Many GCSE students thinking about Japan and its role in the Second World War will have seen the 2001 Hollywood film Pearl Harbor. The film focuses on when Japanese planes launched a surprise attack on the US fleet in Pearl Harbor in December 1941. This attack led to war with the USA and the eventual dropping of two atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. In order to understand why Japan entered a war that led to its own downfall we need to examine its imperial past and, in particular, its relationship with the USA.
The decision taken in December 1941 by the Emperor Hirohito and the cabinet reflected increasingly deteriorating relations with the West and a decade of growing Japanese imperial rivalry. Japan’s prime minister concluded: ‘Under the circumstances, our empire has no alternative but to begin war with the United States, Great Britain and the Netherlands in order to resolve the present crisis and assure survival.’
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