American History Hit - Pearl Harbor

Episode Date: December 8, 2022

On the morning of 7th December 1941, hundreds of Japanese planes took off from aircraft carriers and attacked Pearl Harbor, on Oahu island, Hawaii. They took out ships, bombed airfields and killed thousands of Americans. Japan intended to neutralise the US navy, to prevent it from interfering in the Pacific, where Japan was expanding its empire. But the effect was the opposite. America declared war on Japan, as well as Germany and Italy and entered World War 2. Don recounts the damage done in 90 devastating minutes. Eri Hotta tells Don about the negotiations between the US and Japan, explains why Japan decided to carry out the attack and Japanese people's reaction to it.Produced and mixed by Benjie Guy. Senior Producer: Charlotte Long.For more History Hit content, subscribe to our newsletters here.If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts, and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Want to explore even more history? Sign up to History Hit, where you will discover history from around the world. From the American Revolution to prehistoric Scotland, there is plenty to discover. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries, with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe to bring the past alive. December 7, 1941, just before 8 a.m., on the island of Oahu. Partially cloudy skies are clearing another spectacular sunny morning in Hawaii.

When the solemn beauty of this Sunday is suddenly broken by a strange and distant sound, a thrumming, a deep, forceful bellowing, the engines of 183 Japanese aircraft in formation, a surprise attack force of dive bombers to reprimmed. planes and zeros targeting the United States Navy's Pacific Fleet, anchored at Pearl Harbor. Also the airplanes, hangers, and runways at Naval Air Station on Ford Island, Wheeler and Hickham Fields. It is the first of two waves coming this morning. As the Japanese pilots descend, screaming towards their prized quarry, the battleships, destroyers, and cruisers moored tightly together in the harbor. They dropped their bombs and torpedoes. In short order, the USS Arizona is hit.

then rocked by a tremendous explosion. The West Virginia takes multiple strikes, sinking at its dock, resting on its keel. The USS Oklahoma flips, rolling completely over, its rudder and propellers jutting skyward. The California, flagship of the Pacific Fleet, sinks to the bottom as well. Across the vast expanse of Pearl Harbor, vessels of all shapes and sizes burn in a matter of minutes. Thick black smoke billowing everywhere into the sky as bleary-eyed sailors and the sea. as bleary-eyed sailors and soldiers run to safety or dashed to anti-aircraft and gunnery posts and begin firing. Many are killed, strafed by zeros.

Sailors swim through twisted wreckage and burning oil slicks. Others are trapped, caught below decks and drowned. It is pandemonium and panic on the docks and in the harbor. And the Japanese just keep coming. Hello all. Don Wildman here and welcome to American History Hit. This week, we remember Pearl Harbor, December 6th. 17th, 1941. Every year, the nation is called to consider the terrible events of that painful day now 81 years ago, which resulted in so much death and destruction and drew us into World War II,

and all of that which faithfully followed. And we are very lucky to be joined today by the acclaimed and accomplished scholar and author, Arihata, who in 2013 released Japan, 1941, Countdown to Infamy, which more deeply explored and examined the Japanese side of the whole affair, what were their motivations and objectives, their strategy, and how they really saw it all panning out. Hello, Arihata. Nice to have you. Hi, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. I imagine you've done a lot of December 7th over the years, explaining the other side of this epic tale, but that's what you get for writing a great book.

Thank you. Yes, I've done a fair amount, but then you sort of tend to forget what you wrote about nine years ago. So it's nice to sort of jug up your memory and think about it on this anniversary. Yeah. As I mentioned, we're 81 years out. Have you found since you published your book that attitudes have evolved about this event? What's been the effect of time? Yes, I think it's hard to tell. It's more anecdotal, but Pearl Harbor never left me in a sense that I had to translate this book into Japanese myself because I didn't want anybody else to do it and I also had all the sources, primary sources, with me.

So that was the easiest thing to do, but it was in some ways the most difficult thing to do because it was almost like revisiting the crime scene where you committed a crime almost and sort of a bit hard in that respect. But then I was more pleasantly surprised by the Japanese reception of it. I thought I would get comments like, oh, you're not patriotic enough to sort of, you know, blame it on the Japanese side so much.

