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. . . The surprise attack started the Pacific War. It was followed a few hours later by a Japanese assault on the Philippines.More importantly, Pearl Harbor ushered in a new phase of World War II, as the conflict expanded to the Pacific. It became truly a global war when, four days later, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States.The Japanese fleet had missed the three absent American carriers of the Pacific Fleet. Nonetheless, Japanese admirals were certain that the United States was so crippled after the attack that it would not be able to go on the offensive against the Japanese Pacific empire for years, if at all. Surely the wounded Americans would sue for peace, or at least concentrate on Europe and keep out of the Japanese-held Pacific.That was a fatal miscalculation.The Japanese warlords had known little of the tireless efforts of one Democratic congressman from Georgia, Carl Vinson.For nearly a decade before Pearl Harbor, Vinson had schemed and politicked in brilliant fashion to ensure that America was building a two-ocean navy larger than all the major navies of the world combined . . . Vinson, a rural Georgian, was an unlikely advocate of global naval supremacy.Before World War II, the battleship was still thought to be queen of the seas. Yet Vinson emphasized aircraft carriers over battleships. That decision would result in absolute American naval supremacy of the oceans within two years of the Pearl Harbor attack . . . . . . Today, most Americans do not recognize Vinson’s contributions to American security. But the real strategic story of the December 7 attack on Pearl Harbor was that Japan foolishly bombed a mostly obsolete fleet, soon guaranteeing terrible revenge from its far greater and more modern replacement armada — thanks largely to the global visions of a rural Georgia congressman.
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Topic: Pearl Harbor and the Legacy of Carl Vinson (Read 193 times)
