Japanese bombs sank the USS West Virginia at Pearl Harbor.
December 7, 1941, dawned as a typical Sunday at the U.S. Navy base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Many sailors were on shore leave, some were still in bed or eating breakfast, and a few were on duty aboard the warships docked in the harbor.
At 7:55 a.m. that peaceful day was shattered. Japanese planes roared through the sky over the harbor, raining deadly bombs in a surprise attack. Two hours later more than 2,400 Americans were dead, and the United States was plunged into the most devastating war the world has ever seen—World War II.
BEGINNINGS OF WAR
World War II actually began in September 1939, but the United States managed to stay out of it until the attack on Pearl Harbor. U.S. allies such as France and Great Britain, however, were part of the war from the beginning.
The seeds of the war were sown more than 20 years earlier, at the end of World War I. When the Treaty of Versailles was signed in 1919, many people breathed a sigh of relief. After years of fighting and more than 15 million deaths, the world was at peace.
But not everyone was pleased—especially the Germans, who lost the war. The treaty forced Germany to give up much of its territory and all of its colonies. Germany was also forced to pay for the cost of the conflict. Resentment at the treaty terms would be a key part of the rise of Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, the Nazis.
Germany did have one ally—Italy. Although Italy had a king, Prime Minister Benito Mussolini ruled the country as a dictator. In 1936 Italy and Germany signed a treaty of friendship. Mussolini described the treaty as a “Rome-Berlin axis.” The alliance between Germany and Italy would later be known as the Axis powers.
TRYING TO AVOID WAR
In Britain and France, people were against more conflict. Political parties in these countries were divided on how to deal with the new threats to peace. When Hitler began flexing Germany’s military muscle, Britain and France did their best to negotiate to try to prevent war. Negotiation often meant giving in to German demands.
In 1938 Germany was threatening Czechoslovakia. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain met with Hitler in Munich in an attempt to solve the Czech crisis. But that didn’t happen. Germany, which had already invaded Austria, took over Czechoslovakia in 1939. Britain began to prepare for war.
Japan had been showing aggression against China since the early 1930s. In 1937 the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out between Japan and China, which led to Japan’s takeover of large parts of China. U.S. leaders were worried about Japanese expansion, and tensions increased between the two countries.