Because there is a kind of wave of rampant nationalism in certain quarters of Japanese society, to be sure. But then I got more favorable reception than I could have imagined. Maybe it's the time that we live in that we are sort of tired of hearing sort of extreme views. and many people want moderation. Obviously, I host a program called American History, and I'm a big proponent for history, how important it is to examine events from different sides and understand context.

But wow, I mean, in the iconic story of Pearl Harbor, this is especially true. Take us back to the late 1930s in Tokyo and in Japan and the forces that were in play at that time. The late 1930s, I think one tends to forget that Japan didn't enter a war in December, 1941. It had been fighting a war in China since the middle of 1937 without any exit plan. And people in the street believe that the war would be taken care of very quickly because you get very limited information from censored media and self-censoring

media. The war in China will be a quick one. But after four years, it hadn't ended. it in 1941. So the late 1930s witnessed this kind of wave of restrictions more and more as the situation in China got out of control, basically. And there were less and less materials, wool materials to begin with, but also luxury items were sort of prohibited. And people were urged to wear very colorless kimonos or clothes. And this pervasive. sense of austerity was really increasing by the day as the war in China progressed. It's important to put in context of the whole world situation at that time. I mean, backing up, we've come out of World War I. The 20s are a boom time around the world in many quarters,

and certainly in Japan. And then, of course, the Great Depression hits. It hits very hard in Japan. Americans don't realize, most Americans don't really think about this, that Japan as an island nation, survives with a lot of imports. And this was certainly true back at that time, especially with the rise of the need for petroleum, which I understand 80% of which came from American exports. I think it was more. I think by the time Pearl Harbor was approaching more than 90%. So indeed, Japan didn't have any sort of resources of their own, which justified their expansionist claims and ambitions. And also, I think, to put it in a longer historical context, Japan narrowly escaped colonization by becoming an empire itself. So when the 1920s happened and all this liberal

internationalist ideas like sovereignty, international law, collective security, and the League of Nations, all these were engulfing as a kind of trendy stuff in international relations. Japan was at first, I think, very confused. And I think for a while, Japan went along with it for a long while, because I think Japan benefited from being friends with the West. But then when the Depression hit all the sort of nativist anti-Westernizing claims of the very radicalized right, especially young officers in the Army and Navy, I think they were really hot-headed like many young people are around the globe.

I think they wanted to be in charge of, the future of Japan. So I think depression didn't help and agricultural failures didn't help. So the timing was really bad for liberal internationalists in Japan who could have really taken Japan in a different direction. We are now sort of painfully, Americans painfully aware of what many nations have been aware of for a long time. You know, the serious divide in their population, in their politics between nationalism and sort of and internationalism and interoperable. nationalism to simplify it, but the sense of this real strong factionalism within the leadership has certainly set in in America. That was what really was happening in Japan at the time.

I'm curious, how strong was the anti-fascist aspect of life in Japan? It was very strong, right? Japan, to be sure, was never a fascist country. So I think we have to make that clear. It was not run by dictators. So it was at the height of, to zealous nationalism. It was ultra-nationalist state, but not fascist state. But then there was this sort of whole generation of people who grew up espousing democratic ideals and wanting to take part in politics. And I think 1929, 1930, so the culmination of that liberal experiment and was sort of beginning to see itself as a truly democratic society. and so many different aspects of society, like women's enfranchisement and labor union laws and things like that were happening.

But then it was almost a backlash that came afterwards. It was a very powerful message in Japan society would have been the success of the military expansionism. What had happened in China and then in Korea, even before that, really, the Russo, Japanese War and so forth, Japan had been very successful militarily. even from the 19th century on. So that tradition was building and that message was coming through. We're ready to expand. We have the means to do it.

That leadership would have been eager to prove itself in the world and within its own nation. I mean, that was really a strong element of this conversation. Things had gone very well militarily. They expected it to continue. Yes, because they've been lucky with the wars that you mentioned, the Sino-Japanese War, 1894 to 95. not to be confused with the China War of the 1930s and the Russo-Japanese War.

