A Brief History
On December 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy conducted a devastating surprise attack on the Pearl Harbor Naval Base and the Hickam Field Airbase on the island of Oahu, Hawaii.
Digging Deeper
American Naval and Army forces were caught by surprise that fateful sunny Sunday morning and paid a terrible price for their lack of vigilance. All the American battleships were either sunk or disabled. Of the 390 American warplanes, 188 were destroyed and 159 damaged. Over 2,400 Americans died. The Japanese were met with some token anti-aircraft fire and air-to-air interception, but the results were scant. One U.S. destroyer managed to sink a Japanese midget submarine, but even that feat was not believed until proof was finally found decades later. Further Japanese losses included another 4 midget subs, 29 airplanes and 64 men lost.
Much has been made about the lack of American preparation for the attack, including the fact that American radar had detected the raiding air force but with no alarm being sounded. Although it is true that the Japanese were detected by radar, it was at the time assumed that the incoming planes were a flight of American B-17 bombers that were expected that day. Even if the alarm had been raised, the fact remains that fighter planes would still have had to scramble, so it is likely the attack would still have been successful, though perhaps not quite as successful.
If the U.S. had had sea and air reconnaissance forces combing the seas, the Japanese forces might have been detected earlier, which might well have prevented the disaster. Or, perhaps a U.S. preemptive strike or show of force may have averted the attack. On the other hand, the better trained and more experienced Japanese may then instead have dealt an even deadlier blow to the U.S. by sinking its aircraft carriers that were luckily spared from the real attack as they were out to sea at the time. Obviously, had the U.S. forces had interceptors scramble ready, anti-aircraft crews on notice and aircraft scattered on fields instead of bunched together the damage would have been far less. And had the battleships also been at sea, they would have been maneuverable and more elusive to the torpedo and dive bomber Japanese aircraft hunting them.
So, would Hitler still have declared war on the U.S. four days after the attack on Pearl Harbor had the Japanese been averted by detection? Perhaps the American entry into the war would have been delayed long enough for the Germans to be able to concentrate their forces against Russia, possibly changing the outcome of the war. War in the Pacific seems to have been inevitable, so exactly when and where the fighting would have started had things gone differently at Pearl Harbor is hard to say.
As it was, though the attack was initially seemed successful, the Japanese failed to sink the all-important American aircraft carriers, to permanently put the battleships out of commission (all but the Arizona were re-floated), to destroy U.S. fuel and dry-dock ship repair facilities and lastly to cow the U.S. into an immediate negotiated peace.
Some “what if” speculators have claimed the U.S. would still have suffered a crushing loss even with preparation and warning, assuming the Japanese would have sunk American ships at sea as easily as in the harbor. Better leadership by Admiral Kimmel and General Short might have made all the difference, but this will never be known for sure. Seventy plus years on: Rest in peace, all brave men who died that day.
Question for students (and subscribers): What if the U.S. had been prepared for Pearl Harbor? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Cowley, Robert. What Ifs? of American History: Eminent Historians Imagine What Might Have Been (What If Essays). Berkley, 2004.
The featured image in this article, a photograph taken from a Japanese plane during the torpedo attack on ships moored on both sides of Ford Island shortly after the beginning of the Pearl Harbor attack, is in the public domain in Japan, because its copyright has expired according to Article 23 of the 1899 Copyright Act of Japan (English translation) and Article 2 of Supplemental Provisions of Copyright Act of 1970. This is when the photograph meets one of the following conditions:
- It was published before January 1, 1957.
- It was photographed before January 1, 1947.
It is also in the public domain in the United States, because its copyright in Japan expired by 1970 and was not restored by the Uruguay Round Agreements Act.
