The Plan of Pearl Harbor Attack

On December 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy launched an incredibly daring, technically sophisticated combined naval-aerial surprise attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, just northwest of Honolulu on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. The devastating aerial attack carried out by Japanese fighters, dive-bombers and torpedo planes crippled the U.S. Pacific fleet as a preamble to Imperial Japan’s lunge for strategic territories spanning the Pacific Ocean – but it also stirred the wrath of the American people, decisively ending U.S. isolationism and bringing the world’s largest industrial power squarely into the war against Japan and its European allies in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.

The attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United Stated naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The attack was intended as a preventive action in order to keep the U.S Pacific Fleet from interfering with military actions the Empire of Japan was planning in Southeast Asia against overseas territories ode the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the United States.

The man in charge of planning the attack, the brilliant admiral Isoroku Yamamato, was an admiral and commander in chief of the Combined Fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II. It was formed in the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy and Harvard at university. He advised against the Pearl Harbor attack and plan, noting that even if it succeeded, Japan would still face an implacable enemy drawing on huge resources. 

The Pearl Harbor attack plan had two immediate goals. The first one was the destruction of American aircraft carriers known to frequent the area. The second one was the sinking of as many other capital ships as possible, especially battleships. With these two tasks complete, the Japanese hoped to neutralize the American fleet’s ability to project air and sea power in the Pacific Basin for at least six months.

During that time they planned to occupy the East Asian and West Pacific regions with such firmness that the Allies would be forced to negotiate a settlement.  In pursuit of these attack goals, Japanese naval officers created a detailed plan which took advantage of known factors such as the American Navy’s habit of returning to its main anchorage at Pearl Harbor every weekend. Equally detailed alternate plans included options for attacking the American fleet’s deep sea anchorage, or hunting down U.S fleet units in the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands. This later plan was the worst situation for them, because it would require their carrier fleet to fight its way into the attack zone.

By: Giovanna Trisoglio