On 1 December 1941, Japan's militarist government decided to attack the United States and seize the American Philippines and resource-rich British and Dutch colonial possessions in South-East Asia. To distract the American government while it secretly positioned a powerful aircraft carrier strike force for a surprise attack on the United States Pacific Fleet at its Pearl Harbor base in Hawaii, the Japanese government had ordered its envoys in Washington to engage the Americans in intensive diplomatic negotiations.
World War II came to America's Hawaiian Islands shortly before 8 a.m on 7 December 1941. It was a quiet Sunday morning. America was not yet at war, and most civilian residents of Hawaii were preparing for church or other peaceful Sunday pursuits. .
Battleships of the United States Pacific Fleet burn in Pearl Harbor after the Japanese launched their devastating surprise attack on Sunday, 7 December 1941.
At the United States Navy base at Pearl Harbor peacetime Sunday routine prevailed, and the normal bustle of a huge naval base was absent when the first wave of Japanese carrier-launched aircraft launched a devastating attack on the battleships of the United States Pacific Fleet. There had been no prior declaration of war.
Before the attack on Pearl Harbor, most Americans did not want to become involved in Nazi Germany's war against Great Britain. The treacherous nature of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor united all Americans against Japan and filled them with a fierce determination to avenge the heavy loss of American lives and ships. If the United States had not been drawn into World War II by Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and the Philippines, it is very likely that Australia would have been occupied by Japan before the end of 1942.
Battle of midway.
In the great naval battle at Midway in the central Pacific between 4-6 June 1942, three American aircraft carriers won a remarkable and pivotal victory against a huge Japanese Imperial Navy invasion force.