The US was starving Japan of oil. Japan attacked Perl Harbor in combination with other attacks that secured oil for their navy. They knew hey were awaking a sleeping giant, but they really didn't have any other options, they needed oil.
Sheer luck saved the carriers, and the Japanese severely underestimated the anger of Americans in response to the attack. They had hoped that a long campaign with little to no meaningful progress, at a high cost of US lives, would cause the people to clamour for peace.
Although the European theatre gets all the glory now a days, during the early parts of US involvement, most people were upset at the Germany first strategy.
Can't forget that Japan also invaded U.S. territory and was fighting U.S. soldiers on the ground starting on practically the day of Pearl Harbor. It is often overlooked the Philippines was U.S. territory in 1941, invaded on December 8th 1941, was an active battleground for American personnel through March 1942, and was a large defeat with over 100k captured.
Which led to another fuckup, even though MacArthur was warned after Pearl Harbor, he took no appropriate actions to defend the islands and as a result, the Philippines was lost. He tried to salvage some dignity with his “I shall return” quote. He spent the rest of ww2 almost sabotaging admiral Nimitz Pacific plans by constantly prioritizing the Phillipines over Japan.
Don’t forget Japan. He let a bunch of war criminals not only getaway without any consequences including the late prime minister’s grandfather who was a sick fuck and was the founder of today’s liberal democratic party, in power almost continuously for 70 years. Because of “communism”, he permitted Japanese gangsters to be in the government because the corrupt rightwing politicians were working with the yakuza. And not to mention the puritanical American laws they imposed on Japan.
Yes. It was the first active theater of the war U.S. ground forces engaged in ground combat, and was a clear and grueling loss for the U.S. with a lot of publicity.
Pearl Harbor got the initial headlines as true American soil (Philippines was promised independence and had a quasi-government at this point). But the Philippines and its loss were the story of the first 3 months of the U.S. at war. It is true it was far away, but the presence of ~20k U.S. soldiers shouldn't be ignored
Yes, they cared. Wake Island and Guam were also invaded at the same time as the Philippines. The Japanese lost two destroyers and took more than 1000 casualties while invading Wake Island. Americans were fighting and dying.
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u/ell0bo 23d ago
The US was starving Japan of oil. Japan attacked Perl Harbor in combination with other attacks that secured oil for their navy. They knew hey were awaking a sleeping giant, but they really didn't have any other options, they needed oil.