I always like to share this day in photos and information. I have shared this same post before, but I've added a few notes this year, along with a few new images. It seems since I copied the bones of this post from 2019, the post has reverted back to 2019 and the comments, too.
Although the majority of my readers were not born when the attack on
Pearl Harbor occurred, this is the day the worst attack on
American soil occurred prior to 9/11. A total of 2,403 Americans died
and 1,178 were wounded. Even though this is an American event, it
affected the majority of the world. I am sharing this again because I
couldn't find anything better than this post I created four years
ago. Since many are new to my blog, I thought it was appropriate to
share it again.
As I've stated before, this is a LONG diatribe and, unlike how I normally share information, I offer very few references, because most of
this information is my own that I learned as an undergrad, from books
I've read, or documentaries I've seen on WWII. All opinions are my
own.
All photos are from Wikipedia, unless otherwise specified.
The events leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor can be traced back
to 1852, while Japan was still an isolationist country. Until that
time, trade with the west was strictly limited to the Dutch trading in
Nagasaki. Since Westerners weren't allowed in the country, their
influence was strongly discouraged.
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In July, 1853, Commander Matthew C. Perry, sent by the U.S. to forcibly
establish trade with Japan, initially faced resistance.
It didn't take
Perry long to overpower the Japanese, though.
According to
Asia for Educators:
Upon seeing Perry's fleet sailing into their harbor,
the Japanese called them the "black ships of evil mien (appearance)." Many
leaders wanted the foreigners expelled from the country, but in 1854
a treaty was signed between the United States and Japan which allowed
trade at two ports.
Within less than a year, Perry established American trade with Japan.
While Japan's isolation had allowed the Japanese to think they were a
powerful nation, Perry showed they were no match for outsiders who
wanted to modernize their country.
Further according to
Asia for Educators:
In 1858 another treaty was signed which opened
more ports and designated cities in which foreigners could reside.
The trade brought much foreign currency into Japan disrupting the Japanese
monetary system. Because the ruling shôgun seemed unable to do
anything about the problems brought by the foreign trade, some samurai
leaders began to demand a change in leadership.
It didn't take the Japanese long to begin their reformation. They
started by ousting the shogun, who was the ruler at the time, and placed
the emperor back in control. According to World History.org:
Then,
after years of ineffectual government and failure to meet the threat of
foreign powers like Great Britain and the United States, the Meiji
Restoration finally abolished the position of shogun and restored full
powers to the emperors.
They watched how the west had colonized many countries, and began their
own colonization process. This led to their need for new materials and
goods, which were in short supply in Japan. Not only did they begin
imitating the West, they began dressing like them, too.
By trying to imitate a 19th century European power, they had to engage
in imperialism. The obvious target for imperialism was Korea. The problem was that the Korean
king paid tribute (monetary contributions similar to taxes) to the Chinese emperor. While the Japanese could, and
did force the Koreans to sign some unequal treaties, the peninsula
remained free of the Japanese.
However, in 1894, China sent troops into Korea to help put down a
rebellion, violating a previous treaty, so the Japanese also sent in
troops. Fighting broke out which lead to the First Sino-Japanese War in
1894 and 1895. According to Dokdo Takashima:
The Western method of opening Japan to commerce
was to threaten war against the Tokugawa Shogunate (1603-1868) should it
refuse to sign trade treaties. Essentially these treaties were unequal contracts
signed under duress- the explicit or implicit threat of force which
gave the British and other Western powers rights and privileges that
went unreciprocated.
Further:
Documented plans for a Japanese invasion of Korea via Ganghwando date back to at least the year 1869.
Then the Japanese attacked a group of Koreans on Korean soil. According to Dokdo Takashima:
The well armed Japanese army quickly annihilated the Koreans who were poorly equipped with muskets (35 were killed).
While the Japanese asserted the Korean attack was
unexpected, certain facts about the incident show us the Un-yo’s
landing was a deliberate attempt to provoke the Koreans into a military
confrontation. This would in turn, give the Japanese “justification” for
attacking Korea.
