At 8 a.m. on December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor, a U.S. naval base on Oahu, Hawaii, was attacked by the Imperial Japanese Navy. The attack lasted nearly 90 minutes, with more than 350 Japanese carrier-based aircraft and several submarines indiscriminately bombing U.S. warships and military facilities in Pearl Harbor.
The unsuspecting U.S. military suffered heavy losses in just one and a half hours, with 188 aircraft completely destroyed, another 155 aircraft suffering varying degrees of damage, 12 battleships damaged, and 2,403 U.S. soldiers killed in the attack.
The day after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered his famous "national shame" speech and formally signed a declaration declaring war on Japan. This also meant that the United States officially entered World War II, even if the strength of the US military in the Pacific theater was greatly reduced in the early stages of the war, unable to resist the expansion of Japan's power, but under the strong industrial and economic strength of the US military, the situation was reversed within a few months. More historically, the accession of the United States also advanced the course of World War II and accelerated the fall of the Axis powers.
Regarding this Japanese sneak attack on the United States mainland, in addition to the tragic incident itself and the impact of the world anti-fascist war, the most discussed thing is that behind the Pearl Harbor incident seems to be full of contradictions and doubts, and there are also conspiracy theories in the Pearl Harbor incident.
Conspiracy theorists argue that the attack on Pearl Harbor was a bitter ploy by the United States to participate in World War II, and that Japan was only a tool to be used as a scapegoat. It may seem like a conspiracy theory, but it is undeniable that there are enough doubts behind pearl harbor to support the conspiracy theory.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="2" > First, the United States has enough incentives to play the "bitter meat meter"</h1>
After the end of World War II, the world's largest beneficiary was the United States, and it was after that that the hegemonic system of the United States was formally established, but before Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese army, the United States debated endlessly about whether to go through the muddy waters of World War II.
When the United States was first founded, it always practiced "isolationism", hoping that North America would not only be separated from Europe politically, but also from all aspects of economic diplomacy. In short, North America plays its own game and does not participate without participating in international disputes.
Even during World War I, when the European region was in full swing, the United States initially sat on the mountain and watched the tiger fight, selling weapons and ammunition to make money. It was only after a period of wartime that the United States joined the Allies for various reasons.
The same was true of World War II, when the United States continued to pursue an "isolationist" foreign policy at the beginning of the war. Especially after the end of World War I, out of the shadow of The First World War, domestic anti-war sentiment was high, and "isolationism" became the mainstream trend in the United States in the 1930s, and the United States even introduced the "China Legislation Bill" for this purpose. Coupled with the fact that the country has just emerged from the shadow of the Great Depression, neither politics, popular will, nor economy will allow the United States to rush into World War II.
But politicians who supported participation in World War II did not think so, the United States was already the world's largest industrial country and the largest economy through the Second Industrial Revolution, and was bound to seek a higher international status, and conservative "isolationism" had lagged behind.
At the same time, the rise of the Axis powers is bound to threaten the security of the United States in the future, and it is absolutely impossible to admit it and engage in a new "appeasement policy." Joining the Second World War to fight not only won the right to speak for itself through war and attack the forces of the Axis powers, but also stimulated the development of the local military industry and its supporting industries through war, thus further restoring the impact of the domestic economy due to the Great Depression.
Among those politicians who supported the U.S. participation in the war was then-U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who repeatedly proposed that the United States join World War II, but was rejected by Congress. This gave the United States the greatest incentive to stage this "bitter meat plan", and it turned out that the attack on Pearl Harbor in the United States did arouse the anger of the people, and the Congress also passed the proposal to declare war on Japan with an unprecedented unity and absolute vote.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="4" > Second, the U.S. military seems ready to be attacked</h1>
What is more interesting is that before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. military seemed to be ready to be attacked, not for defense against the attack, but for the aftermath of the attack and the preparation to reduce the damage of the attack.
