So the giant wasn’t really “sleeping”, even if the fleet at Pearl Harbor was surprised by the initial blow.Īs to that Yamamoto quote? Well, it’s been impossible to find the actual source. The country was deep into the process of converting the economy from consumer goods to wartime production. and made it impossible for Japan to purchase oil. And in the the summer of 1941, Washington had actually placed a freeze on all Japanese assets in the U.S. had embargoed all sorts of strategic goods and raw materials to Japan: weapons, aviation fuel, scrap iron. The Roosevelt administration had been playing hardball with the Japanese for years, trying to get Japan to lay off its war of conquest in China. was certainly not “sleeping” at the time of Pearl Harbor. was a “sleeping giant” at the time of Pearl Harbor. Read more: What’s the Most Accurate D-Day Movie? Here’s What 3 Movies Got Right-and Wrong But men were in uniform, rearmament was underway, factories were being converted to war production. The fleet was certainly unprepared that morning, obviously. This myth of volunteerism plays into other myths: that the country was hopelessly unready for war when the Japanese launched their surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. The country wasn’t really on a war footing, but it was getting there and it certainly wasn’t on a voluntary basis. Months before Pearl Harbor, this new draft army was already being put through the paces in large-scale open-field maneuvers in Louisiana, the Carolinas, and Arkansas-practice runs for actual combat. By the time Pearl Harbor was attacked, the total number of men in uniform was over 2 million. Roosevelt had already instated the military draft in the fall of 1940, over a year before Pearl Harbor.
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