Further:
War between China and Japan was officially
declared on August 1st 1894 and the Imperial Japanese defeated the
poorly armed Beiyang Army in the Battle of Pyeongyang on September 16th
and quickly pushed North into Manchuria. The Imperial Japanese Navy
destroyed 8 of the 12 warships of the Chinese Beiyang Fleet off the
mouth of the Yalu River on September 17th 1894. The Chinese fleet
subsequently retreated behind the Weihwai fortifications. However, they
were then surprised by Japanese ground forces, who outflanked the
harbor’s defenses.
The Chinese lost the
war, and lost it badly. After that, Korea stopped paying tribute to
China and soon
became a Japanese tributary state. Japan also took over Taiwan, which
led to the rivalry with Russia over Manchuria. Again, according to Dokdo Takashima:
Throughout the 1880s and 1890s important events
transpired that would shape Japan’s foreign policy toward Korea. In 1882
the Chulmupo Treaty would be signed by Korea and this would prove
significant a years later . During the spring of 1894 there was an
uprising by a rebel group known as the Tonghaks. As Chinese forces
advanced toward Korea, the Japanese army general staff mobilized the
Fifth Division and requisitioned several transports.
It didn't take the Japanese long to begin their reformation. They
started by ousting the shogun, who was the ruler at the time, and placed
the emperor back in control. They watched how the west had colonized
many countries, and began their own colonization process. This led to
their need for new materials and goods, which were in short supply in
Japan. Not only did they begin imitating the West, they began dressing
like them, too.
They watched how the west had colonized many countries, and began their
own colonization process. This led to their need for new materials and
goods, which were in short supply in Japan. Not only did they begin
imitating the West, they began dressing like them, too.
By trying to imitate a 19th century European power, they had to engage
in imperialism. The obvious target for imperialism was Korea. The problem was that the Korean
king paid tribute (monetary contributions similar to taxes) to the Chinese emperor. While the Japanese could, and
did force the Koreans to sign some unequal treaties, the peninsula
remained free of the Japanese.
By trying to imitate a 19th century European power, they had to engage
in imperialism. The obvious target for imperialism was Korea. The
problem was that the Korean
king paid tribute (monetary contributions similar to taxes) to the
Chinese emperor. Long before there was a North and South Korea, it was a unified country. Both China and Russia had their eye on Korea and each wanted to control it. That is, until Japan got in the way.
By the late 1900s, Japanwas still subject to racism from Western world powers such as Britain
and France. Imperial expansion was Japan's last chance to gain any
respect, power, and immigration in the harsh world. Korea was the
perfect place to start. Unfortunately for Japan, China and Russia also
had their eyes on Korea, and it was a constant battle between the
three countries. Finally, Japan was happy with the land they had won through war, and
began their imperialism on the Korean people.
While the Japanese could, and
did force the Koreans to sign some unequal treaties, the peninsula
remained free of the Japanese.
However, in 1894, China sent troops
into Korea to help put down a
rebellion, violating a previous treaty, so the Japanese also sent in
troops. Fighting broke out which lead to the First Sino-Japanese War in
1894 and 1895.
The Chinese lost the war, and lost it badly. After that, Korea stopped paying tribute to China and soon
became a Japanese tributary state. Japan also took over Taiwan, which led to the rivalry with Russia over Manchuria.
From there, the rivalry escalated to the Russo-Japanese War which lasted
18 months in 1904 and 1905. Japan emerged the winner and was now
looked on as a world leader. Manchuria was taken over, as was Korea,
since the Russians were in no position to maintain control.
This set up the fate of Korea which in my estimation was clearly and undeniably sadistic. The atrocities imposed on the Koreans was so sadistic, I won't go into them here. Some of the things the Japanese did were so cruel, they turned my stomach. And I'm not easily swayed by words and images. However, one story you might want to read can be found at this link at History.com.
During WWI, Japan joined the Allies, where they took out Germany's colonial empire in the Pacific Ocean.
This included New Guinea, Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Samoa.
This was probably when Japan was the most powerful and largely accepted
by
Western powers. It was obvious Japan had acted exactly as the various
European colonial powers had.
However, according to Quotesgram.com:
during the period of peace between the two world wars,
aggressively expansionist moves,
though far from unheard of, were frowned on by
many nations. It wasn't simply a matter of geopolitics, either. Most
people in Europe really did not want another war, and the countries
that seemed to be provoking those wars were looked upon unfavorably.
Because Japan hadn't suffered in WWI the way countries like France, Great Britain, and
Belgium had, they were looked upon as warmongers, or part of a group who
wanted to bring the world once again to the brink of war.
