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Pearl Harbor

December 7, 1941 dawned sunny and warm on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, a long battleship row in Pearl Harbor where most of Americas Pacific Fleet was docked; it was a typically peaceful Sunday morning. For the empire of Japan it was the perfect moment to strike. The Japanese fleet had been steaming for Hawaii for almost two weeks, largely unnoticed and unimpeded. Just after 6am Imperial Navy aircraft carriers launched the first wave of the surprise attack. 183 fighters, dive bombers, and torpedo planes surging toward Pearl Harbor. The USS Arizona was on borrowed time.
The Japanese swooped in from the northern part of Oahu and flew the route of the mountainous coastline. The strike force encountered no resistance at all. Most of the men on battleship row never saw it coming. Even before the first wave of the attack ended, the reality had begun to sink in; America was at war with Japan.
This was the culmination of a decade of rising tensions. Throughout the 1930’s the Japanese had been expanding their influence across Asia. The invasion of China in 1937 led to four years of stalemate, threats, and failed negotiations. Finally the United States issued an ultimatum—Leave China or lose US imports of raw materials; most importantly, oil. For Japan, the ultimatum was an act of hostile aggression. Oil fueled the Japanese empire and approximately eighty percent came from America. To remain a world power, new sources would be needed. The oil rich East-Indies became a prime target for takeover. Japan knew the price for oil would be war and Japan was determined to survive and expand at all costs, even if it meant a preemptive strike on the only force capable of stopping them, the US Pacific Fleet based in Hawaii.
In early 1941 battle plans for an attack on Pearl Harbor were drawn up by Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. It was a plan largely dependant on a relative new weapon of war, naval aviation. The American fleet, however, was surprising unprepared for...