The Attack on Pearl Harbor There were many reasons leading to the attack at Pearl Harbor. One main reason for it was the economic issues (Anderson). The trade routes between America and Japan were cut off. The Japanese ships were not accepted in America either (Taylor 5), because of the two countries’ political differences (Taylor 6). On November 1, 1941 a ship came into the Honolulu Harbor. It had a Japanese flag on it. It was a forbidden Japanese ship. “The name of the ship was Taiyo Maru.”(Taylor 4) This ship was not welcomed with the original Hawaiian customs. Normally the hula girls would be out at the dock welcoming the passengers with their friendliness and dancing in their grass skirts. This was a way of saying “aloha,” which means both hello and also good-bye in the Hawaiian Islands. This ship carried a few important Japanese men. These men were actually Japanese spies (Taylor 6). One of these spies was a man named Otojiro Okuda. Okuda was one of the most important of Japanese spies. He had an agent. His agent was Kohichi Seki. Seki had to stay in Japan for a few months to train to become a spy for Japan. Seki was a key man in Okuda’s success as a spy. He helped him get the important information that was needed most by Okuda. Seki took a taxi to Pearl Harbor every day. He did this so he could get the names of the ships in port and the ships that were out and away from port. He wrote letters to Okuda which had this information he learned in it. When Okuda received the letters he first read them, then he sent them back to the Japanese government in telegrams (Dunnahoo 30). Since Seki took a taxi to Pearl Harbor every day, he hired his own personal taxi driver. The drivers’ name was Richard Masayuki Kotoshirodo. From him he learned that the U.S. fleet had a rotating pattern. It went like this. Half of the ships were in port for a week while the others were out at sea. Then the next week the switched so that the ships that were in port were out at sea, and the ones that were out of port were back in port for the week ( Dunnahoo 30). The commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet was Isoruku Yamamoto. He was a very important man with a very important role in the attack. He was the man who had planned the attacks in Hawaii. He began organizing the attack in April of that same year. At the same time of his organization, the U.S. was reorganizing the Atlantic Fleet (Dunnahoo 55). Yamamoto needed the First Air Fleet in his planned attack. The commander of the Fleet was Chuichi Naguma. Yamamoto did not want him to be the commander. This was not because he did not like him, but because he did not think he was experienced enough with fighting with planes (Dunnahoo 56). Commander Minora Genda was a very smart, young military man. He was the man chosen to be the commander of the First Naval Air Wing. He came up with some great ideas for the attack. He came up with the idea that the attack had to be a surprise attack. He also knew it had to be done very early in the morning. He knew if his attack plans were successful the Japanese would completely control the pacific. They would also control the world if these plans were successful. All of his plans were turned down. The Japanese went with Yamamoto’s plan. Genda did not like these plans, but he never stopped working hard for his country (Dunnahoo 57). One of the other reasons for the attack was that the fleet had been moved. It happened in May of 1940. It was moved by President Roosevelt. He moved it to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The Japanese government learned this from their spies in America. They learned it very soon after it happened (Dunnahoo 59). The rotation of the ships in port, which was mentioned earlier, was just what Yamamoto needed to run his plan for the attack. In March Nagao Kita came to take charge of the Japanese consulate. Takeo Yoshikama came with Kita to help him with his job. They came on the ship in November. On the ship Yoshikama used the alias Tadashi Morimura. Everyone thought that was his name except for Okuda and Kita. He was called chancellor in the consulate. All his co-workers believed that he was a junior diplomat. Yoshikama was actually a trained spy (Dunnahoo 59). Yoshikama also had a personal taxi driver. His name was John Yoshige Mikami. Mikami liked to study the United States Navy. He also liked to talk about it. He said everything he knew, to anyone who would listen to him. Yoshikama was a man that was ready to listen. Yoshikama made himself look like a normal tourist. He fit in very well with the other tourists in Hawaii. He wore the traditional brightly colored Hawaiian shirts that he bought in Hawaii. He went on tours when he was there. He wanted to fit in more so he took girls with him on the tours. He went on planes over the island of Oahu. There were great views from the air in the planes. One problem he had was that tourists were not allowed to fly over Pearl Harbor. Yoshikama had a favorite spying spot. It