Documentaries and film and television works show that before the attack began, the main fighters of the US military did not all stay on the airfield, but scattered some of the fighters on the more remote airfields. After the attack, the few U.S. aircraft involved in combat were these scattered fighters. Most of the destroyed planes were also pushed out of the hangar and neatly placed on the runway, giving the illusion that the airport planes were full.
The day of the attack was Sunday, and the port was a holiday, which was one of the reasons why there was no rapid counterattack after the attack, resulting in heavy casualties. But the medics, who were supposed to be on leave, were taken off their leave the day before the attack and were on duty, and the U.S. military delivered a large amount of medical supplies and medical personnel to Pearl Harbor in advance without any signs of war. If it were not for these moves, the number of U.S. casualties at Pearl Harbor might be far more than that.
In terms of ships, the U.S. military also seems to be ready, the Japanese army originally took the U.S. aircraft carrier as the main target, but when it was attacked, all three U.S. aircraft carriers were not in the port, leaving a living force for the subsequent Pacific War. From military history, this battle was also a turning point in the replacement of battleships by aircraft carriers as the main force of the navy.
At that time, 12 U.S. warships were damaged, but the U.S. military quickly salvaged them after the war. During the renovation process, almost all the accessories and drawings were readily available, so that the US military restored most of these warships to combat effectiveness in a very short period of time, and only 4 battleships were forced to abandon because they could not be salvaged or improved.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="6" > Third, the U.S. military ignored all warnings</h1>
It is unrealistic for such a large, organized attack by the Japanese army to avoid the eyes of the intelligence services of various countries. Just four days before Japan was preparing to launch a sneak attack, Chi Buzhou, a Chinese codebreaker, deciphered a special secret telegram from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to Japan's ambassador to the United States, Nomura.
Although it does not specify in detail that the Japanese will launch an attack on Pearl Harbor, with the keen intuition of the intelligence personnel, Chi Buzhou also roughly guessed that the Japanese army would launch an attack on the American mainland, and the location of the attack was most likely Pearl Harbor.
This information was immediately relayed to the United States by the Kuomintang side, but in the end it was not resolved. There is a view that Chiang Kai-shek deliberately relayed this information through the mouth of the envoy in the United States, so that the US high-level did not pay attention to it, and also delayed the time for the United States to learn about this information. Whether this is the case for the time being, leaving aside for the time being, how can the US intelligence network not have any noise at all, just talking about the intelligence that China can know?
At that time, the relationship between the United States and Japan was relatively delicate, and the United States could not have no defensive heart against Japan, so any disturbance in Japan would not escape the eyes of the United States. There is also a theory that the United States has long stolen Japanese intelligence, but when the chief of the intelligence section reported to Roosevelt and others, there was no violent reaction. I don't know if it was really not taken seriously, or whether it showed that everything was in the calculations of Roosevelt and others.
Unfortunately, more than 70 years later, many scholars have encountered an invisible resistance when studying whether there is really a hidden plot behind pearl harbor. No matter how much you look through the documents and archives of that year and the personal data of the top level in the United States at that time, there is no way to find key evidence that can prove these doubts.
So even if the Pearl Harbor incident is full of many coincidences and coincidences that cannot be called coincidences and coincidences, there is no way to be sure that this incident is a "bitter meat plan" staged by the United States in order to participate in World War II.
The only thing that can be assured is that whether pearl harbor was a "bitter meat plan" of the United States or a tragedy caused by the excessive arrogance of the United States, Japanese militarism is the culprit of this incident, and it is definitely not the so-called scapegoat.
Text/Disciplinary Case
Resources:
1. "Is it a "bitter meat plan" that wants to be indulged?" --Also talk about the occurrence of Pearl Harbor," Cao Shengqiang
2. "Chi Buzhou: The Genius who Intercepted the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor", Liu Jixing
3. "Fishing For Ships- Salvage And Repair of U.S. Troops after the Attack on Pearl Harbor", Cong Pi