7 December 1941 -- Empire of Japan Attacks Pearl Harbor

“Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree” -- The Andrew Sisters

Sometimes nations commit suicide. Take for example the French Empire and later the Third Reich choosing to march on Moscow. We all recall that high school history lesson about Austria-Hungary’s persistence in teaching those pesky Serbians a lesson that awful July of 1914, consequences be damned -- and the consequences proved far more damning that anyone expected. Closer to home, the odds of Confederate survival were reduced to virtually nil by the decision of Southern political and military leaders to reject a defensive posture in favor of offensive campaigns, ensuring the Civil War would become a sanguine contest determined by attrition and favoring their opponent. These acts of self-immolation might best be described as Death by Misadventure, examples of national policy Barbara Tuchman famously refers to as The March of Folly.

Nearly always when leaping headlong into the abyss, a nation somehow convinces itself the race to ruin is the optimal option. The year 1941 witnessed a powerful nation embark on a path they fully realized to be ruinous and possibly fatal: The Empire of Japan sought war with the United States.

We in the West traditionally date World War II as beginning with the German invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939. Too often, we of the West brush off charges of Eurocentrism too flippantly as “political correctness” run amok. Yet, the manner in which we employ the term “West” lends itself as evidence to the accusers. The Second World War had long been raging within east China and her neighbors long ere it erupted across Europe. Even before the first Pole was murdered by the first German invader, millions of Chinese men, women, and children had been slaughtered by the Imperial Japanese Army or, fleeing for their lives, reduced to homeless refugees. The Imperial Army’s “Rape of Nanking,” occurring December 1937 to January 1938, easily rivals German sadistic savagery in Warsaw and Leningrad. There has never been a comprehensive accounting as to the number of Chinese casualties in World War II, but the dead are thought to number at about 20-million, perhaps as many as 25-million, civilian deaths alone.. Nor did Japanese brutality end with the war. English author J. G. Ballard was not yet in his teen when confined to the Japanese concentration camp that would be his home for two years. After being liberated following the Japanese surrender, he walked to a nearby railroad depot where he witnessed an Imperial soldier slowly strangle an innocent and helpless Chinese civilian for no apparent reason.

The Indifference to Human Life Shared by Many Imperial Japanese Officers
Reflected in their Wagering on Which Could Behead

the Greatest Number of Bound Chinese Victims
in the Brief Period of Time or with the Fewest Blows

Those who remember the war in the East might be forgiven -- no justified in condemning Western relative disinterest in the Asian theatre of war. Perhaps as to add salt to the wound, those aspects of the Pacific War to receive significant attention focus almost exclusively on the involvement of Australia, the United Kingdom, the Dutch, Americans, and other Western Allies -- in part yet again the influence of that baneful Eurocentric mindset, but also in large measure because of a scarcity of information.

I shall now repeat that sin by focusing on Imperial Japan’s inanely inviting destruction by its imprudent and reckless attacking the United State Pacific Fleet on 7 December 1941.

So what chain of events led Imperial Japan to taking that fatal step toward national suicide?

In 1931, Japan invaded Manchuria, detaching it from China and establishing the military puppet state of Manchukuo. Americans, whose complete sum of knowledge was larged informed by the writings of sympathetic missionaries and Pearl Buck’s The Good Earth, were horrified by the Japanese brutal exploitation of Manchuria rich resources and oppressed population. United States-Japanese relations steadily deteriorated ever more as word of each new Japanese-committed atrocity reached Western ears. In 1937, a confused skirmish between Chinese and Japanese soldiers at the beautiful “Marco Polo Bridge,” so called for its appearing in the famed Venetian's account of his travels in the East. The cause of the conflict remains unclear to this day, but the fighting provided the Japanese Army with the pretext needed to launch a fullscale invasion of China. The US rendered aid to China in the forms of loans for the purchase of armaments, but also resumed the uneasy and constantly deteriorating discourse with Japan.

China seemed an low-hanging fruit ripe for the picking to commanders of the Imperial Japanese Army. Rent in twain by feuding Communists and Nationalists who regarded each other with as much or even greater rancor than they did the invaders, the Chinese war efforts were ill-prepared to save their nation. Still, any Japanese expectations of a quick and easy victory over a prostrate China were not to be realized. The hoped for race across the Chinese landscape was instead a slog. All the battles won, cities captures, and civilians slaughtered, victory remained tantalizingly out of reach.

