protests to Tokyo no matter how agressive they became.  The Japanese stuck their hands into a hornet's nest and got stung, hard.  Their leadership, with the exception of Yamamoto, simply did not understand what they were doing.  They had been reading too much Mahan (Influence of Seapower upon History) which has a simplistic premise that winning control of the sea by destroying the enemy fleet wins the war.  From Mahan's point of view, the Pearl Harbor attack was perfect, one daring strike and the entire American battlefleet, eight decent battleships, was sunk.
   Two things spoiled the victory.  That year, 1941, was a year of transition from battleships to aircraft carriers.  Our aircraft carriers survived Pearl Harbor.  So, in actual fact, the US battle fleet survived Pearl Harbor.  The second thing was American resolve.  We raised all the sunken ships, we built a LOT of new ships and LOT of other stuff,  we enlisted 10 million men in the armed forces, we developed superweapons so advanced that they did even appear in 1940's science fiction.  We shrugged off our losses at Pearl and came back stronger than ever.
   The other effect of Pearl Harbor was to doom the Nazis.   For some reason, Hitler declared war on the US a few days after Pearl Harbor.  He didn't need to, he had no obligations to Japan, he was locked in a death struggle with the Soviets, he didn't need any more hostilities, especially not with America.  But he did it.  At the time, Hitler convinced every American that he was in league with Japan.  We only found out after the war that Hitler was acting on his own hook.  Hitler's declaration of war was a great help to the Roosevelt administration.  The whole American establishment, the administration, the military, the foreign policy establishment, the industrialists, the union people, all feared the Germans, much more than Japan.  The establishment wanted to beat Hitler first, and then take out the Japanese.  With Hitler's gratuitous declaration of war, they could do just that.  If Hitler had been smarter and kept his mouth shut, there is a good chance the Americans would have departed upon a Pacific Ocean crusade, and left him deal with the Soviets and the Brits unmolested by Yankees.      
   Both ways, Pearl Harbor was a turning point.  It didn't have to happen, it wasn't inevitable, and history would be a lot different if the Japanese had not attacked. 

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