This day in WW II.....

07 Dec 1941, ~0800: The USS Arizona was sunk by Japanese B5N bombers while moored in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Eleven other ships were also sunk during the attack and numerous US aircraft were destroyed. The USA suffered 3581 casualties as a result of the attack. Japanese losses were minimal.



The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was a tactical success, but led to the USA formally entering WW II, an event that significantly changed the course of the war.

 

..one of the most infamous days in history.....what started a true World War---the greatest destruction/death/etc and reconstruction ever! changed the world and world maps for decades

 

08 Dec 1941: Japan commences it's invasion of Malaya. The war is ragging around the globe.

 

09 Dec 1939:





-- On this day, Corporal Thomas Priday, King's Shropshire Light Infantry, became the first member of the BEF to be killed in action. While on night patrol in the vicinity of Metz, France, he triggered an allied landmine and died of his wounds.

 

10 Dec 1941: HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse sunk.




“On 8 December, prompted by news that the Japanese had begun to land troops off the Kra isthmus, which joins southern Thailand to Malaya, Prince of Wales and Repulse with their small escort of destroyers sailed from Singapore to intercept. The Japanese landing troops had already occupied the airfield from which the two capital ships might have been afforded fighter cover, but although their commander, Admiral Tom Phillips, was warned that strong Japanese torpedo-bomber forces were stationed in southern Indo-China he held his course. Early on the morning of 10 December the Japanese bombers found him, and both his capital ships were sunk in two hours of relentless attack. The loss of a brand-new battleship and a famous battlecruiser was a disaster….” — John Keegan, The Second World War

 

I think they favored boots.....

 

11 Dec 1942:





— Italian special forces, from the Decima Flottiglia MAS, were launched from the RIN Ambra in Algiers harbor.



— Swimming and using torpedo boats, the frogmen attached charges to four vessels in the harbor. The SS Ocean Vanquisher and SS Berto were sunk, while the SS Empire Centaur and SS Harmattan were damaged.





Bulletin Number 62, Office of Strategic Services, The War this Week, December 10-17 1942. Unclassified

 

Indeed; 11 Dec 1941. He saw an opportunity and seized it. He may have been overly confident in his strategy.

 

It would appear to be all the USA's fault....

"Although Germany on her part has strictly adhered to the rules of international law in her relations with the United States during every period of the present war, the Government of the United States from initial violations of neutrality has finally proceeded to open acts of war against Germany. The Government of the United States has thereby virtually created a state of war."​

 

We did practice a curious form of neutrality:
Declaring half the Atlantic Ocean a "neutral zone" in which one belligerent could operate freely while the other could be shot on sight.
Repairing combat-damaged warships of one side in our shipyards.
Escorting convoys of war materials.
Giving warships to a belligerent in return for bases from which we would patrol the seas in cooperation with that belligerent.
etc.

 

Really a silly move on Hitler and Mussolini's part, declaring war on the US. They figured that Japan, their partner in crime would be "touched" by their comradeship by declaring war on the US and would jump right into the anti-comintern festivities and attack the USSR in Siberia. Of course the Japanese had no intention of tangling with the Rooskies after getting royally thumped by the Red Army in the undeclared border war in Manchuria in 1938-39.

Also, Poland declared war on the Empire of Japan.

And in conclusion, the Imperial Japanese Navy suffered it first surface ship losses of the war at Wake Island. Two destroyers were sunk in the first attempted landing. USA!!!! USA!!!!USA!!!!

Battle of Wake Island - Wikipedia

 

Right?