The U.S. was reluctant to enter the war until the attack on Pearl Harbor, which marked a "day of disgrace" in history.

At 7:55 AM on December 7, 1941, a strike group of the Imperial Japanese Navy, commanded by Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, launched the first half-hour aerial assault on the main naval base of the U.S. Navy located on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. The Japanese fleet, which departed from the Kuril Islands, consisted of six aircraft carriers, two battleships, two battlecruisers, one light cruiser, nine destroyers, as well as 23 submarines and five midget submarines (tasked with breaching underwater barriers). Aerial support for the naval armada was provided by 423 carrier-based aircraft.

At 8:40 AM, the second wave of aircraft from the aircraft carriers struck – dive bombers and high-altitude bombers. This attack was not as successful as the first, as the Americans finally recovered (although many personnel were in the mess halls or had been granted leave to the city of Honolulu) and began to resist fiercely. In total, the operation, which lasted just over an hour, resulted in the near-total destruction of the American Pacific Fleet...

"The American people can feel complete confidence in their navy..."

Meanwhile, on the morning of December 7, the first pages of U.S. newspapers featured a report from Secretary of the Navy William Franklin Knox. He wrote: "I am proud to report that the American people can feel complete confidence in their navy. In my opinion, the dedication, morale, and training of the personnel are unparalleled." Thus, despite having a truly powerful navy, primarily based in the Hawaiian Islands, the Americans still hoped until the very end to avoid confrontation with Imperial Japan. The Japanese government had been consistently pursuing an aggressive policy, and by the winter of 1941, they had already captured a significant portion of China, French Indochina, and the Dutch East Indies (modern-day Indonesia). The metropolises of the last two colonies had already been occupied by Nazi Germany – Japan's ally. The positions of the U.S. in the Pacific region had become very vulnerable.

The American military, like the politicians, simply could not believe that anyone would attack the main base of the U.S. Navy. On December 7, the following were stationed there: eight battleships, eight cruisers, four submarines, 30 destroyers, 50 other ships, and 390 aircraft; the commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet was Husband Edward Kimmel.

"No responsible foreign state will provoke a war by attacking our navy or base..." – such was the order sent to the commanders of the ships in the Hawaiian Islands area on October 14, 1941. It closely resembles a statement from TASS on June 14 of the same year, which disrupted the Soviet Union's preparations for the impending war. This was repeatedly reported by Soviet intelligence agents (including Richard Sorge).

But these stories also remind us of the behavior of high-ranking Ukrainian officials before February 24, 2022, who accused Western countries of causing panic in the nation. Intelligence and high officials from the U.S. and the UK provided irrefutable evidence of the Russian military's preparations for an attack on Ukraine and constantly warned us of the inevitability of a large-scale war – starting from the autumn of 2021.

The losses for the Americans were staggering: four battleships were sunk – "Arizona," "Oklahoma," "West Virginia," and "California," while four others were severely damaged – "Maryland," "Nevada," "Pennsylvania," and "Tennessee"; one former battleship and one harbor tug sank, three light cruisers and three destroyers were damaged. A total of 188 aircraft were destroyed, and 159 were damaged. Only 47 aircraft out of 390 remained intact! In total, 2,335 people were killed, and 1,143 were wounded.

The losses for the attacking side were relatively minor: 29 aircraft were destroyed, and 74 were damaged. Of the five midget submarines, four were sunk, one ran aground and was captured along with one sailor; 64 Japanese were killed.

Eastern Blitzkrieg

"It seems we have only awakened a giant," — these words from Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Fleet of Imperial Japan, proved prophetic. Despite the heavy blow (both strategically and morally), this "giant" had much greater internal reserves and the ability to shift its industry to a wartime footing within a week (the country's leaders, both Democratic and Republican parties, and the entire American political nation were united in their desire to defeat the enemy).

After Pearl Harbor, there was an immediate consolidation of society. And importantly – despite the long-standing reluctance of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's administration to intervene in World War II and the isolationist policy that bordered on allowing Japan's aggression – the U.S. finally became a full-fledged participant in World War II on the side of the opponents of the Axis powers – Germany, Italy, and Japan.

The operation was planned by Admiral Yamamoto, who had distinguished himself in recent years among military leaders with his uncompromising innovation. Interestingly, he did not share the imperial ambitions of the country's leadership and often faced pressure from nationalists (by the way, the admiral was against an alliance with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy and openly expressed this at international conferences!).

However, the concept of an officer's honor and loyalty to the oath was not an empty phrase for him. "A graduate of Harvard University, who had served as a naval attaché in Washington for some time, he was well aware of the industrial and military capabilities of the U.S. and had no illusions about winning a prolonged military conflict with the U.S. But in 1939, the prime minister appointed him Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Fleet of Japan, and hoping to buy time that would allow Japan to seize and strengthen its hold over all of Southeast Asia and the islands up to Australia, Yamamoto developed a plan to attack Pearl Harbor. Eastern Blitzkrieg. Unfortunately, despite the veil of secrecy surrounding the development of this vital operation for the land of the Rising Sun, it was impossible to keep the aircraft carrier's needle (how else could one strike the islands in the center of the Pacific Ocean, if not with carrier-based aviation?) hidden in the bag," writes Ukrainian-American publicist and historian Yuri Kirpichev.

Well aware of both the capabilities of the U.S. military machine and the industrial power of this superpower, Admiral Yamamoto completely revised the strategy of the Navy, believing that only an immediate and unexpected strike on the main base of the American fleet could at least equalize the chances of both sides in the future military confrontation.

Interestingly, the Americans had the opportunity to meet the enemy's attack quite decently. The staff of the radio intelligence and decryption department of the War Department, led by Colonel William Friedman, had broken the Japanese code "A" back in 1936, and in the following year, when the code changed, they found an algorithm that allowed them to decrypt future codes. In the last six months before the catastrophe at Pearl Harbor, nearly seven thousand super-secret Japanese documents were read in this way. The last reports, just before the Japanese attack, accurately indicated the timing of the assault. However, the criminal negligence of Friedman’s superiors, as well as the military and naval establishment, led to the tragedy.

After the disaster in Hawaii, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in an address to the American people, noted: "We intend to deal with the threat of Japan. But we will achieve little if the rest of the world is under the heel of Hitler and Mussolini..." And already on December 8, 1941, the President of the United States did not mince words, referring to the previous day as "a date which will live in infamy." On this day, the U.S. declared war on Germany and Italy.

The attack on Pearl Harbor exceeded even the boldest hopes of the Japanese, granting them at least six months of strategic initiative in the struggle against the Americans and their allies – the British, Australians, and New Zealanders. By June 1942, after the Americans' victory in the grand battle at sea and in the air at Midway Atoll, a decisive turning point in the Pacific Theater of World War II occurred. However, bloody confrontations continued on this battlefield for more than three years, concluding only in August 1945 after the Americans carried out atomic bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and Soviet troops began operations in Manchuria, Sakhalin, and the Kurils. On September 2, 1945, the Act of Surrender of Imperial Japan was signed aboard the USS Missouri, which was signed on behalf of the USSR by Kuzma Derevyanko, a native of the Cherkasy region...