When in 1939 Hitler set in motion his plans which would over the course of six years turn Europe into a smoldering charnel house, Japan’s war policies changed accordingly. No longer could the West expend resources to assist China when its own existence was imperiled. Furthermore, with the European powers reeling under uncontainable German offensives, their East Asian colonies were Japan’s for the taking. French Indochina -- that region of Asia familiar to us today as Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia -- was high on the list of targets. The Imperial Army struck across southern French Indochina, thereby severing the corridors whereby China’s allies -- including the United States -- delivered military assistance. The United States responded to this new aggression by halting the sale of aircraft, machine parts, and aviation fuel to Japan. Following the fall of France in 1940 and the German assault on the Soviet Union the following year, Japan was sufficiently emboldened to move upon southern French Indochina in force.

It was then the United States ceased the sell of oil to Imperial Japan.

To be sure, Japanese aggression across Southeast Asia played a major role in the US decision to halt oil exports, but it was not the sole reason. War was erupting across half the globe, America needed to stockpile resources in preparation for the inevitable. Even so, Japan viewed the embargo to be only slightly less than an act of war. Japan had no other source of oil beyond that stored from previous years to support its offensives in China. The Imperial Japanese Navy estimated it had sufficiently quantities for but two years of continued operations. Japan was left with but two options. Without American oil, it could cease its invasion of China and shamefully withdraw forces or it could find an alternative source of fuel. As German armies dominated Europe, the oil-rich Dutch East Indies and other resource-rich European holdings across the South Pacific seemed the answer to their needs. Those nations claiming ownership lacked means to enforce their claims. Unfortunately, however, American had assumed responsibility for their defense. Seizing these colonies meant war with the United States.

For most of the early 20th-Century, Japanese and American naval planners eyed each other nervously across the vast swath of ocean separating them. Each possessed a formidable navy with no other competitor for absolute mastery of the entire Pacific. Japanese war planners knew that in the American navy lay a powerful check on their plans for regional hegemony. In early 1941, President Roosevelt relocated the US Pacific Fleet from San Diego to Pearl Harbor in hopes of deterring future Japanese aggressions. Japan’s naval leadership, however, saw the American fleet’s change of homeport as an opportunity. In 1904, Japan began the very successful Russo-Japanese War with a preemptive attack on the Russian fleet at anchor in Port Arthur. Perhaps that magic could be repeated?

(Actually, the attack on Port Arthur was a stalemate and contributed little to the eventual Japanese victory. But those who romanticize war are prone to misremembering its reality, and few nations romanticized war more than did Imperial Japan.)

For most of 1941, military and civilian Japanese leaders discussed the wisdom of war with the United States, and the Japanese Imperial Navy devised a plan to destroy the American fleet at Pearl Harbor. These men were familiar with the nation they proposed making their enemy. Many had been educated in the United States and spoke excellent English. They knew of America’s vast size, economic potential, and manufacturing capacity. They knew going to war with the United States would be an act of supreme folly. One of the leading planners presciently predicted that after the attack, Japanese forces would have free rein in the South Pacific for a year or so before being overwhelmed by America’s remarkable industrial potential. Such doubts were confided only  the closest of confidants and private writings. When gathered in conference to discuss expansion of the war, none dared give voice to the nagging fears they all harbored. Choosing to ignore sage doubts, Imperial Japan plunged headlong into the abyss.

Their plan was simple in concept if impossibly elaborate in execution. First, Japan would attack and either capture or render inoperative American military assets from the South Pacific to the Hawaiian Islands. Next, as the United States rebuilt its shattered Pacific force, the Empire of Japan would seize nearby long-coveted and resource-right lands within its sphere of interest. Finally, by the time America’s reconstructed Pacific forces were capable to returning battle, Japan would have consolidated its conquests and present the US government with a fait accompli. Having nothing to gain from pursuing the war, Americans would agree to a negotiated peace.

At 7:48 a.m. Hawaiian Time, 7 December 1941, a Sunday, Japanese carrier-based aircraft attacked US Navy and Army Air Corps assets across the island of Oahu. Surprise was total.Most American planes were disabled or destroyed before they could get off the ground. Five battleships and 13 smaller vessels were sunk or run aground. Nearly 2,500 Americans -- mostly sailors -- were killed.

