The reason for Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor disaster in World War II On November 26, 1942, a Japanese battle fleet consisting of six aircraft carriers, two battleships, and hundreds of aircraft departed from Japan and began the long journey to a point 230 miles north of the Hawaiian island of Oahu. Their target was a certain American fleet anchored in Pearl Harbor in the Pacific Ocean. The attack, planned for December 7, took the Americans by surprise, crippling their fleet for months and costing thousands of lives. However, this attack would now change the course of World War II and spell the final doom for the Japanese Empire. So why did the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor in the first place? And how did Japanese miscalculations in attack planning condemn them to defeat in World War II? Well, to answer this question, we must first go back to the 1930s. The natural resources that Japan needed but could only get through imports, such as scrap iron, coal, were all things that were vital to their war effort. Northern Strategy With the support of the Imperial Japanese Army and the capture of coal and iron-rich regions in China, Mongolia and Siberia, he chose the Northern Strategy. On the other hand, the southern strategy was to support the Imperial Japanese Navy and instead attack south to British Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, which were similarly rich in oil and rubber. By the mid-1930s, the Northern Strategy was already underway with attacks in Manchuria and China, leading to border disputes with these Soviets culminating in the massive Battle of Kalkangal, where Soviet Mongolian forces suddenly won a major victory. Suddenly, Japan had to rethink its plans, so the Japanese defeat at Kalgingold was like pouring cold water on their plans to expand northward into Siberia. As with the signing of the Non-Aggression Pact between the Soviet Union and Germany in August 1939, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union during Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, these plans for cyberattacks were briefly revised. But Japan is caught in China and they are running out of natural resources and you know that's not going to happen. With the army stuck in China, it was the navy that was in China as Japan focused on its southern strategy. This began in earnest in 1940, when Japan entered the northern parts of Indo-China and France in an agreement with the French Viceroy to cut off a major Chinese supply route, effectively isolating the Chinese. But the United States considered it another act of Japanese aggression that threatened American interests in the Pacific Ocean. At the same time as the recent unification of Japan with Nazi Germany and Italy, they reacted by embargoing steel and copper, which were all necessary for Japanese industries and were mainly imported from America. But the Japanese did not learn a lesson and in July 1941 occupied more of France as a launching point for the invasion of southern India and China. In the first five minutes, four warships, including USS Oklahoma and USS Arizona, were hit and exploded, and 10 minutes later, 1,175 crew members were killed. The second attack wave, which began with 170 aircraft, was split into three groups that mostly attacked the same targets, but with the base now on high alert, their attacks were less successful. In just over an hour, the Japanese had sunk and damaged 18 American battleships, including hitting all eight of the fleet. They destroyed 188 aircraft and seriously damaged the base's infrastructure, however three US aircraft carriers were maneuvering at the time of the attack and were not damaged. Because Japan somehow predicts this short war that will lead to negotiations. Their target selection is focused on warships intercepting the US Pacific Fleet. And they don't think about things like fuel depots and repair shops that would actually allow America to pursue a longer war in the Pacific. Ships that sank did not sink very low, so they were easier to recover. Almost half of the deaths that day were on the US side of the USS Arizona, which was hit and exploded. At the Imperial War Museum in London, a piece of the USS Arizona is on display in the new World War II Gallery. And this is actually the first time that a part of USS Arizona is exhibited outside the United States. The Japanese invasion worked perfectly. On the same day that Japan invaded the Pacific, Thailand in Southeast Asia surrendered within hours and quickly signed an alliance with Japan, while the US territories of Guam and the Philippines, as well as The British territories of Malaya and Hong Kong all fell relatively quickly, and in addition, two large British warships, HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse, were sunk off the coast of Malaya by large Japanese bombers. In the first months of 1942, Japan also launched attacks on the Dutch East Indies, British Burma and New Guinea, and Singapore, the Solomon Islands, and as they hoped that the US Pacific Fleet would not be able to provide a response, the Japanese pursued their goal with full speed and efficiency. They did and established their new empire and finally obtained the natural resources they had long desired, but there was one big problem.