Political Tremors from a Military Disaster

The Pearl Harbor disaster is best remembered as the greatest naval defeat ever suffered by the United States and the act that precipitated American entry into the Second World War. In a clandestine raid on Sunday morning, December 7, 1941, Japanese carrier-launched airplanes crippled the bulk of the United States Pacific Fleet berthed at the Hawaiian base, resulting in more than 3,000 American casualties. The next day the two countries were at war, and by December 10 the United States was fully engaged against the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis. Americans were unprepared for Pearl Harbor. Preoccupied with the war news from Europe, they had paid little attention to the Sino-Japanese War and were unaware that mounting tensions in the Pacific might lead to armed conflict between the United States and Japan. Americans found the December 7 disaster difficult to accept. Defeat was bitter and humiliating at the hands of a small island nation long considered inferior. Hawaii, furthermore, was not simply an exotic oasis, but a sentry post traditionally included within the ‘natural frontiers’ of the United States. To attack it–and succeed–was an affront against the mainland

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