Also during this time, China began to get organized. First the south
was unified under its government, then the military campaign, led by
Chiang Kai-shek from 1926 to 1928 by what is now called the Northern
Expedition, aided by Soviet arms, unified China by ending the rule of
the the local warlords along the Yangtze River.By 1930, Chiang had unified China under what was certainly the most
enlightened government in its history. China was moving toward Chiang’s
ultimate goal of a constitution, creating a republic, with free
elections.
Japan viewed China's reunification as a threat to its control of
Manchuria's railroads. Losing anything to China was seen as
unacceptable, so in 1931, the Japanese invaded Manchuria to protect
their interests in the railroad. Japan subsequently set up a puppet
state which nobody else
recognized as a legitimate state. This isolated Japan, and it also
meant
a continuing series of border clashes with the Chinese. At the same time, the communists established their own base in
remote northwest China. For the next several years, Chiang was forced to
fight a two-front war inside his own country, both against the Japanese and
against the communists determined to overthrow the new government and
establish a communist dictatorship.
In 1937, the Japanese took Shanghai and Nanking, forcing Chiang’s
government inland. With Chiang preoccupied fighting the
foreign invaders, the communists took the opportunity to expand their
own territorial holdings. For the next several years, Chiang stood alone
against the Japanese aggressors. It was at this time the Japanese provoked the Chinese into a full-scale war, known as the Second Sino-Japanese War, or the Eight Year War.
This was a bloody war, with many photos too gruesome to show on my
blog. However, this is a photo of Japanese soldiers with gas masks and
rubber gloves on during the Battle of Shanghai. More details:
The Second Sino-Japanese War (July 7, 1937 –
September 9, 1945) was a military conflict fought between the Republic
of China and the Empire of Japan. From 1937 to 1941, China fought Japan
with some economic help from Nazi Germany (until 1938), the Soviet Union
(1937-1940) and the United States (see American Volunteer Group). After
the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the war merged into the greater
conflict of World War II as a major front in the Pacific Theatre. The
Second Sino-Japanese War was the largest Asian war in the twentieth
century. It also made up more than 50% of the casualties in the Pacific
War.
Although the two countries had fought intermittently since 1931,
full-scale war started in earnest in 1937 and ended only with the
surrender of Japan in 1945. The war was the result of a decades-long
Japanese imperialist policy aiming to dominate China politically and
militarily, and to secure its vast raw material reserves and other
economic resources, particularly food and labor. At the same time, the
rising tide of Chinese nationalism and notions of self-determination
stoked the coals of war. Before 1937, China and Japan fought in small,
localized engagements, so-called "incidents". Yet the two sides, for a
variety of reasons, refrained from fighting a total war. In 1931, the
Japanese invasion of Manchuria by Imperial Japan's Kwantung Army
followed the "Mukden Incident". The last of these incidents was the
Marco Polo Bridge Incident of 1937, marking the beginning of full scale
war between the two countries.
Had the Second Sino-Japanese War been a short one, the Japanese might
have walked away with a hugely favorable treaty and land cessions similar to the First Sino-Japanese War.
However, the
Nationalist government didn't give in, so this took many more resources
than Japan had at the time. In my opinion, this was the beginning of
Japan's decision to bomb Pearl Harbor, since this war pushed the
Japanese economy and the military to the breaking point.
Japan's supplies of rubber, iron, and oil were pushed to the breaking
point, who now had no allies in the region. The
view in the international community was that Japan was a rogue state, which
did not help Japan procure the materials needed to keep fighting the
war in China. An attack on a U.S. gunboat on the Yangtze River alienated
the U.S., as did widespread Japanese atrocities against Chinese
civilians. Eventually, this led to embargoes on trade with
Japan.
At this point, Japan was in peril. It had assembled a colonial empire
both to enable Western-style industrialization and to establish
credibility as a great power. Yet, because World War I hadn't
affected Japan in the same way it had Europe, Japan's
continued warmongering actions now alienated both the U.S. and Europe.
I remember the gist of a quote from a book I read on WWII was that the
West taught Japan poker, but after Japan won all the chips, declared
the game immoral.
