|
|
Pearl Harbor was the straw that broke the camels back. This surprised attack which claimed the lives of civilians, soldiers, marines, and thousands of sailors forced the United States to go through the doors of its neutral home and into a world of war. By taking advantage of America?s deficiencies, misconceptions, and speculative theories the Japanese task that was made easy. Luckily it was not a total success for the Japanese, even though America still lost many fighters who put their lives on the line for their country they gained the knowledge from the lesson that they learned that day. In 1933 a man named Adolph Hitler was given the title Chancellor of Germany which he change the following year and adopted the title of Fuehrer, which means ?all-powered leader,? and set out to build the peoples desire for expansion and the establishment of a ?New Order? in Europe. In September 1940 Germany, Italy, and Japan announced to the whole world that they had signed a treaty of alliance which provided political, economic, and military assistance to each other. It was also established that the leadership of Germany and Italy had a goal to form a ?New Order? in Europe, and the leadership of Japan had a goal to form a ?New Order? in the Greater East Asia. But these countries soon want to expand this ?New Order? to rest of the world and the only way to accomplish this is by taking out America quickly and silently. The only thing that was standing in their way for the moment was the Pacific Fleet and a place called Pearl Harbor which was so close that they could reach out and touch them. Pearl Harbor was believed to be a mighty fortress of defense. Together with the Pacific Fleet, Hawaii was considered to be unassailable by outsiders. Compared to other prospective enemies the Pacific Fleet was assumed to be an unstoppable force. Some high ranking personnel of the State department had faith that if things got to a level where war was the only way to go that the sea forces of Japan could be defeated in a few weeks. But we all know that something of that magnitude could only be seen in the movies. Prior to the Japanese attack the Pacific Fleet had a total of 159 vessels but the Atlantic fleet, who had most of the vessels because they were actually more active than the Pacific Fleet at the time, had 224 vessels.
|
