The War with Japan by Parker Clayton

Sixty-Six years ago today, the U.S. was reeling from the attack on Pearl Harbor. Japan was revising their military strategy because Lt. Col. James Doolittle was successful in raiding Japan from the USS Hornet. Leading the Japanese response was Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. His strategy was to regroup the entire Imperial Navy and gain control of midway, the halfway point between Japan and Hawaii. Prior to Pearl Harbor, America was neutral in the war while Japan was part of the Axis power which included Germany and Italy. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s decision to freeze Japanese assets and embargo oil exports led to the attack of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese on December 7th, 1941.

World War II had started when dictators in Germany, Italy and Japan used the world wide great depression as a way to gain power. By promising people better times, they were able to gain powerful positions in the government and military. Japan’s government was filled with military leaders who wanted to conquer new territories. In 1940, Japan allowed their commercial treaty with America to expire.

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s enactment of the oil embargo marked a major event that provoked Japan bringing America into WWII. With the embargo, Japan lost 75% of their foreign trade, and 90% of their oil. America had crippled them without even fighting. The U.S. created this embargo because Japan was expanding into Southeast Asia and threatening America. Japan viewed this as an act of war, so they started their plans for an attack. Their first target was on the Hawaiian islands which was the base for the U.S. Navy in the Pacific. In Pearl Harbor there were 8 battleships, 8 cruisers, 30 destroyers, 4 submarines, and 390 aircraft stationed on the island. Japan chose to attack Pearl Harbor because it would cripple the U.S. Navy.

Japan started the war knowing full well that they didn’t have a choice, and that it was a war they were likely to lose. Admiral Yamamoto was in charge of the attack and it was his idea to attack Pearl Harbor. He calculated that Japan would need 300 planes traveling 300 miles to reach their destination. Morse code was their only form of communication. Joseph C. Grew, the ambassador to Japan, got word of the attack but passed it of as speculation.

At 5:30 a.m. on December 1st, 1941 the Japanese cruisers Chikuman and Tone sent search planes as a routine procedure to fly over the island and check their information. Without waiting for confirmation 43 fighters, 49 high level bombers, 51 dive bombers and 40 torpedo bombers were launched. The U.S. radar had in fact spotted the incoming planes, but the radar operator thought they were incoming B-17 bombers.

The first wave of planes came in and strafed grounded aircraft while dive bombers attacked the battleships. The U.S. was very unprepared for this attack and was only able to get a few planes into the air to defend the island. There were 402 aircraft on Hawaii, 188 were destroyed and 159 were damaged. In total, 18 U.S. ships were destroyed, including 5 battleships and 2 destroyers. In his speech, Franklin D. Roosevelt called December 7th, 1941 ‘a day which will live in infamy’. America was suddenly and violently at war.

By all accounts, the Battle of Midway was the most decisive Naval victory in U.S. history and a major waypoint in the war against Japan. It marked the point where the U.S. and Japanese naval fleets were equal, and America was quickly taking the offensive. Admiral Yamamoto was again heading the operation to capture Midway and he positioned Japan’s fleet towards Midway to try and draw out American carriers. He thought the U.S. carriers would come to fight but arrive too late to save the island. Yamamoto’s goal was to take back the island and establish an airfield and his strategy was to capture the island from three directions. Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo would attack from the northwest and his carriers would pin down Midway with long range fire, and deal with any incoming American warships. To back up Nagumo’s forces, Admiral Yamamoto would follow him a few hundred miles behind with his own battleship force. Meanwhile Vice Admiral Nobutake Kondo would take his battleships from the West and Southwest and be the one to actually capture Midway.

Yamamoto’s surprise attack was uncovered by American communications intelligence who broke the Japanese radio code and knew all of the Japanese battle plans, locations and attack times. The U.S. was ready and waiting. Admiral Chester Nimitz, the U.S. Pacific Fleet Commander, positioned his carriers to Ambush the Japanese on June 4th, 1942.

At 4:30 in the morning on June 4th 1942 Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo launched 108 planes to attack Midway, but what he didn’t know was that U.S. carriers were only 215 miles away and closing on his position. Both of the fleets had sent out search planes, the Japanese as a routine, and the U.S. to look for an enemy they knew was there.

Midway also sent out fighters to intercept the incoming Japanese bombers. However, the Marine fighters were overwhelmed, suffered heavy losses and only shot down a few Japanese bombers. The Japanese hit the island at 6:30 a.m. but weren’t successful in disabling the airfield. While the Japanese had been bombing Midway, the U.S. had launched a counterattack from Midway. The counterattack failed, but some high-flying B-17’s got pictures of the 4 Japanese carriers. When a tardy Japanese plane spotted the incoming Navy fleet. Since his planes were armed with the wrong kind of bombs Vice Admiral Nagumo had to retrieve and refit his planes with torpedoes to deal with the threat of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. At 9:30 a.m. the U.S. Navy launched torpedo planes against the Japanese ships.

The U.S. lost almost every plane but managed to slow down the oncoming Japanese attack. At 10:15 a.m. squadrons of SBD scout bombers attacked 3 of the 4 Japanese carriers. The carriers had fully fueled and ready to go planes on their decks. The carrier Akagi, Kaga and Soryu all went down. The only remaining carrier, the Hiryu sent out planes that destroyed the Yorktown. Finally U.S. bombers located the Hiryu and succeeded in sinking her. Commander Yamamoto called off the operation and called a retreat, marking a major event in World War II.

It finally looked like the Allied powers had a chance, after the Battle of Midway. The Navy was still pushing towards Japan, island by island while unknown to most, scientists in America were developing an atomic bomb. Germany finally surrendered in May 1945 ending Hitler’s regime. Franklin D. Roosevelt died in April 1945 in his 4th term of president. His successor Harry S. Truman made the controversial decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and end the war with Japan. This had been a very controversial way to end the war because of the huge amount of destruction it caused. 120,000 civilians were killed instantly on August 6th 1945, a horrible way to end any war. On September 2nd, 1945 on the USS Missouri Japan surrendered and World War II was finally over.