If oil determined the outcome of the First World War, then the Second World War was largely fought for oil.
In World War II, Nazi Germany always made the seizure of this precious resource of oil an important strategic goal.
Oil was not only the purpose of the Germans to launch the war, but also the main reason for the Japanese to start the war, compared with the Western power of Nazi Germany at that time, the island country of Japan in the east was far worse than Germany's conditions in oil.
The Japanese were almost crazy about their thirst for oil, and they had searched for oil everywhere in the three eastern provinces, and Daqing, then known as the "Northern Manchuria region", was miscalculated as a "oil-poor" area, and the Japanese survey team believed that there were no conditions for oil generation in this place. In fact, the Japanese looked away, and there was not only oil here, but also abundant.
Perhaps it is providential, assuming that the "Daqing Oilfield" was discovered by the Japanese before the war between the United States and Japan began, which would delay the great war between the United States and Japan for a period of time, and it is very likely that during this period, Japan will carry out the "Sichuan Operation" (Japanese written document is Operation No. 5), which is claimed to be the largest land operation in the history of the Japanese military, and attack Chongqing from Shaanxi Province and along the Yangtze River, completing the Japanese's claimed Greater East Asia United Front.
Missing out on the Daqing oil fields, Japan has created a growing oil crisis. In July 1940, Japan claimed to have seized more strategic supplies when France surrendered to Germany in order to cut off the Chongqing government's foreign military aid from the Indochina Peninsula. But the Japanese's actions made the nearby colonial suzerainty feel threatened.
On July 24, 1941, President Roosevelt of the United States demanded that Japan withdraw its troops from the Indochina Peninsula and invade China, and then on the 26th ordered a ban on the export of a number of strategic resources to Japan, including oil and steel, which were extremely important to Japan. After the move, Roosevelt ordered the freezing of Japanese assets in the United States, and soon the British and Dutch colonial governments followed suit with economic sanctions against Japan.
Britain's actions sparked hatred in Japan, which leaked to Germany some of Britain's major secrets about the performance of military weapons and defense, resulting in heavy losses to Britain in the early stages of the war. The British eventually learned that the Japanese were misbehaving, and the angry British Churchill government sent someone to get the Japanese southern war plan and decided to work with the United States against Japan.
Japan's Hirohito team believes that once the economic sanctions are imposed, this will be very unfavorable to Japan's strategy. So they developed the "ABCD Economic Encirclement" plan. ABCD is essentially the opening acronym for American America, British Britain, China china in China, and Dutch Dutch. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's order to the fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor showed that the possibility of armed intervention was not ruled out. Japan tried to resolve these troubles through diplomatic negotiations, and the Americans ignored its conditions. At this time, after the German invasion of the Soviet Union was successful and the southward advance had no worries, the Japanese base camp decided to formulate a plan for war with Britain, the United States and the Netherlands.
Due to the U.S. oil embargo against Japan, Japan, which has only one and a half years of oil reserves, has to make a desperate plan to launch a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.
If there is no war, Japan will succumb to the economic sanctions of the United States and Britain, and when the battleships and tanks cannot move, the war strength will wither and make Japan change from active to passive. Despite the ambitions, the island country has scarce resources, and there is no way back but to go to war. In order to solve the pain of not having oil, Japan made a "desperate bet" and decided to surprise Pearl Harbor.
The reason why it is said to be "desperate" is that the amount of oil consumed by the Japanese Combined Fleet to and from Pearl Harbor is equivalent to the amount of oil used by the Japanese Navy in a year. If it does not succeed, it is equivalent to wasting a year of oil reserves.
Offshore showdowns and ocean-going attacks
In fact, as early as 1909, the Japanese military had drawn up a war plan with the United States, which believed that the United States would fight with Japan in the waters between the Mariana Islands and the Marshall Islands. In 1936, Japan revised its war plan again, and Ishihara Guan'er, the first director of the Japanese General Staff Headquarters, decided that Japan's greatest threat would be the United States and the Soviet Union. In fact, Ishihara wan'er thought it was not bad at all, and it was these two countries that ultimately made them unlucky.
Since 1909, for more than 30 years, the Japanese Navy has been training on this hypothesis, and warships have always been designed with coastal combat as the main axis, so there are Yamato and Musashi giant ships, and Genda Mi, who advocates aviation as the main force of combat, said: "The former Qin Emperor built Afang and the current Japanese Yamato were the laughing stocks of future generations. ”
At the time of the planning of the war plan, Isoroku Yamamoto, who had always opposed war against the United States, had to come up with his own strategic plan. He proposed to the Military Command a long-distance plan to attack Pearl Harbor with aviation weapons, which was strongly opposed by the Military Command. The military command believed that if it were implemented according to Yamamoto's plan, japan would be a crushing victory, and at least three aircraft carriers would be severely damaged.
If all the regular aircraft carriers are thrown into the operation of Pearl Harbor, it is bound to make the aviation support for the southern operations weak, and in case the operation fails, the four regular aircraft carriers that are regarded as treasures of the Japanese Navy will all be destroyed, and Japan will completely lose its air and sea supremacy.
The two sides argued, but Yamamoto Fifty-Six insisted that the regular air carriers must be fully engaged in the attack on Pearl Harbor, creating a serious confrontation between the combined fleet headquarters and the military headquarters, making the attack on Pearl Harbor into a stillborn atmosphere.
For the sake of dwindling oil, the military command eventually compromised, leaving Yamamoto fifty-six to fight a big card. On December 8, 1941, the "Z Operation" program at Pearl Harbor was officially launched. In fact, this war has already determined the future fate of Japan.
While destroying the U.S. Pacific Fleet, the Japanese Combined Fleet forgot to destroy 4.5 million barrels of fuel from the U.S. Pacific Fleet on Oahu, and ignored the blockade of oil shipments from U.S. submarines in Southeast Asia, with 86 percent of Japan's transportation destroyed, of which U.S. submarines sank more than 55 percent of Japanese oil-carrying vessels.
Japan desperately fought a beautiful battle at Pearl Harbor, but still could not get oil supplies, and the Great Pingyang War was gradually defeated and eventually led to defeat.