WW II Responsible for Pearl Harbor - Thesis Example

Before and during WWII, the Hawaiian Islands and Oahu, in particular, used to be an object of strategic importance. The quality of the military defense provided served a reliable measure of the quality and efficiency of all military operations in the United States during the Second World War. “During the prewar years Oahu and the Panama Canal Zone were the two great outposts of continental defense, and, after Japan plunged the United States into a Pacific War, Oahu became an essential springboard for the offensive that was finally to crush the Japanese Empire.

” (Conn, Engelman & Fairchild 150). The quality of the defense procedures in the Hawaiian Islands at the beginning of WWII became a good test to the saliency of the military decisions in the rest of the United States’ territory. Despite the fact that the military significance of the Hawaiian Islands was widely recognized and the Army claimed the Hawaii to be one of the world’s strongest fortresses (Conn, Engelman & Fairchild 150), the strength of the military defense provided left sufficient room for improvements.

Failure to protect the Hawaiian Islands from the Japanese attack exposed the hidden facets of inappropriate military decisions made by American politicians and commanders. According to U.S. Congress, the Hawaiian commanders were primarily responsible for failure to protect the Hawaiian Islands in December, 1941. U.S. Congress found that the December, 1941 attack of Japan on the Hawaiian Islands was both an act of aggression and the result of the military misunderstanding among Hawaiian commanders (251).

On the one hand, U.S. Congress found that Japan was primarily responsible for the attack and that the force of attack was too powerful and striking to predict and too unexpected than anyone could have thought (U.S. Congress 251). Consequentially, the U.S. military commanders could not employ