On Sunday 1 December 1941 at 7:55 am the Japanese began their deadly aircraft attack on the U.S pacific fleet [source B]. The attack resulted in 2400 Americans dying and 1,178 injured with only under 100 Japanese killed. This attack was a sneak attack to buy time and space to invade East-south Asia, because japan lacked natural resources the “search for alternative supplies underpinned foreign and military policy throughout the decade and led to the attack on Pearl Harbour and the Pacific War.
Why was the attack planned?
The attack was planned cripple the pacific fleet and buy themselves the space and time they needed to invade south east Asia [source B] .this plan would cause the Americans not to be able to fight back because “japans armed…show more content… since the Americans were not expecting an attack so close to home, the Japanese thought that they had overcome and conquered the U.S [source F], but what they did not know was that the Americans were determined to overcome the invasion no matter how long it would take them and that President Roosevelt had taken it upon himself to not only defend the Americans, but he will make sure that the form of treachery that happened would never happen again [source F]. The bombing had also left one of the bombers feeling bad about the fact that the invasion was not fair because when attacking the enemy, he may not be asleep but he must be awake so that you can make him stand and then attack him. This action will allow the enemy to be able to defend himself [source M]. The bombing of the Pearl harbour did cause destruction that destroyed many battleships and weapons that were on sea [source…show more content… The final orders were received by Fleet Commander Vice Admiral Nugumo on the 1st of December but the battle group was positioned 275 miles north of Hawaii by the morning of the 7th of December. The air attack that consisted of fighter aircraft, torpedo bombers, high-level bombers and dive-bombers were in the air assembling the pre-dawn gloom by 06:00 AM [source L].
The bomb that fell on Wheeler field was the opening bomb of the attack, which was later followed by dive-bombing attacks on Hickman field and bases on Ford Island. Because of fear of smoke obscuring the targets, Lieutenant Commander Murata cut short his groups approach towards the battleships that were anchored east of Ford Island. Soon after releasing torpedoes a series of white water sprouts later rose in the Harbour [source L]
At 07:49 the radioman was instructed to send the command ‘attack’ when he then began tapping out the code signal that was pre-arranged. [Source L]
As a result of all the bombings, the bombers after completing their runs they all returned to the carriers. After all the pearl harbour was well wrecked by the all the bombing that was done but yet no enemy fighter planes were to be seen so therefore japan was left