Donald Trump recently said that COVID-19 pandemic is a worse “attack” on the U.S. than Pearl Harbour attack.

SARS-CoV 2, which has infected around 2 million people in USA and killed millions of people around the world originated from Wuhan city of china.

Pearl Harbour Attack

• The attack was a surprise military strike by the Japanese Navy upon the United States at the Pearl Harbour Naval Base in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1941.

• Pearl Harbour, Hawaii, is located near the center of the Pacific Ocean, roughly 2,000 miles from the U.S. mainland and about 4,000 miles from Japan. No one believed that the Japanese would start a war with an attack on the distant islands of Hawaii.

  Additionally, American intelligence officials were confident that any Japanese attack would take place in one of the (relatively) nearby European colonies in the South Pacific: the Dutch East Indies, Singapore or Indochina.

˙What led  to the attack on Pearl Harbour?

The island nation of Japan, isolated from the rest of the world for much of its history, embarked on a period of aggressive expansion near the turn of the 20th century. Two successful wars, against China in 1894-95 and the Russo-Japanese War in 1904-05, fueled these ambitions, as did Japan’s successful participation in World War I (1914-18) alongside the Allies.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Japan sought to solve its economic and demographic woes by forcing its way into China, starting in 1931 with an invasion of Manchuria. When a commission appointed by the League of Nations condemned the invasion, Japan withdrew from the international organization

Before Japan attacked Pearl Harbour in 1941, relations between the US and Japan were already worsening.

• In 1910, Japan annexed Korea and , in 1937, it invaded China, sending warning bells to US and other Western powers about Japan’s expansionist agenda.
• In 1938, an episode, which is referred to as the “Nanking Massacre”, occurred.In this, Japanese soldiers killed and raped Chinese civilians and combatants. Around 300,000 Chinese were killed.In late 1937, over a period of six weeks, Imperial Japanese Army forces brutally murdered hundreds of thousands of people–including both soldiers and civilians–in the Chinese city of Nanking (or Nanjing). The horrific events are known as the Nanking Massacre
• The US was against Japan’s aggression in China, and imposed economic sanctions and trade embargoes on aircraft exports, oil and scrap metal, among other key goods, and gave economic support to Guomindang forces. In September 1940, Japan signed the Tripartite Pactwith Germany and Italy, the two fascist regimes then at war with the Allies.
• Japan was reliant on imports for oil and other natural resources.
• Thus, it invaded China, and later present day Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
• The intention was to take control of the major Chinese ports to have access to resources such as iron, rubber, tin, and most importantly, oil.
• US wanted Japan to withdraw from China without any conditions.
• Ultimately, the negotiations failed. Japan attacked Pearl harbour killing thousands of Americans.
• Japan considered the attack to be apreventive measure against the US interfering with Japan’s plans to carry out military operations in Southeast Asia.

Outcome

In all, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour crippled or destroyed nearly 20 American ships and more than 300 airplanes. Dry docks and airfields were likewise destroyed.

• The attack led to the United States’ formal entry into World War II.
• The strike climaxed at dropping of Atom Bombs at Horoshima and Nagasaki in Japan.
• It led to a decade of worsening relations between the United States and Japan.