Talk:Pearl Harbor (geographical)

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Too much of a leap from Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima?

As a new editor, I'm not going to leap in and revert, but I would suggest that it is rather far-reaching the attack on Pearl Harbor and other Allied bases in early December 1941, led directly to the August 1945 nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is reasonable to say that the Attack on Pearl Harbor caused the declaration of war, by the United States of America, on the Empire of Japan. It can even be said that it led to the invocation of the Tripartite Pact and the declaration of war on the United States by the Third Reich.

Quite a bit happened, however, between late 1941 and early 1945. There is also significant context leading up to Pearl Harbor, and other Japanese attacks close in time. It is worth noting the dissent in the Japanese decisionmaking structure about the Strike-South, Strike-North, and peace factions, and that Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto did not recommend attacking the U.S. -- but that if he had to do so, he wanted a dramatic start, from which he could promise only a year or so before American industrial strength, which he knew from personal observation, began to shift the balance of power away from Japan.

Actually, Yamamoto was optimistic; the first major turning point was the Battle of Midway in June 1942, followed by land action at the Battle of Guadalcanal beginning in August. Until after the war, the U.S. did not realize that the Doolittle Raid of April 1942, intended mostly for domestic morale, had a major effect on Japanese policy, causing Yamamoto to make the strategically unsound decision to move the Japanese eastern defense perimeter to include Midway. Arguably, the Battle of the Coral Sea, in May, was a strategic reverse for the Japanese even before the decisive U.S. strategic and tactical victory at Midway. Coral Sea, while a tactical defeat in terms of the greater damage done to U.S. forces, was the first time a Japanese invasion force was turned back.

The Attack on Pearl Harbor is one of the most studied battles in history, with at least ten major investigations trying to determine if the local commanders, Admiral Husband Kimmel and Lieutenant General Walter Short were negligent. Communications intelligence had a great deal to do with awareness of the threat, although the lack of effective dissemination of warnings is a classic example of overprotecting the security of intelligence sources to the point that the information might as well not have existed. Roberta Wohlstetter's analysis is, perhaps, the most respected, but there have been hundreds, if not thousands, of books and articles. Howard C. Berkowitz 21:46, 1 May 2008 (CDT)

PropDel - merge image and info first into both of

The info (and image) in this stub should be merged into one or both of Honolulu, Hawaii and Attack on Pearl Harbor before deleting. Pat Palmer (talk) 09:45, 28 March 2024 (CDT)