And while it's true that the Western powers hadn't
perpetrated anything along the lines of the Rape of Nanking, the bloody
battle that involved persecution, looting, and rape when Japan took the
capitol city of China, the West was not blameless in some of their
actions, either.
Since Japan desperately needed resources, there were only two places to
get them. One place was Siberia and the other was the South Pacific.
The Imperial Army favored invading Siberia, while the Imperial Navy
wanted to take the South Pacific.
The Imperial Army was forced to abandon their quest for Siberia when in
August, 1939, just weeks before Hitler and Stalin invaded
Poland, the Soviet Union and Japan fought a massive tank battle on the
Mongolian border. The Soviets won a crushing victory, the largest the
world had ever seen to date. Defeat persuaded the Japanese to expand
into the Pacific, where they saw
the United States as a weaker opponent than the Soviet Union. And
although this is just conjecture on my part, if the
Japanese had not lost this battle, they might never have attacked
Pearl Harbor.
It was a decisive victory for the Soviets in other ways, too. When the
Japanese decided to expand in the south, it also meant that the Soviets
didn't have to fight on two fronts, but could use their troops against
the threat of Nazi Germany in
the West. In terms of its strategic impact, this battle and subsequent
Soviet victory was one of the most decisive battles of the Second World
War. It also served to show the Japanese military that it was not a
match for the Soviets, especially since Japanese forces were still
fighting throughout China. The
Soviets forces were stunning, while
Japanese tactics remained stuck in the traditional mindset that more
highly valued
honor and personal bravery on the battlefield than massive
forces.
After defeating the warlords, the Nationalist army turned on Britain,
who became their primary enemy.
In response, the British
retaliated in Hankou and Jiujiang but prepared to defend
Shanghai. It was at that point the alliance between the communists and
the Nationalists fell
apart.
When communist led labor unions captured Shanghai
for
Chiang Kai-shek,
he attacked and suppressed them, and when he set up his new government
in Nanjing he expelled the communists from it.
After Pearl Harbor, Chiang announced to President Franklin Roosevelt,
“To our new common battle, we offer all we are and all we have, to stand
with you.” China's efforts during WWII cannot be overlooked. Chiang kept Japanese soldiers tied down on the Chinese mainland which kept them from fighting the Americans and British.
The end result to all this was the Imperial Japanese Navy got its way,
although it had to deal with the fact that
the South Pacific had already been colonized. As a result, there were
simultaneous
attacks on Pearl Harbor, Singapore, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and
Malaya. The Japanese felt the United States was a less formidable
adversary and didn't want war with the U.S. or the British while they
scrambled for rubber and oil. This turned out to be suicidal
and a complete misreading of how the Americans would react to Pearl
Harbor, but it was, as I see it, about 90 years in the making. The
above photo shows what Pearl Harbor looked like in October, 1941.
_burning_after_the_Japanese_attack_on_Pearl_Harbor_-_NARA_195617_-_Edit.jpg/800px-The_USS_Arizona_(BB-39)_burning_after_the_Japanese_attack_on_Pearl_Harbor_-_NARA_195617_-_Edit.jpg)
Even though Pearl Harbor was a defeat for U.S. troops and the Pacific
Fleet, the Japanese didn't learn the lessons handed them by the
Soviets. Honor and bravery remained central to the Japanese military
mentality
and, once they had recovered from the initial onslaught, the U.
S. and Britain were able to combine forces and push the Japanese
out of the Pacific and back to Japan in one brutal battle
after another.
This leads to another point I personally saw that still existed, albeit
far less, when I worked with Japanese in industry. The Japanese
believed that America, as a nation of diverse races of peoples, was
a mongoloid mix incapable of acting with a united resolve. That
perception was fueled by the propaganda perpetrated by Japan that they
were the superior race.
America was quite alien to the Japanese, and
it's not surprising that the homogeneous Japanese couldn't
comprehend how such a diverse range of extreme individuals, an attribute
prized by Americans, could possibly become a united and unified body.
The Japanese Imperial Navy convinced themselves and their country that a
devastating attack would dishearten the Americans who would come to
accept a new reality of Japanese superiority. This photo shows how the
Japanese saw Pearl Harbor right before the first bombing attack.
Beside the fact the Japanese wanted the oil, rubber, food, and wealth
they thought they could gain by conquering the U.S. through economic
attrition, they also
hoped they could wear the U.S. down politically, which would enable them
to keep
their conquests.