And Japan fought imperialists as an empire and became a kind of stronger empire and was applauded for it, it seemed like, by the Western colleagues as well. But then there was also this sense that Japan was always being shortchanged because of its race and cannot be a white power. I mean, you have to remember that it was a time

of social Darwinism and, I mean, racialist view pervaded everywhere. And it's probably less pronounced now. But I think it was very much part of the furniture of the mind of many policymakers and soldiers and Japanese people at large. Oh, I think it's still part of the conversation, unfortunately. A big part of things goes on the same way. And that's what, I mean, history is so fascinating to me that way because you look back and see it so drawn in.

in big, obvious pictures, but that's the advantage of history. The same subtleties and confusions were going on at the time, you know, in the context of events, just like there are now. And so you didn't see it as clearly as it was happening at the time. Let's really be clear for the audience that prior to Pearl Harbor, there was a strong, very strong relationship between the United States and Japan, largely due to America shipping lots and lots of goods to Japan. I mean, this was a major relationship that had a lot to do with money. The United States was making a lot of money off of trade with Japan.

Then suddenly things begin to change as a result of the choices that American leadership makes to punish Japan for the expansionist policies that were going on in the 30s. That's kind of how the chess game gets set up at around 1937, right? Yes, after 1937 and especially after atrocities of Japanese troops in different cities, especially in Nanjing. I think Japan was beginning to be perceived as a rogue state. And Japan was also sort of acting more like other powers that were have-nought powers, like Germany and Italy.

And many sanctions and punitive policies that United States adopted, they were in reaction to Japanese actions in China and in Southeast Asia later. Boy, we could just see a direct parallel between what's happening there in the 30s and today with Ukraine. I mean, it's basically the same thing. And would be viewed in the same context almost because it's important to realize, especially in 1941, Japan was far, far away from the United States. How would Japan view American isolationism, which was such a big theme in the United States

at that time? I think American isolationism coupled with the sort of anti-Asian immigration laws that were targeted almost at Chinese and Japanese on the West Coast. It sort of confirmed in the Japanese minds that Americans were really selfish and they're not really friends to be trusted almost. On the other hand, I think that's a kind of a reaction to the kind of putative measures that Americans took. America remained such a kind of idealized place in many minds, the Japanese. So I think it's hard to generalize, but even on the eve of Pearl Harbor, American culture was in some ways celebrated in Tokyo, in dance halls, playing jazz. And I think Mr. Smith goes to Washington was being played on the day of the attack or the day before the attack.

So it's always a love-hate relationship. And I think Japan really tried to emulate America when it was modernizing. because it was a newly modernizing, westernizing country in the late 19th century. And Japan was sort of wanted to be a kind of regional leader for Asia as well, which America was for the new world. So by the time that we get to 1940, Japan is seriously wounded economically by what's happening because of those punitive steps that the Americans have taken. They've sort of moved into China. This has been going on for years. all of that military incursions have been very successful.

The decision to act against the United States, this is a really important understanding that needs to be had by Americans. Their decision to attack the United States was not necessarily to create a war with them, but to keep them out of war. That was sort of how it's important to understand it from the Japanese.

Is that fair to say? I think it's fair to say, and I think maybe we should be clear about who they are, who are the leaders. I mean, compared to the Western counterpoints, we don't really know much about the Japanese leaders who were supposedly responsible for making these decisions. And I think it's a kind of a complicated system where joint decision was made between the civilian government and the high command, which had this conference called liaison conference, where they debated policy options. About 70 such conferences were held in the one year leading up to Pearl Harbor.

It was a kind of a theater of the absurd because, you know, the loudest people with the strength of conviction would prevail in the end, but also people are reluctant to speak their true minds too. So even though many leaders understood that Japan is not going to be able to afford another war while still fighting in China and America, it's going to crush Japan if they really had to go to war. They understood this. So I think they tried to maximize war preparedness, at least to save the faces of the militarists, but also try to reach for some kind of diplomatic resolution or at least detent. The militarists had really reached a point where they felt it was time to, solidify a Japanese empire. But what was the point of that empire? Why would they want to expand so much

and take all these other areas? The expansion was part of this attempt to complete an incomplete nation. And by a complete nation, they had this vision of an empire, a great power of the 19th century. And they looked back to successful imperialist wars and thought that they might get lucky, with America too, but they didn't quite realize that you cannot pursue diplomatic options while openly preparing for war. So when is the tipping point? When is the moment when they say, let's do this thing? Let's take an enormous aggressive action against an enormous potential new enemy. They're going to create a gigantic problem by attacking the United States. When is that decision made? I think there were several tipping points.

