Welcome to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii!!Saturday, December 6, 1941

U.S. Response• 3 weeks after German invasion of Poland, Congress changed neutrality act that did

not allow the export of military supplies– Allowed any nation to buy military supplies from U.S. but required that the

goods be shipped on foreign vessels• When Great Britain ran out of cash to pay for the war materials, Congress passed

the Lend-Lease Act– Appropriated $7 billion for ships, planes, tanks, and other supplies to non-

Axis countries• As German attacks increased, so did U.S. aid to the allies

– By spring of 1941, German submarines turning North Atlantic into graveyard of submarines

• August, 1941: Roosevelt met with Winston Churchill (prime minister of GB) secretly off coast of Newfoundland– Agreed to Atlantic Charter: joint pledge to not pursue territorial expansion;

agreed that every nation has the right to choose its own form of government, called for freedom of international trade and equal access for all countries to raw materials. Charter declared that once war was over, aggressor states should be disarmed, and all nations should work together to rid world of fear and poverty

What about the Pacific War?• As war raged in Europe, Japan continued expansion in Asia

– July, 1941: Japanese troops occupied French Indochina• Roosevelt freezes all Japanese assets in U.S. and approves

embargo on shipments of gasoline, machine tools, scrap iron, and steel to Japan

• Japan responds by freezing American assets in areas under its control

• Japan secretly planned attack on US, but sent peace mission to Washington.– By this time US had broken secret code used to send messages between Tokyo and

Japanese embassy in Washington so they knew that Japanese planned a strike, but they did not know where.

Why Pearl Harbor?

• Pearl Harbor is where the United States’ entire Pacific fleet is kept because of its strategic position in the Pacific Ocean. Especially with the way the Japanese have been behaving lately, trying to take over China, the fact that all of our ships are here is a very good thing.

Map of the Pacific

Pearl Harbor before the attack

Before the attack…

The Attack!• U.S. had broken the Japanese diplomatic code and knew an attack was

imminent. A warning had been sent from Washington, but it arrived too late. Early warning radar was new technology; Japanese planes were spotted by radar before the attack, but they were assumed to be a flight of American 5-17s due in from the West Coast.

• On a peaceful Sunday morning, December 7, 1941, the first wave of Japanese airplanes left 6 aircraft carries and struck Pearl Harbor a few minutes before 8 AM local time.

• In two waves of terror lasting two long hours, they killed or wounded over 3,500 Americans and sank or badly damaged 18 ships—including 8 battleships of the Pacific fleet and over 350 destroyed or damaged aircraft.

• At least 1,177 lives were lost when the Battleship U.S.S. Arizona exploded and subsequently sank.

Why Pearl Harbor?

• Japan knew that it was only a matter of time before the United States entered the war.

• They knew that the Pacific fleet was too strong to beat

• Their goal was to cripple the fleet before the US declared war, giving them a much better chance of being able to defeat the US

Effects of the Attack

• America entered the war, willing to fight until the end.

• Attack was not as bad as it could have been.• First attack on U.S. soil