In 1853 Japan opened its doors to world trade. Japan’s society grew quickly. its military grew powerful. Japan started dreaming of becoming a world power. However, Japan didn’t have the resources to meet its goals. In the 1930s Japan set out to get these resources by conquering its neighbors in Asia, and the Pacific. As Japan grew more and more powerful and conquered other countries, they were ready to take over South Pacific lands, including present day Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, …show more content…
At 7:55 a.m. Hawaiian time, on a bright and sunny Sunday morning the first bomb was dropped on Pearl Harbor by a Japanese fighter plane.
There were many people involved in the attack on Pearl Harbor. Two key people involved in this event were Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto of Japan and President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United States. Admiral Yamamoto was in charge of planning the attack on Pearl Harbor. His plan was to attack the U.S. from the air with many planes. President Roosevelt was in charge of America’s response to the attack. Roosevelt went before Congress and declared war on Japan on December 8, 1941.
Japan used bombers and fighter planes to attack Pearl Harbor and airfields. Japanese fighter planes were nicknamed zeroes, dive bomber planes were called vals, and high-altitude bomber planes were called Kates. These planes bombed and attacked U.S. battleships and planes. Zeroes could dive low to ground, firing machine guns located in their wings. Vals could swoop low to hit their targets with bombs with true aim. Kates dropped 1,700-pound bombs from high in the