Ensign Kazuo Sakamaki of the Imperial Japanese Navy,

First Prisoner-of-War to Captured by the United States in World War II

Japanese losses, by contrast, were light. Only 29 aircraft were downed, 64 aviators and submariners killed, One sailor, Ensign Kazuo Sakamaki, commander of “midget” submarine HA-19, was captured, becoming the first prisoner-of-war held by the United States in World War II. The Japanese victory was complete and virtually painless. Or so an admiring public back in Japan was informed. Americans too had no doubt that they had suffered a devastating defeat. Yet those wiser Japanese officers directing the attack once again suffered from a gnawing suspicion that not all was well with the world. Those suspicions were well founded.

King Pyrrhus of Epirus led a sizable host of soldiers ashore in the south of Italy in 280 BCE. Ostensibly, his goal was to help a city of fellow Greeks who had run afoul of a Roman Republic on the verge of recognizing its martial might, but in reality, the king desired to expand his own holdings into Italy. Roman legions clashed Macedonian phalanxes for the first time in history. Pyrrhus, a capable and experienced general, twice defeated the Romans in hard fought battles only to realize that victory did not taste so sweet as he had hoped. As Pyrrhus surveyed the horrible losses inflicted on his soldiers, it is said a subordinate reported that the Greeks were in possession of the battlefield. Pyrrhus reputedly replied, “One other such victory would utterly undo me.” Understanding his skills as a commander would never overcome the persistence of the legionnaires arrayed against him, returned to Greece, leaving Italy to Rome and the phrase “Pyrrhic Victory” to history.

The attack on Pearl Harbor would be the Pyrrhic Victory detouring Imperial Japan onto a highway to utter destruction. As Admiral Hara Tadaichi would later reflect, "We won a great tactical victory at Pearl Harbor and thereby lost the war." The primary targets of the Japanese attack were the three US aircraft carriers expected to be found in the Pearl Harbor anchorage. Unbeknownst to the Japanese until the moment of attack, none were present. All had been fortuitously absent. The destruction wrought on American battleships and cruisers resulted in aircraft carriers replacing battleships as the nucleus of the naval task force. It would be carrier-based battle groups that would litter the floor of the Pacific Ocean with the hulks of shattered Imperial Japanese Navy ships.

Attacking the fleet while it rest in port on a Sunday also ensured the survival of most its trained and experienced crews and officers. Many sailors were ashore, availing themselves of weekend liberty. Even those aboard the damaged or sunk vessels were a short distance from the haven of dry land. Again, had the fleet gone down on the open ocean, these crewmen would have been lost. Instead, the vast majority of these men survived to wreak revenge on the Imperial Japanese Navy.

The absence of the carriers unnerved the commander of the Japanese task force. Two waves of Japanese fighters had laid waste to the American airfields and devastated the fleet. A third wave had been planned, but should the missing American carriers appear with their full complements of aircraft while the Japanese fighters were away conducting this final attack, the six Imperial carriers would be undefended and easy prey. After heated debate by fleet commanders, the third wave of attack was canceled and the Japanese task force withdrew, beginning its long transit home. The intended targets of the abortive third attack wave -- naval dockyards and drydocks, oil depots, storage facilities,  maintenance and repair shops -- remained largely intact and played essential roles in the eventual American victory.

Aftermath of the Japanese Raid on Pearl Harbor

Nor was the damage at Pearl Harbor so severe as first feared by the United States. Had the United States Navy suffered such a blistering defeat on the high seas, the loss would have been catastrophic. The enclosed and shallow waters prevented would could have been a telling disaster. Those ships run aground by astute commanders to prevent their sinking were soon returned to service. The shallow waters of the harbor made possible the refloating of most of the ships to be sunk that day. Six of the eight battleships returned to service as did all three cruisers, three destroyers, and three auxiliaries.

Perhaps the greatest miscalculation on the part of Japanese war planners was their clinging to the delusion that Americans would concede to their South Pacific conquests rather than engage in a protracted war. After anxiously following rapacious and brutal Japanese expansion in China and elsewhere, most Americans of that era, public and government alike, had hoped to avoid armed conflict. Hitler’s European war had eclipsed American fear of Japanese Imperial ambitions. The Third Reich rather than the Empire of Japan was correctly viewed as the greater threat to world peace. Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor and other US forces scattered across the vast Pacific -- in the Philippines, at Guam, and on Wake Island -- united Americans in a white hot fury determined to defeat Japan at any cost.