over the course of six to eight months. But I think any of those turning points could have swayed policies in different way, including Operation Barbarossa, Germany's attacking Soviet Union. At that point, Japan could have parted the tripartite pact. Between Germany and Italy and Japan. Yes. And to impress on the Roosevelt White House that Japan was really serious about aborting war, They didn't do that.

So the turning points in the inactions of the Japanese, when Roosevelt suggests neutralizing the Indochinese Peninsula, in exchange for unfreezing of Japanese assets, Japan didn't take any action at all. It wasn't even discussed in the liaison conference. So they just let the matter slip, thinking that the rest of the world would not react so harshly for a peaceful takeover

of what was basically a Bishi regime. possessions in southern Indochina. But that, of course, meant that Japan was in the attacking range of Singapore. Of course, they'll be nervous, but nobody in the government seemed to have thought about that. Or even if they did, they didn't really bring this up. How much influence did Germany have on Japan? Japan joins the tripartite pact in 1940, so a year before Pearl Harbor. how much give and take was happening in terms of attacking the United States, for example?

There was not much give and take at all, but the pretense of give and take or possibility of give and take enough to unnerve, of course, the White House for a good reason. And the idea that Germany must be behind the Japanese plans in Asia, in Southeast Asia, of course, that was always on their mind. But then Japan didn't join forces with Germany, for instance, after Operation Barbarossa. It didn't leave the Tripartite Pact, but it didn't really join forces with its allies in the north of the continent. So it was not a military alliance, to be sure, but I think there was a pervasive sense that because it was run by crazed people or these states, I think people naturally assumed that Germany had a great deal of influence over Japanese policy,

which wasn't the case, as we now know. Japan has a very powerful Navy, which has built up over the previous decades. So does the United States as of 1940. I mean, prior to that, they hadn't really moved the Pacific Fleet into Japan. This is a new idea to have our Pacific Fleet based in Hawaii. So really primary in the militarists' thinking is to neutralize this threat, this relatively new threat, which is now based in Hawaii. Once they do that, they kind of have free reign as far as the waters, the Pacific waters. That's this sort of simplistic idea of this strategy.

Yes, I think that's right. And I think that was very much the thinking behind this gambler's plan that was devised by. by Isoroku Yamamoto, the commander-in-chief of Japan's combined fleet, that he was betting on the chance that, yes, the threat will be neutralized, at least for the time being, so that Japan could maximize its plundering in the Asiatic and South Asian region. So I think that was the kind of premise. But then, of course, Yamamoto's plan hoped that Americans would be short,

enough that it would sue for peace or try to be neutralized, basically, to be shut up. But he also understood, because he lived in America and he knew enough about American temperaments and also resources. He didn't believe in the end that war with such slim chance of winning should be fought at all. But if anybody is going to devise a plan, only he had to be able to do it because He was a gambler, basically. Yeah.

The United States was still so potentially strong. I mean, really, we'd been sort of a sleeping giant after World War I. But the Japanese of all people were well aware of the industrial powerhouse that the United States could become on a dime, turning on a dime. And indeed, there was preparations already being made. And this is important to point out. After France falls, the United States Congress takes action and triggers a huge. huge bill back in the day, four billion dollars, which is a huge amount of money in those times, to begin a massive buildup of the Navy. There was a huge amount of shipbuilding going on as we move

from 1939 into 40. And the Japanese are well aware of this. So what is already, you know, planted in Hawaii will suddenly become much bigger and undefeatable, really, in a short amount of time. This is the window of opportunity they have to sort of nip this in the bud, and use their real strategy, I mean, the core of their strategy is to encourage American isolationism. Why bother? Why do this across the ocean in a place we don't even care about? That's the flame they want to fan. So Pearl Harbor sits in the crux of that idea. Yes, this now or never don't miss the bus. So psychology really propels the group of leaders that ultimately came to the destructive and self-destructive decision in the fall.

