Why did the Japan attack pearl harber to begin with?

Answer 1

Japan needed to expand it's land mass & it needed natural resources, of which it had very few. They wanted to take over the islands in the south Pacific but they knew that we had a big Navy capable of stopping them. They knew that the only thing to do was to take out our Navy, thus preventing us from stopping them from their goal of capturing the islands & keeping what they had gained in China. There was only one way to stop us & that was the way they chose, to cripple our Navy in the Pacific as quickly as possible leaving them the freedom to capture the important islands in the S. Pacific. They made a big mistake, they didn't get our Aircraft Carriers! Their victory at Pearl Harbor lasted them about six months & we were back in action full force. They made us darn mad!

Answer 2

Japan attacked Pearl Harbor to stop the US from interfering in the Philippines while they were trying to find natural resources around the nation to replace the deficit the United States caused by issuing a Resource Embargo due to them expanding rapidly and torturing native peoples of areas they took over. The idea was nearly a complete success, but they missed the resource facility that was used to reconstruct the ships and the U.S had them running in a quick amount of time. Japan did make progress but not as much as they expected with a complete naval destruction.

Pearl Harbor was also an easy target to hit, the boats were directly off shore making them defenseless. Also, the MAGIC codes that declared War on the United States of America were not deciphered and a warning was not sent to Pearl Harbor until several hours after the attack. Some say this was because Roosevelt wanted to enter the war to help Churchill and purposefully impeded action to incite a war. This has been unconfirmed and is not historicaly documented.

Thats about it.

Answer 3

Because is their closest Major CIty and U.S, Base from Japan Territory, they attack hoping U.S. would resume trading oil to japan which was not even close. However Japan did make a mistake for not send troop there. However alot historian believe U.S. Present force was consider light and gave japanese a open door for attack. There;s was NO CARRIER Near By. So therefore is deny just anti air gun from ship, and some plane from the base, which is rediculous.

Answer 4

In reading all of these answers, the actual truth does come out but not completely.
The US cut off more than oil; also rubber and scrap iron, too. The intent was to force Japan out of China by crippling its ability to build replacement military components. Japan took it personally and decided to strike while they were still strong and before the US started a real build up.

Answer 5

To destroy the US Navy and give themselves time to consolidate their hold on Southeast Asia. Had they killed the three carriers they missed it might well have worked. The USN would not have been in any condition to carry the war to the Japanese for between 2 and 3 years later than what occurred. Australia would have fallen and the US would have had no forward base when finally going on the offensive. The US might never have recovered enough to do more than rebuild Hawaii. It would have depended on a lot of things but almost surely FDR would have let Southeast Asia go.

Where did you people get the idea that the material the US banned sale of was OIL???????? It was scrape iron!!!

Answer 6

It was a pre-emptive strike so that Japan could have a free hand in the Pacific and thus get a hold of Indonesian oil. The US oil embargo would have eventually rendered the Japanese Imperial Navy immobile, so they felt it was a case of use it or lose it. Perhaps not killing so many Chinese and thus improving relations with the US would have been a better approach.

Answer 7

japan and the U.S. had a rivalry going, both nations vying to be the dominant economic and military power in the pacific rim...war with japan was thought to be inevitable by many...japan saw the attack as 'preemptive warfare'...we saw it as a cowardly sneak attack-we really had no choice but to declare war and take them out

Answer 8

It was the only card they had left to play in view of the oil embargo by the US and Britain. Their nationalistic intentions needed that presious commondity... the gambit failed..

Answer 9

because the US cut off Japans oil, so Japan went looking for a new source in Asia/Pacific area. It had to cripple the US fleet so they could so without US interference.

Answer 10

Well as usual I hear oil thrown up and yes we had decided to make bussiness difficult for them but this is Because they had Invaded China for the most part and because they were damn cruel about it too.