was at the pier at Pearl Harbor. He could see Pearl Harbor and the air strips from this spot. He did not go there every day to avoid suspicion. He went only two of three times during the week. He wore different clothes ever time he went (Dunnahoo 59). It was a nice, fall Sunday in Oahu, Hawaii. The date was December 7, 1941 (“Pearl”). This was the day the Japanese would attack the U.S. navy base at Pearl Harbor. There were two parts to the attack. The planes left Japan by 6:00A.M. The first attack was at 7:53A.M. The second was at 8:55A.M. All the attacks were over by 9:55A.M. The planes were back in Japan by 1:00P.M. (“Attack”). There were heroes and cowards on both sides. The Japanese people were very courageous. They ate sekihan before the attack. This is red rice boiled with tiny red beans that is only eaten before special events. The people would rather die then be P.O.W.s of the United States. They would do this for their emperor who at the time was Hirohito (Dunnahoo 19). The dictator at the time was Hideki Tojo (Fisher 564). They wrote farewells to their friends and families. They were prepared to die. The men were given hachimakis (Japanese headbands or bandanas) before the planes left. The word Hissho (certain victory) was written on it (Dunnahoo 21). There were courageous people from America also. One pharmacist tried to save a captain of a ship after he was told to leave. He stayed anyway to try and save another mans’ life. He also tried to fight off Japanese planes with a machine gun. It was useless. One man could not do it alone (Dunnahoo 14). There were people at Fort Shafter. The people there were in charge of reporting suspicious looking planes coming in. They reported these planes they saw, but the people they reported them to said they were just B17s from San Francisco. There was also a Japanese midget submarine there at 4:58A.M. The commander of an American supply ship saw the sub. He reported it to Ward (the people in charge of spotting subs.), and they shot and hit the sub. on their second shot (Dunnahoo 23). Mitsuo Fuchida was the Pilate who led the attack. At 9:49A.M. he tapped to, to, to into his keyboard. This was the symbol for the Japanese word that meant charge. Next he tapped in Tora, Tora, Tora. This was the symbol for the word that meant tiger. This was what they called code “tiger.” This meant the Japanese had succeeded in surprising the U.S. military (Dunnahoo 24). Some of the Japanese people did not even know that the attack was going on. Nagao Kita denied the attack while the Japanese were in the middle of it. He even denied it when he read the headlines that said “War! Oahu Bombed by Japanese Planes.” When the police got to the consulate they found workers burning papers in a tub. The workers claimed to not know the attack was going on at the time. The police were able to save a few documents (Dunnahoo 33). On the day of the bombing Cordell Hull, the secretary of state for the United States had a scheduled appointment with two Japanese ambassadors. The ambassadors did not come to America until 2:00P.M. They arrived at the meeting at 2:30P.M. If they had shown up on time it would have been just 25 minutes before the attack. The two ambassadors were Nomura and Kurusu. The meeting ended badly with Hull saying, “In all my fifty years of public service I have never seen a document that was more crowded with famous falsehoods and distortions—infamous falsehoods and distortions on a scale so huge that I never imagined until today that any government on this planet was capable of uttering them.” (Dunnahoo 37) After this the ambassadors left in silence. Nomura only learned of the attack when he was back at his embassy (Dunnahoo 37). At the air fields the U.S. tried to protect their planes. At Hickham Field they lined up bombers wing to wing. The Japanese still bombed the air field (Dunnahoo 14). The U.S. did the same protection at Wheeler Field. The Japanese also attacked there. They attacked with 25 bombers dropping their bombs on the American’s planes and hangers (Dunnahoo 17). The Americans did not protect the bombing at the ships either. The ships’ alarm bells rang at 8:01A.M. On the Nevada the sailors were shooting at the planes coming in. They hit one, but by the time the second one was hit it had already dropped its torpedo. It hit the ship at 8:03A.M. By this time other ships were also hit already. Some of them were the Oklahoma, the West Virginia, and the Arizona. Some sailors escaped but many of them died (Dunnahoo 12). The Japanese attacked in two different ways. One way was the aerial attack with was mentioned in the last few paragraphs. They also attacked with midget submarines (“The Attack”). They also brought in carriers. The carriers had to refuel at sea (Dunnahoo 57). This was very hard and dangerous. The submarines had torpedoes. The torpedoes had rotating wooden fins on them (“The Attack”). After the battle the people in Hawaii were scared to death. Every person was told to stay off