Pearl Harbor - Brief Look |
On December 7, 1941 the U.S. troops stationed on the island of Pearl Harbor were not waken up by the familiar sound of a bugle but instead by gunfire and explosions. This is what it might have been like if you were one of the troops at Pearl Harbor. This attack was important because it led to other events in World War II. Some of these events were America's involvement in the war and the dropping of the Atom Bomb at Hiroshima. Between the years of 1920 and 1940 dictators came to power in Germany, Italy, and Japan. The first country to have a dictatorship was Italy. Thier dictator was Benito Mussolini. He became dictator in 1922. Mussolini organized and founded the Fascist party before he became dictator. After thier loss in World War I Germany had severe problems with thier economy. Adolf Hitler and his political party the Nazis promised they would end Germanies problems if Hitler became dictator. The Germans made Hitler thier dictator in 1933. Italy and Germany decided to become allies in 1939. They called themselves the Axis Powers. Japan joined the Axis Powers in 1940. The emperor of Japan at the present time was Emperor Hirohito. After he joined with the Axis Powers he started taking over countries, cities, and island in and around Japan that belonged to countries who opposed the Axis Powers. Joseph Stalin, the ruler of Russia at the present time, sided with Hitler until Hitler double crossed him and tried to take over Russia. After the double cross Stalin decided to side with the Allies. The Allies were the countries that were opposed to the Axis Powers. These countries were Britain, France, the U.S.A., and Russia. The three leaders of the Allied Powers were Franklin D. Roosevelt, the president of the U.S.A., Winston Churchill, the prime minister of Britain, and Joseph Stalin. After World War II started Japan grew angry with the U.S.A. because they were helping China by sending them war supplies. Japan didn't like this because China was the main target of Japanese attacks. As a result of this Japan decided to take a "peace" trip to the U.S.A. . They made the trip in November of 1941. During this "peace" trip Japan made three proposals to the government. These proposals were, to stop aiding China, to stay out of Asian affairs, and to begin shipping oil to Japan right away or Japan would attack the U.S.A. . President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the government of the United States didn't carry out these proposals. As a result of this Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7, 1941 at 7:55 AM. The reason they attacked that early was because Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the person in control of the Japanese warships in that area, knew most of the troops at Pearl Harbor would be asleep.
The main planes Japan used for the attack were bombers. The number of bombers used was 350. Six aircraft carriers are what these planes were carried on. They chose to use bombers because thier primary objective was to destroy as many ships as possible. They did have one squadron of fighter planes in each wave, however. The reason they did this was because Yamamoto predicted that the troops at Pearl Harbor would be able to a launch a few planes. There were two waves of planes. The first wave of planes were to destroy as many capital ships as possible. Capital ships are ships that are powerful. The planes that were still up and running after the first wave were to join in the second wave. The second wave of planes were to destroy whatever was left after the first wave of planes finished thier mission. These were mostly carrier ships and submarines that were surfaced. During this attack exactly ten major command ships were destroyed. Some of the ships that were destroyed were the U.S.S. Arizona, the Pennsylvania, the Maryland, and the West Virginia. The major results off the bombing of Pearl Harbor were the involvement of the United States in World War II. The second major result was the dropping of the Atom Bomb at Hiroshima in Japan. Harry S. Truman was the president who dropped the bomb on Japan because F. D. Roosevelt died shortly before that happened. Before he died he gave a speech about what happened at Pearl Harbor. In this speech he said, "Yesterday December 7,1941-a date witch we live in infamy [total disgrace]-the United States of America was deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan..." That was only part of the speech ,however. The U.S.S.. Arizona which was one of the most badly damaged ships because of the attack had a memorial made for it. After the bombing American soldiers use the phrase "Remember Pearl Harbor" to raise thier spirits during the remainder of the war.
This concludes my term paper on the "Bombing of Pearl Harbor". This paper covered a brief description of World War II and the dictators during it, a summary of what happened before, during, and after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
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