And I think it also happened in incremental fashions over several months that they didn't quite see where they were going. But then they had enough time to talk themselves into and justify it. And when these negotiations are happening about the economic sanctions, about Japan pulling out of India China, all these things were happening and on the table, at that time, the plan is triggered. and that is when the fleet leaves Japan. So what a moment of drama. What an incredible tipping point we've reached when 67 ships were part of this fleet that headed out from northern Japan towards Hawaii.

And they had to take a very long route to circumvent any possibility of being spotted. And so on. So it was very clever, carefully planned out. Tactic, but was it even a success, tactical success, as people seem to think? I'll be back with more from Arijada after this short break. The second wave came an hour later around 9 a.m. only slightly smaller than the first, it seemed more specifically targeted on the airfields, but they also mopped up unfinished business at Pearl.

When the attack was over, the casualties mounted. 2008 sailors killed with 710 wounded. 218 soldiers and airmen dead with 364 wounded. 78 Marines killed and wounded. 68 civilians died, with 35 wounded. In total, 2,403 Americans perished. 1143 were seriously wounded. And legally speaking, all American casualties were officially non-combatants, since no state of war had yet been declared. The attack on Pearl Harbor, conceived and executed by Admiral Isoroko Yamamoto, was one of history's deadliest and most destructive military missions, and it only took 90 minutes. 21 American ships were damaged or sunk at Pearl Harbor that day, including five battleships. Yet all but three of those ships, the USS Arizona, the Oklahoma, and the Utah, would be repaired and returned to service within the next year. And perhaps luckiest of all, no American aircraft carriers were present that day at Pearl Harbor.

Ari, the fleet is in the waters off the northern part of Hawaii, and hundreds of planes are taking off from these aircraft carriers. Give me the general idea of this. We have about six aircraft carriers, right? Yes. The idea is to bring a theater of war, self-deliver a theater of war. Because Japanese thinking went there. Of course, you can't really fight a defensive war on the Japanese land from the Japanese homeland. So to really nip the bud, you have to really deliver your war theater yourself.

And that's the idea that was, I don't know whether it's British. or daring of Yamamoto's brainchild. This has to be a one-strike deal. I mean, it has to be a complete destruction, and then we go home, which is an odd idea, you know, across this ocean. Really never has been tried. This is a first time that this has really been done on this kind of scale with this notion at mind, an incredibly ambitious idea,

perhaps foolish, but nonetheless bold, to bring your entire military force with you and then set up in this place, complete the mission, pack up and go home, having hopefully accomplished your motive, which is to deliver a death blow. That's the idea of it.

And so the attack happens. It's extraordinarily well executed. You've got the pincer waves coming in. One wonders how all these planes didn't just run into each other in the skies. I mean, that's always been my bafflement about this. That's my feeling, too. but they were so well-trained.

They had been training in parts of Japan which resembled the geography of Pearl Harbor and they made such modifications with the torpedoes and so much was invested in this one-time deal that I think they were crack pilots who really pulled off amazing stunt. But then once they get shot down, they cannot be replaced so easily.

So I think that too was a convalued. concerned too. So they really had to be careful. They had to make it happen. Yeah. And they certainly did. The facts and statistics are legendary. It's an extraordinarily effective attack. It's incredibly deadly. How soon do the Japanese people hear about this attack? And what is the response back home? They wake up to the news. So it's about four hours after the attack happened on the radio. And immediate reaction was, I would say, one of euphoria and a sense of pride because they now felt that they were fighting the real enemy. I think many people were really doubtful of the China wall,

which hadn't ended despite all the kind of promises of that being a quick and easy war. So they were becoming distrustful of the government under the surface, but now that they're sort of fighting those bullies as they were portrayed in major media and newspapers, they felt that they were attacking the right enemy and also the Japanese showed themselves to be quite adept at attacking them. So I think immediate reaction was one of euphoria and people congratulating each other in the street,

which doesn't really happen in Japan because they're known to be more restrained people. But that day, December 8th in Japanese time, was itched in that generation's mind, at least for the time being. But that's an immediate reaction. And also it had to do with a full sense of release. Because life is becoming really restricted and difficult, they thought that it was going to be a different game from then on and that they are encountering a new and better phase of life and they were hopeful. Yes, so there's a sense of optimism and not necessarily dread.