Not everything went according to plan, though. According to Wikipedia:
Important base installations such as the power station, shipyard,
maintenance, and fuel and torpedo storage facilities, as well as the
submarine piers and headquarters building (also home of the intelligence section) were not attacked.
Although the Japanese dealt a huge blow that December 7, 1941, it didn't
take the U.S. long to regain control. This was especially true since,
also according to
Wikipedia:
Within six months, five battleships and two cruisers were patched or
refloated so they could be sent to shipyards in Pearl Harbor and on the
mainland for extensive repair.
Further, to our (U.S.) shame, according to the same
Wikipedia article:
One further consequence of the attack on Pearl Harbor and its aftermath
was that Japanese American residents and citizens were relocated to
nearby Japanese-American internment
camps. Within hours of the attack, hundreds of Japanese American
leaders were rounded up and brought to high-security camps such as Sand
Island.
And finally, also according to
Wikipedia:
Fortunately for the United States, the American aircraft carriers were
untouched by the Japanese attack; otherwise the Pacific Fleet's ability
to conduct offensive operations would have been crippled for a year or
more (given no diversions from the Atlantic Fleet). As it was, the
elimination of the battleships left the U.S. Navy with no choice but to
rely on its aircraft carriers and submarines—the very weapons with which
the U.S. Navy halted and eventually reversed the Japanese advance.
While six of the eight battleships were repaired and returned to
service, their relatively low speed and high fuel consumption limited
their deployment, and they served mainly in shore bombardment roles.
.jpg/1024px-USS_Enterprise_(April_1939).jpg)
Aircraft carriers dominated the seas in WWII. They played a crucial
role in every major naval battle because they were built for speed and
efficiency. They carried fighter planes, dive bombers, and torpedo
planes.
The surrender of Japan to the Allies at the end of World War II brought
peace after the fighting as well as extreme confusion. Korea was divided
between the Soviet Union and America with two separate and feuding
governments, both claiming they were the right government to rule all of
Korea. The Northern half of Korea invaded the Southern half. After many
years of bloody fighting, two separate countries were established,
giving us modern day North and South Korea.
According to
History.com:
World War II devastated not just Japan, but the Korean Peninsula, and in
1945, the United States and the USSR captured the peninsula and ended
Japanese rule there. Korea was divided
into two occupation zones that were intended to be temporary. However, a
unified state was never given back to the newly independent Korean
people. Instead, the Korean War broke out between the Soviet and Chinese-backed northern half of Korea and the United States and United Nations-backed south.
This is what Ford Island that sits inside Pearl Harbor looked like in 1985.
This image, found on satimagingcorp.com can be enlarged. Note the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial and the U.S.S. Utah
Memorial. If you compare this photo to the one below, you can make out the U.S.S. Missouri Museum.
The U.S.S. Missouri Museum can be seen to the left and below
the USS Arizona on the satellite image above this photo. I couldn't find the author of
this photo.
This photo is
from Anders.com.
I hope this story, as told by me in honor of Pearl Harbor, was
meaningful. I also hope you learned a bit about why the Japanese bombed
Pearl Harbor. I've also included how Korea came to be enslaved by Japan, something I barely touched on the last time I shared this. There are many more reasons that I could have given, but
I feel I've written enough for now. I find it odd that I learned so
much about WWII in school and books, yet knew nothing about Vietnam.
As an aside, I learned there were only six men who had survived the attack who attended today's ceremony (2022) at the Pearl Harbor Memorial.
Thanks for visiting, thanks for remembering Pearl Harbor, and thanks for reading through this long post.
Unfortunately, I don't have much to smile about here. I'm in meltdown mode.
This is what my sewing machine is producing.
Although it wastes a LOT of expensive variegated thread,
if the back side is hidden, it's not so bad. However, when I am trying to sew two sides of a tip-in together (like in the top two photos), it isn't going to work. You are looking at the back/reverse of the front side of the tip-in. The two photos at the top of the post are of the front of the back side of the tip-in.
I spent a lot of time designing, fussy cutting, painting,
and decorating these trees. I'll be taking my sewing machine apart in the morning to find why it is misbehaving when I need it so badly right now.
Been there, often do that!
That's it for me today, dear friends. 
Dollar Exchange Rate
