page_title: Attack on Pearl Harbor
section_title: Retrospective debate on American intelligence
hierarchical_section_title: Attack on Pearl Harbor / Aftermath / Retrospective debate on American intelligence
caption_attribution_description: English: The memorial wall at the USS Arizona Memorial. The inscription in the middle reads: "TO THE MEMORY OF THE GALLANT MEN HERE ENTOMBED AND THEIR SHIPMATES WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES IN ACTION ON DECEMBER 7, 1941 ON THE U.S.S. ARIZONA" The sub-inscription reads: "THIS MEMORIAL WALL WAS INSTALLED AND REDEDICATED BY AMVETS APRIL 4, 1954"
context_page_description: The Attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, just before 08:00, on Sunday morning, December 7, 1941. The attack led to the United States' formal entry into World War II the next day. The Japanese military leadership referred to the attack as the Hawaii Operation and Operation AI, and as Operation Z during its planning. Japan intended the attack as a preventive action to keep the United States Pacific Fleet from interfering with its planned military actions in Southeast Asia against overseas territories of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the United States. Over the course of seven hours there were coordinated Japanese attacks on the U.S.-held Philippines, Guam, and Wake Island and on the British Empire in Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong.
  The attack commenced at 7:48 a.m. Hawaiian Time. The base was attacked by 353 Imperial Japanese aircraft in two waves, launched from six aircraft carriers. Of the eight U.S. Navy battleships present, all were damaged, with four sunk.
context_section_description: Ever since the Japanese attack, there has been debate as to how and why the United States had been caught unaware, and how much and when American officials knew of Japanese plans and related topics. As early as 1924, Chief of U.S. Air Service Mason Patrick displayed a concern for military vulnerabilities in the Pacific, having sent Gen. Billy Mitchell on a survey of the Pacific and the East. Patrick called Mitchell's subsequent report, which identified vulnerabilities in Hawaii, a "theoretical treatise on employment of airpower in the Pacific, which, in all probability undoubtedly will be of extreme value some 10 or 15 years hence". 
  At least two naval war games, one in 1932 and another in 1936, proved that Pearl was vulnerable to such an attack. Admiral James Richardson was removed from command shortly after protesting President Roosevelt's decision to move the bulk of the Pacific fleet to Pearl Harbor. The decisions of military and political leadership to ignore these warnings have contributed to conspiracy theories. Several writers, including decorated World War II veteran and journalist Robert Stinnett, author of Day of Deceit, and former United States Rear Admiral Robert Alfred Theobald, author of The Final Secret of Pearl Harbor: The Washington Background of the Pearl Harbor Attack, have argued that various parties high in the U.S. and British governments knew of the attack in advance and may even have let it happen or encouraged it in order to force the U.S. into war via the so-called "back door". However, this conspiracy theory is rejected by mainstream historians.
caption: Arizona Memorial
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