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debate that raged within the Japanese
government and its armed forces be-
tween 1939 and 1941. The goal was not
in question. It was the creation of what,
translated into English was known as
"Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity
Sphere." This was the vision of Japanese
hegemony over a vast population and
national resource zone stretching from
the southern Soviet border to New
Guinea in the south and India in the
southwest.
In question was the strategy. How to
achieve that goal with the means avail-
able against the declining western Euro-
pean imperial forces and the rising
power of the United States? What
emerged was a plan to cripple the U.S.
naval presence in the Pacific by destroy-
ing its fleet and its support infrastruc-
ture. U.S. air and army forces were also
to be incapacitated. This would require
attacks on Pearl Harbor, Guam, Mid-
way, Wake, and the Philippines. The
Japanese would then seize the necessary
strategic resources, particularly rubber
and oil, consolidate their military posi-
tion, form an impregnable defensive pe-
rimeter, and finally wear out American
will and interests in a war of attrition
that would end in a negotiated settle-
ment.
The fatal flaw in this plan was that for
the Japanese it was a limited war with
limited goals. There was never any hope
of invading the United States or dictat-
ing terms in the White House. The key
for the Japanese was to keep the war
limited. Their great failure was a mis-
reading of American culture. After a
surprise attack on our fleet at Pearl Har-
bor and the mobilization of the totalresources of the country in response to
both the Japanese and the Germans, a
limited war from the American perspec-
tive was out of the question. For the
United States it would be a total war
that would only end with total victory or
total defeat.
The civilian leadership of the Japa-
nese establishment clearly understood
this, but they were powerless to convince
or rein in their own military. The Japa-
nese Army, with its provincial outlook
and Asian experience, might be forgiven
for so misreading the American people.
But for the sophisticated and well-trav-
eled Imperial Navy high command the
mistake was unforgivable. They forced
the civilians out of the government and
adopted an aggressive military strategy.
The hope that the United States with its
industrial power, continental presence,
and historical pride would endure such
an attack and then negotiate a settle-
ment that left the Japanese in control of
East Asia was an illusion and a monu-
mental misreading of the American cul-
ture. Fred Ikle in his insightful work Ev-
ery War Must End, put the problem
succinctly; the Japanese built a strategic
bridge "that reached only halfway across
a river."29 Their military strategy was
thoughtful, well planned, and well exe-
cuted for starting a war, but it provided
no insight into how to successfully end
it.
The profound nature of this failure
can be seen in the events that followed.
On April 18, 1942 barely five months
after the attack, a flight of sixteen B-25s
launched from the U.S.S. Hornet
bombed Tokyo and Yokohama. Though
the damage was insignificant, the factthat the attack could be launched de-
stroyed the concept of an impregnable
defensive ring around Japan. In May
1942, the vanguard of a Japanese force
whose goal was operational control of
the Coral Sea, the Northeast approach
to Australia, was turned back. In June,
only seven months after the Pearl Har-
bor, they lost the decisive Battle of Mid-
way and four of the carriers that had
participated in the Pearl Harbor attack.
Taken all together the Battle of
Pearl Harbor must be seen a dramatic
tactical victory for the Japanese, a
much less substantial operational suc-
cess and from the strategic perspective
it can only be viewed as an unmiti-
gated disaster that led inexorably to
their defeat. When the Japanese were
finally called to account on September
2, 1945, it was a gesture to the past
and the sacrifice made on Battleship
Row on December 7, that the surren-
der ceremony took place on the deck
of the USS Missouri, the last American
battleship ever to be commissioned.
Though she and her sister ships of the
Iowa class would serve again in combat
as late as the Desert Storm War, the
day of the battleship was gone. The
day of the aircraft carrier had arrived.
