Japanese Pearl Harbor Attack Research

It wanted to acquire natural resources such as oil and aluminum which was found in the Netherlands East Indies (Alan, 2011). The United States however opposed the Japan aim of expanding their territories. To prevent the move by Japan, the United States led by Franklin D. Roosevelt, Great Britain and Netherlands in 1940 initiated a ban of oil and Scrap metal to Japan in response to Japan attacking French Indochina. This brought a lot of serious economic and military challenges to Japan especially the Japanese industries and Japanese Navy which were predicted to cripple and to come to a stop within 12-18 months if new source of oil was not opened. Japan had an increased need for natural resources such as like oil, minerals as well as steel as their role in Asia and Pacific increased.

On September 22nd, 1940, Japanese troops invaded French Indochina which was a French colony referred to Vichy France. The fighting started on 22nd to 26th simultaneously with the Battle of South Guangxi in Sino-Japanese War. It mains objective was to block the republic of China from importing arms and fuel via French Indochina through the Kumming-Hai Phong Railway ,from Indochinese port of Haiphong through the Hanoi to Kunming the Chinese City in Yunnan. Despite the fact prior to the start of the fighting an agreement had been reached between the governments of Japan and French, the authorities on the ground were unable to control the events for so many days leading to the start of the war (Hsu long-hsuen & Chang, 1971). For instance, after Japanese attacked China with aim of acquiring natural resources for its industries and military expansion, Franklin D.

Roosevelt offered support to china despite the neutrality laws which were in place. His main objective was to prevent Japanese growing political and economic growth in Southern Asia. This deteriorated the Japanese relations with the United States. To further weaken the relations, the U. d). Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, who was the main Commander of the Japanese Combined Fleet saw that a way of winning the impossible war was to begin with a surprise attack against American battleships. He strongly believed that battle ships possessed an intangible political impacts worldwide as a symbol of naval power. He thought that sinking the battleships along invading Philippines would shock as well as demoralize the Americans people that their will to go on with the war along shattered battlewagons.

They determine that crippling four out of eight battleships in Pearl Harbor Port will prevent the Pacific Fleet from sailing so as to rescue the Philippines for almost Six months hence giving the Japanese time to win most of their Southern territories in advance. Also, restrictions put against them by the Great Britain, United States as well as Netherlands triggered them to invade so many countries for territorial expansion. The aim of invading so many territories was to acquire natural resources such petroleum products which were no longer available because of trading restrictions. Finally, Japan needed to continue with territorial expansion along the Pacific References Alan, Zimmer. “The Attack on Pearl Harbor: Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deception” released Casemate Publishers, May 2011. Retrieved from http://www.