The Anniversary of the Attack on Pearl Harbour

Posted by Ralph Montesanto 
on Dec 06, 2011
 
Longtime Rotarian Paul Clifford reminded us of the upcoming anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. He started by asking how many in the audience had visited the memorial and there were several who had. Paul then spoke of the lead up to the attack and its aftermath.

As WWII raged on, the USA took a non-interventionist approach. They knew Japan was involved in China but felt safe from Japanese attack. As early as April 1941 the US was warned by its ambassador that his Peruvian contacts indicated Japan would attack Pearl Harbour. The US did not take this warning seriously and combined with poor communications among various departments and the lack of Japanese language translators who understood the nuances of the language failed to act on the intelligence. At 7:30 a.m. on December 7 six Japanese carriers, 300 planes and a number of heavy cruiser support ships surprised the US navy, sinking or destroying many ships and aircraft. At about the same time, the Japanese invaded the Philippines, the Malaysian Peninsula and a number of Dutch possessions in the south Pacific.

This was an abrupt wake up call for the USA and its non-interventionist policy. As bad as things were, many of the ships attacked were moored so that they could be salvaged and repaired; and, the carrier fleet was at sea doing training operations and was spared the surprise attack. Six months later at the Battle of Midway the US destroyed many of the Japanese carriers that took part in the raid.

To date there have been five commissions of inquiry trying to determine how the surprise attack happened and who to blame. Paul indicated that the attack on Pearl Harbour is one of the most often written about topics.