Pearl Harbor Case

“Carpe Diem”, the famous quote by the Latin author Horace means “seize the day” and perfectly captures Japan attacking Pearl Harbor. Japan unnecessarily prodded the sleeping giant into a great rage. Japan, being a smart country, would not want to wake up a superpower like the U.S, but it still did. So the question is why did Japan attack the naval base of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii? Out of the many possible reasons, Japan attacked because of the U.S Oil Embargo and to create a new plan for world order.

Japan would have attacked Pearl Harbor to get back at the United States for creating the oil embargo. The U.S was a major supplier of oil and other goods to Japan. In 1937, the U.S supplied more than 75% of Japan’s petroleum (Document D). Over the time of the war, the U.S slowly decreased the amount of oil, steel and iron it supplied Japan, so Japan would stop fighting in the war. As a result of the U.S Oil Embargo, Japan has endured “hardship for four years” (Document E). Sick and tired of the lack of supplies and having the bitter anger of being neglected, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. On December 7, 1941, Japan sent a fleet of 361 planes in retaliation of the U.S Oil Embargo. Those planes then bombed the naval base located in Hawaii creating the title “A date which will live in infamy”. The given evidence supports the idea that Japan attacked due to the U.S Oil Embargo.

The second reason for attacking Pearl Harbor was to create a plan for a new world order. The Japanese started to think that “An old order… (European and American) … is now crumbling” (Document A).With that mindset, Japan started to conquer areas in Asia and the Pacific. By 1940, Japan had conquered almost all of Eastern Asia including Indonesia and everything in the Pacific except Hawaii (Document B). On top of that, in 1940, “President Roosevelt moved the US Pacific fleet form California to Pearl Harbor” (Document C). The Prime Minister of Japan saw the