8 December 1941President Franklin Delano Roosevelt Addresses Joint Session of Congress

On 8 December, the day following the attack, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressed a joint session of Congress. Over 81% of US citizens followed Roosevelt's speech on the family radio that was a mainstay of virtually every American household.

FDR's "Infamy Speech"

Mr. Vice President, Mr. Speaker, members of the Senate and the House of Representatives:

Yesterday, December 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

The United States was at peace with that nation, and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its Emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.

Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American island of Oahu, the Japanese Ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to our Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. And, while this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or of armed attack.

It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time the Japanese Government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.

The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost. In addition, American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.

Yesterday the Japanese Government also launched an attack against Malaya. Last night Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong. Last night Japanese forces attacked Guam. Last night Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands. Last night the Japanese attacked Wake Island.  And this morning the Japanese attacked Midway Island.

Japan has therefore undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation.

As Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense, that always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us.

No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people, in their righteous might, will win through to absolute victory.

I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us.

Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger.

With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God.

I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.

FDR concluded by requesting a declaration of war of Congress. The overwhelming majority of Americans agreed war was the only option. So did the Congress. At 1:10 PM, only thirty-three minutes after FDR concluded his speech, Congress formally declared war on Japan. There was but one dissenting vote. Jeannette Rankin, the first woman to hold federal office in the United States, alone refused to endorse the war, thereby destroying her long and productive political career. At 4:10 that very evening, the president signed into law Public Law 77-328, 55 STAT 795, making official the war that had existed unofficially since the preceding morning.

Public Law 77-328, 55 STAT 795

US Declaration of War

JOINT RESOLUTION Declaring that a state of war exists between the Imperial Government of Japan and the Government and the people of the United States and making provisions to prosecute the same.

Whereas the Imperial Government of Japan has committed unprovoked acts of war against the Government and the people of the United States of America:

Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the state of war between the United States and the Imperial Government of Japan which has thus been thrust upon the United States is hereby formally declared; and the President is hereby authorized and directed to employ the entire naval and military forces of the United States and the resources of the Government to carry on war against the Imperial Government of Japan; and, to bring the conflict to a successful termination, all the resources of the country are hereby pledged by the Congress of the United States.

American labor, industry, and finance eagerly joined the war effort. So did Hollywood, and that brings us to the incomparable Andrew Sisters. These three lovely sisters devoted their energy and efforts to brightening the lives of servicemen, seeking to make bearable the unbearable. When performing for the troops, the sisters made a habit of each inviting some lucky sailor, marine, or soldier to be her dinner guest that evening. As young American men were being sent off to war, unsure when or even if they would return again, the Andrew Sisters delivered for them a message to the sweethearts left behind.

“Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree” -- The Andrew Sisters

I wrote my mother

I wrote my father

And now I'm writing you too

I'm sure of mother

I'm sure of father

And now I wanna be sure (very, very sure) of you

Don't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me

Anyone else but me, anyone else but me

No, no, no

Don't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me

Till I come marching home

Don't go walking down lovers' lane with anyone else but me

Anyone else but me, anyone else but me

No, no, no

Don't go walking down lovers' lane with anyone else but me

Till I come marching home

I just got word from a guy who heard

From the guy next door to me

The girl he met just loves to pet

And it fits you to a T

So don't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me

Till I come marching home

Don't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me

(With anyone else but her)

No, no, no, not a single soul but me

No, no, no, don't you sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me

Not till you see me, not until you see me marching home

Home, home, home, home sweet home

Don't go walking down lovers' lane with anyone else but me

(With anyone else but her)

No, no, no, not a single soul but me

No, no, no, don't you go walking down lovers' lane

With anyone else but me

Not till you see me, not until you see me marching home

Home, home, home, home sweet home

Just wait till I come marching home

No, don't go walking down lovers' lane

No, walking down lovers' lane till you see me

When you see me marching home

Then we'll go arm in arm and

Sit down under the apple tree

Baby, just you and me

When I come marching home

The song resonated with servicemen and civilians alike. When the sisters performed, it was the most requested song by audiences. And while the Andrew Sisters may be best remembered of those who recorded “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree,” they were hardly the only artists to popularize the song. In fact, the Andrew Sisters, Glenn Miller, and Kay Kyser each had their own rendition of “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree” on the Radio Hit Parade list at the same time.