the streets, and inside their houses. They made it a blackout. Everyone had to cover their windows. They did this with black paint, shades, or heavy curtains. They did this so that the planes would not be able to see any light on the ground. Block wardens patrolled the streets to make sure that no light escaped from any of the houses. The people that were in their houses were told to fill their tubs with water so that they could have something to drink if the enemies destroyed more of their water mains. People started spreading rumors. One was that the water had been poisoned. It was an extremely scary time for men and women of all ages (Dunnahoo 34). The attack was devastating for Americans, but the Japanese missed one thing. The one miss was very important to World War II. The American aircraft carriers escaped the attack. They were out on maneuvers during the attack. This escape played a major role later on in defeating the Japanese in the Pacific. The Americans escaped a huge blow in one of the most critical times of war (Fisher 564). The results of the attack were devastating for the U.S. A lot of damage was done. One of the things that was hit were the planes. Of the 300 U.S. planes at the airfields almost all of them were damaged of destroyed (Dunnahoo 36). Of these damaged or destroyed planes 188 of them were completely destroyed. The Japanese lost 29 of the 423 planes they sent out (“The Attack”). The United States of America lost some ships too. They had 96 ships at Pearl Harbor. 21 of them were sunk. There was good news about the ships though. It was that all of them but three were brought up and running at some other point in the war. The Japanese also destroyed eight U.S. battleships. The Japanese only lost the one midget submarine mentioned earlier. The Japanese force had 30 ships in it (“The Attack”). But the one thing that upset the Americans more than these numbers was the number of men who gave their lives for America. A lot of the men were also wounded. 2,403 men died trying to protect their country. 1,178 men were injured in the attack that day. This was one of the worst days in America’s history (“The Attack”). There was a memorial built for the USS Arizona. Many of the men that gave their lives that day are resting there. It is a big 184-foot-long memorial. It is in the middle of the spot where the battleships were sunk. There are three sections to it. The first is for the entrance and assembly room. The second is only for ceremonies and observations. The last part is the shrine. This is where the names of the victims of the attack are written in a marble wall. The memorial was completed in 1961. There were donations made by people who kept their names secret. President Dwight D. Eisenhower approved the construction of the memorial. Eisenhower was in the U.S. Army during World War II (“December”). The president of the U.S. during the attack was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He was informed about the attack about fifteen minutes after. The U.S. officials knew that Japan wanted to attack the U.S. The problem was that they did not know when or where it would happen (Anderson). They were expecting an attack in the Indies, Malaya, and the Philippines by November. They were not expecting to be attacked in the east as well (“Pearl). The day after the attack, President Roosevelt gave a speech to congress. In it he mentioned all the places that were attacked. He also said Americans were in danger. He knew America had a great army that could handle the situation. He declared December 7, 1941 “A date which will live in infamy.”(“Roosevelt’s”) In the speech he also asked congress to declare war on Japan. He said America was suddenly and deliberately attacked (“Roosevelt’s”). The congress took up his words.
On December 8, 1941 the United States congress declared war on the country of Japan. Every man was in favor of the war except for one. The United States of America was now officially in World War II (Anderson). Three days after this, Germany and Italy declared war on America (Fisher 565). At this point in war Germany had already defeated France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, and also Luxemburg (Taylor 3). The final result of the war was a win for the allies. The main three countries for the Allies were America, Russia, and England. The attack on Pearl Harbor is said to have awakened a “sleeping giant.”(Fisher 565)

The Attack on Pearl Harbor
I. Leading to Attack A. Moving of the U.S. Fleet B. Economic Issues
II. During the Attack A. Times 1. 7:53—First Attack 2. 8:55—Second Attack 3. 9:55—End B. Attacks 1. Arial Attacks 2. Submarine Attacks C. Places of Attack 2. Pearl Harbor 3. Hickham Field 4. Wheeler Field
III. After Attack A. Results 1. Men a. 2403—died b. 1178—injured 2. Ships a. 21—sunk b. 8 Battleships Destroyed 3. Planes a. U.S. lost 188 b. Japanese lost 29 B. USS Arizona Memorial C. President Franklin Roosevelt—Speech

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