Pearl Harbor: A Rude Awakening Book Summary

introduction
It all happened so quickly. At 7.55am on Sunday 7 December 1941, the first of two waves of Japanese aircraft began their deadly attack on the US Pacific Fleet, moored at Pearl Harbor on the Pacific island of Oahu. Within two hours, five battleships had been sunk, another 16 damaged, and 188 aircraft destroyed. Only chance saved three US aircraft carriers, usually stationed at Pearl Harbor but assigned elsewhere on the day. The attacks killed under 100 Japanese but over 2,400 Americans, with another 1,178 injured. Although swift in execution, the attacks had been slowly brewing for years. The US had once looked upon Japanese ambitions with a level of sympathy, even indulgence. Hit hard by the Great Depression of the early 1930s, however, Japanese disillusion with party government grew and moderates gave way to militants. In 1931 Japan occupied Manchuria in northern China. Over the decade conflict intensified and in July 1937 war was declared. As Japanese aggression increased, its relations with the US deteriorated. Occupied Manchuria was rapidly exploited with the establishment of heavy and light industries. This was a practical necessity for Japan. Lacking in natural resources itself, the search for alternative supplies underpinned foreign and military policy throughout the decade and led to the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Pacific War. On top of practical economic considerations, early military success and an inherent sense of racial superiority led Japan to believe that it deserved to dominate Asian politics. As with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, this combination bred an aggressive and neo-colonial foreign policy, the 'Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere'. Higher birth-rates and economic considerations required more land; the gene-pool justified it.

Relations with the US
The policy increased in urgency as relations with the US sank further. Historically, Japan had relied on America to supply many natural and industrial resources. Increasingly alarmed by Japanese aggression, however, America allowed a commercial treaty dating from 1911 to lapse in January 1940. In July it followed up by embargoing scrap iron and aviation fuel. Things got worse in September when Japan signed the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy. It was now a formal member of the Axis alliance fighting the European War. This posed real problems. Although officially neutral, there was no doubt where American sympathies lay. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had already strained the sinews of neutrality by supplying Britain with money and arms under the 'lend-lease' agreement. The Tripartite Pact meant that supplies to Japan would indirectly be helping Italy and Germany; further embargoes followed. For Japan, embroiled in a long war with China, these were disastrous. Considering its very survival under threat, Japan intensified the search for a permanent alternative. The most obvious target was South-east Asia, rich in minerals and oil. German success in Europe in 1940 had orphaned French and Dutch colonies in the region and they became the focus of Japanese attention. While occupying French Indochina in July 1941, Japan knew that a full-scale invasion of South-east Asia would prompt war with America. It needed a mechanism to buy itself sufficient time and space to conquer successfully crucial targets like the Philippines, Burma and Malaya. The attack on Pearl Harbor was that mechanism; merely a means to an end. By destroying its Pacific Fleet, Japan expected to remove America from the Pacific equation for long enough to allow it to secure the resources it needed so desperately and hoped to crush American morale sufficiently to prompt Roosevelt to sue for peace.

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