Japan’s great mistake in 1941 (and a second blunder by Hitler)

I have already looked at mistakes made by both Hitler and Stalin in 1941. But before the year was over Japan was to make its own grave mistake. For on December 7^th, the day following the Soviet Union’s devastating counter-attack against the Germans in defence of Moscow, Japan attacked Pearl Harbour, America’s Pacific naval base in Hawaii and in doing so profoundly changed the complexity of WW2.

Japan, as you will know, had allied with Nazi Germany, and then Italy, in the Anti-Comintern Pact before war started and Hitler had hoped that Japan would join in a two-pronged attack against Russia and also deflect British attention away from Europe at least to some extent. Instead Japan went its own way after the Nazi-Soviet Pact, and attacked Pearl Harbour as a prelude to establishing its own empire in south-east Asia.

Japan had already made America (and the rest of the world) sit up and take notice by breaking the ‘Open Door’ policy agreed between America and the European powers that allowed for free trade but with no intervention in China (except to exploit them to the maximum). Their invasion of Manchuria in 1931 was followed by their occupation of the region and the setting up of a puppet government, even renaming the region Manchukuo and placing the deposed Chinese emperor, Pu Yi, as a reinstalled puppet emperor. They then went on to extend the area under their control in 1937 and 1938, installing more puppet regimes in the process. And it wouldn’t be too long before the Japanese signalled their intent to extend their sphere of influence across south-east Asia.

On September 27^th, 1940 the Japanese signed the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy in which they each promised to support each other in their attempts to establish a ‘new order of things’, and in April, 1941, the Nazi-Soviet Pact having set a precedent, they signed the Neutrality Pact with Russia. Also in September, 1940 Vichy France agreed that the Japanese could station troops in northern Indo-China and in July, 1941 it agreed to Japanese bases in the south of Indo-China. As a response to this, Britain, Holland and America froze Japanese assets, the Dutch East Indies stopped supplying oil and America placed its own oil embargo on Japan. Japan was now desperate for oil.

The Japanese response was to first try to nullify any potential American threat in the Pacific region by bombing its naval base at Pearl Harbour on December 7^th, 1931. The following day they moved to take Hong Kong, and began their move to take both Thailand and Malaya. By December it was the turn of Burma (Myanmar) and the Philippines, by January, 1942, it was the turn of the Dutch East Indies. All of these countries would fall to the Japanese in the first half of 1942 with Britain’s naval base at Singapore as well as the American air bases at Guam and Wake added to the list. A quick word on dates here, you might get confused that different books give you different dates. This is because of the international dateline. So that, for example, the attack on Pearl Harbour took place on December 7^th Pacific time, but December 8^th as far as Washington or London was concerned.

The audacious attack on Pearl Harbour seemed to have been the success that Japan had hoped for; aircraft (which had been neatly lined up on the ground) were destroyed and eight American battleships were put out of action. But crucially, and luckily, the three American aircraft carriers, which were more important to any American response than the battleships, were out at sea, guarding another island. Also, vital infrastructure shipyard facilities and fuel tanks were not damaged, nor were their signals units, and nor were their submarines. And if the Japanese had hoped that their attack would lead the Americans to negotiate an agreement with them that would leave them with their ‘Co-Prosperity Sphere’, they were badly mistaken. The Americans had lost 2,402 lives in the attack as well as the damage to their status as a world power. They would not, could not, allow the attack, which was undertaken without any declaration of war, to go without a full response. The Japanese military leaders had set in motion a chain of events that would only end with nuclear bombs being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As with Hitler’s and Stalin’s blunders, their country paid a tremendously high price.

But we are not finished with the blunders of 1941. For Hitler decided, when he didn’t have to, and when he was struggling to contain the Soviet Union’s counter-offensive deep in Soviet territory, to declare war on America, just four days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. The Japanese attack had boosted his confidence at a time when the reversal in the Soviet Union left him needing it. Though he would have preferred the Japanese to attack the Soviet Union, by attacking America they would hopefully divert American and British attention from Europe. And by enlarging the scale of the war, making it an inter-continental conflict, Hitler was seizing back the initiative. He felt back in control.

But the euphoria that he felt led him to misjudge badly just what he was taking on. He lost sight of the economic and military power he was pitting Germany against, and so his second misjudgment: he didn’t expect America to be ready to engage in Europe in any meaningful way until the end of 1942, leaving him free to complete his defeat of the Soviet Union (against a resurgent enemy and without his experienced commanders who he had removed from their commands).

Such was his arrogance that, when he explained his decision to the Reichstag on December 11^th, he labelled Roosevelt a ‘so-called President’, ‘mad’, wrapping ‘himself in a cloak of Christian hypocrisy’ while being guilty of a series of the worst crimes against international law.’ He went on to exonerate Germany and Italy: ‘In this way’, he went on, ‘the sincere efforts of Germany and Italy to prevent an extension of the war and to maintain relations with the United States in spite of the unbearable provocations which have been carried on for years by President Roosevelt have been frustrated …’[1] And he told them, ‘I can only be grateful to Providence that it entrusted me with the leadership in this historic struggle which, for the next 500 or 1,000 years, will be described as decisive, not only for the history of Germany but for the whole of Europe and indeed for the whole of the world…’[2]

So, a blameless Hitler (yet again) and a confident Hitler. On April 5^th, 1942 he issued a directive for ‘the final destruction of the Red Army and the elimination of the vital resources of Soviet strength.’ But Stalin, on January 10^th, had already issued his directive to ‘accomplish the total destruction of the Hitlerite forces in 1942.’ One way or another, 1942 was going to be a critically important year, and both Hitler and Stalin, having both blundered badly (Hitler, twice) would take personal command of their respective army’s, their respective countries’, as well as their own destinies.

[1] Quoted in William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, p. 898

[2] Quoted in Alan Bullock, Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives, p. 838