The attacks on Pearl Harbor, the
World Trade Center, and the Pentagon
begin as stories of tragedy, defeat, and
humiliation. They soon developed as
stories of heroism and duty fulfilled
against tremendous odds. The Pearl
Harbor story ended with American les-
sons learned, ultimate triumph, and a
new day for the United States. We ex-
pect no less in the current crisis.Endnotes
1. William Faulkner, Requiem For A Nun, Act I,
Scene III
2. David C. Evans and Mark R. Peattie, Kaigun;
Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Jap-
anese Navy, 1887-1941 (Annapolis, Maryland: Naval
Institute Press, 1997) provides a thorough analysis
of the buildup of the Imperial Japanese Navy in the
late 1930s particularly 353-390.
3. Evans and Peattie, 406-411: Samuel Eliot Mori-
son, History of United States Naval Operations in
World War II Vol. III, The Rising Sun in the Pacific,
1931 - April 1942 (Boston: Little Brown and Com-
pany, 1948), 62-64.
4. A concise and insightful discussion of the ap-
proach to war from the Japanese perspective can be
found in Louis Morton, "Japan's Decision For
War," chap. in Command Decisions ed. Kent Rob-
erts Greenfield (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1959;
reprint Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of
Military History, 1969), 100-124.
5. An excellent description and analysis of the de-
bate and planning for the Pearl Harbor attack can
be found in Robert E. Ward, "The Inside Story of
the Pearl Harbor Plan," Proceedings of the United
States Naval Institute 77 (1951): 1272-1281.
6. Ward, 1279.7. Naval Historical Center, U.S. Navy Active Ship
Force Levels, 1917-1998. p. 4. http://www.history.na-
vy.mil/branches/org9-4.htm. This website is an excel-
lent source U.S. Navy developments and histories of
individual ships and events.
8. Robert O. Dulin, Jr. and William H. Garzke,
Jr., Battleships; United States Battleships in World
War I (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1976),
chap. 1-5.
9. Kent Roberts Greenfield, ed., The United States
Army in World War II (Washington, D.C.: Historical
Division, United States Army, 1950), vol. 4, part 1,
Chief of Staff Prewar Plans and Preparations, by
Mark S. Watson, 202.
10. For an overview of developments in the Atlan-
tic prior to the United States entry into the war see
Samuel Eliot Morison, History of United States Naval
Operations in World War II. Vol. I, The Battle of the
Atlantic, September 1939 - May 1943 (Boston: Little
Brown and Company, 1947), chapters 1-5.
11. Morison, vol. 1, 57, 79-81, 92-94.
12. For a detailed breakdown of the First Carrier
Striking Force, see H.P. Willmott, Pearl Harbor
(London, Cassell and Co., 2001), 192-196.
13. For a detailed breakdown of the aircraft in
the attack force as well as planes, weapons, targetsand losses in the attack see H.P. Willmott, Pearl
Harbor (London, Cassell and Co., 2001), 185-181.
14. Morison, Vol. 1, 126.
15. Eliot A. Cohen and John Gooch, Military Mis-
fortunes; The Anatomy of Failure in War (New York:
Vintage Books, 1991). The authors provide an inter-
esting methodology for the examination of military
failure and by extension historical study.
16. Wesley Frank Craven and James Lea Cates,
eds., The Army Air Forces in World War II, vol. 1,
Plans And Early Operations, January 1939 - August
1942 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,
1948. Reprint. Washington, D.C.: Government
Printing Office, Imprint of the Office of Air Force
History, 1983), 198-199.
17. Morison, Vol.1, 125
18. Carl Von Clausewitz, On War, Trans. Michael
Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton: Princeton Uni-
versity Press, 1976), 119- 121.
19. Charles C. Tansil, Back Door To War; The
Roosevelt Foreign Policy, 1933-1941 (Chicago: Regn-
ery, 1952). The first and most famous of the con-
spiracy theories that indicts Roosevelt and the entire
high command for treason.
20. Stinnett, Robert B. Day of Deceit; The Truth
About FDR and Pearl Harbor (New York: Free10
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Howard Payne University. Texas Journal of Genealogy and History, Volume I, Fall 2002, periodical, 2002; Brownwood, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth599838/m1/13/: accessed June 8, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Howard Payne University Library.