The surface euphoria didn't really tell everything. I think there were people who had cool minds and also enough knowledge of the West to suspect that what they're hearing in the news is probably may not be everything. And that Japan might have gotten itself into a war that they couldn't really fight. Also, mothers of young soldiers or would-be soldiers, they were really disappointed. They had been sort of sacrificing their boys in the China War, but this meant that nobody will be spared. Japan is an incredibly sophisticated, incredibly delicate society and was in 1941. And that is very much a present factor in society at that time. It's always been extraordinary to me that this insane thing could have happened that was so far outside the box.

It must have inflamed enormous tensions within the society. and great fears and apprehension of what had been released. And also I think there was peer pressure to take part in the kind of collective celebration of successful military feats as well. Because, of course, over the past decade, this police state has been sort of building up. You can't really speak your minds because it's not just you that you are imperiling. And you can't really, because Japan is an island nation, you can't really flee. to some other place cross borders. So I think you're really trapped in some ways.

We're skipping a really important part of the story, which is that Pearl Harbor was really the first move in an enormous next phase of the Japanese plan. In the immediacy after Pearl Harbor, the triggered attacks happen on the Philippines, on Guam, Wake Island, all sorts of places, Malay Peninsula. This whole strategy is just a vastness that happens. and it's all incredibly successful.

It would not have been able to happen with the United States able to launch their attack from Hawaii. So far, so good, as far as the militarists are concerned, it's going to work just fine. What they don't realize, what they haven't accepted, I suppose, is the fairer way to say it, is that indeed American isolationism will not hold true and that this industrial powerhouse will shift into high gear.

And the rest is history, as we say. That's the way that this all pans out. But one can certainly understand at the time, maybe not understand it, but at least cope with the fact that this strategy certainly played out in a lot of people's minds as going to be effective and therefore going to accomplish their goals in short order. The happy side of this very sad affair is the now lasting alliance and friendship between the United States and Japan, which is our primary ally in the world and great friends. I mean, that's the weird quality of this whole story is that it was basically

a big U-turn in life. You know, we went back to being the friends we once were with this huge and awful thing in the middle of it, you know, that movies are still made of and everything else. It's an incredible story, how the irony of it all. Yes, and I think another war had something to do with that because the Cold War policy demanded Japan to be built up quickly and certain things were left unsaid and certain people were not in that.

died of war responsibility, including the emperor in whose name the war was fought. And there was this pretense of business as usual after the war. But also, I think this pervasive love of things American had been there and it never quite died even during the war. I don't want to be Pollyanna about this. I mean, there are huge things that happen, not to least the dropping of the atomic bombs, the occupation of Japan. We have about three more episodes in this conversation to have. And I hope you'll come back and talk about this because I think the aftermath of World War II is one of the great confusions among Americans as to how the healing was done, how the peace was brokered, and the cultural changes that happened within Japan and certainly within

America that would have made it possible that we became such allies as we are now. It's a fascinating story in geopolitics, never mind in war. Yes, I think it's kind of a, yes, Tumolta's story, but also something that's very inspiring. In some ways, I mean, of course, it's so awful that the talks between the diplomats and Roosevelt and how it sort of backfired and didn't really go anywhere. But the fact that they were engaged in negotiations at all, even in those most trying circumstances,

I think it kind of proves that there was that desire to remain friends. And the sophistication of understanding what that kind of friendship is and how that alliance would be a fair one, is the kernel of peace in the world and how world leaders need to operate. The Japanese and American history is an incredible school of learning. Thank you so much, Erie, for joining us on this episode. It was really nice to talk to you, and I guarantee we'll be talking again soon. Oh, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. Thanks for listening to this episode of American History Hit. I hope you enjoyed it. Please don't forget to like, review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

I'll see you next time. This podcast includes music from Epidemic Sound.