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This clip shows the events leading up to and including the 1941 Japanese attack on the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor on Hawaii. Black-and-white footage of the Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo with German Chancellor Adolf Hitler, waving to crowds in Germany, is followed by footage of a reconstruction showing Japanese planes flying towards Pearl Harbor, also in black and white. The next sequence features an emotional response to the attack by Marine Bugler Richard Fiske of the USS West Virginia, an interview with a naval expert, and archival, reconstructed and contemporary footage of Pearl Harbor. A narration, music and dramatic battle sound effects continue throughout the clip.

Educational value points

• The events leading up to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 are a major focus of this clip. Japan’s military expansionist policy of the 1930s and 40s required that it supply its increasingly far-flung forces with oil and other raw materials. At the same time, Western powers were trying to check Japanese aggression by cutting off the supply of oil to Japan, and by 1941 had succeeded in blocking all trade. Japan looked to South-East Asia, which was rich in minerals and oil, as an alternative source of essential resources. In 1940 US President Franklin D Roosevelt moved the Pacific Fleet to Pearl Harbor as a further bulwark against Japanese expansionism. It was against this background that the attack on Pearl Harbor was conceived.

• Fearing that Japan would not be able to win a prolonged war with the USA, Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto planned a surprise attack with the intention of wiping out the US presence in the Pacific at one blow. Although US military intelligence had information suggesting a Japanese attack, and had intercepted Japanese coded messages indicating an imminent attack, the US forces at Pearl Harbor were unprepared for the air strike when it came.

• The airborne attack was carried out in two waves and involved 135 dive-bombers and 81 fighter aircraft, as well as 105 high-level bombers. In approximately 2 hours, 18 US warships were sunk, including the Arizona, West Virginia, Oklahoma and California, and 188 aircraft and 2,403 service personnel were lost. However the three aircraft carriers, Enterprise, Lexington and Saratoga, were on manoeuvres at sea at the time and were unharmed.

• The event brought the USA into the Second World War (1939–45). Japan declared war on the USA and Britain after the attack on Pearl Harbor. President Roosevelt described the day in this announcement to the US people, 'Yesterday, December 7, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan’. The US Congress declared war on Japan the following day.

• A meeting between the leaders of Germany and Japan in 1940 is shown. These two nations had formed an alliance in 1937 when, together with Italy, they signed the Anti-Comintern Pact. The Pact was ostensibly an agreement to support each other against the threat of communism (Soviet Russia was the main obstacle to Japan’s military ambitions), but was nullified by the Non-aggression Pact concluded between Germany and Russia in 1939. The Pact of Berlin (the Tripartite Pact) was signed between Germany, Italy and Japan on 27 September 1940. Four days after the attack on Pearl Harbor and Japan’s declaration of war on the USA, Germany and Italy also declared war on the USA. Several days later the USA responded.

• The clip illustrates how footage from different sources and times can be combined successfully to tell a story. A number of different visual elements are woven together in chronological order to support the narration read by broadcaster Robyn Williams. Director Peter Butt has used actual footage of the attack, shots from a film reconstruction, possibly made by the Japanese at the time, and contemporary footage taken from the air to construct this section of the documentary.

This clip starts approximately 30 minutes into the documentary.

The clip contains a dramatic recreation of the Pearl Harbour bombing using stills and stock footage.
Narrator Japan was determined to become the dominant power in Asia, but standing in her way was the United States. When tough negotiations between the two powers foundered, the Japanese government embarked on a dramatic plan to force America into submission.
In the mid-Pacific, six Japanese aircraft carriers sailed eastward towards Hawaii, home of the powerful US Pacific Fleet.
On 7 December 1941 at 7:50 in the morning, a faint drone of approaching aircraft was heard over the United States naval base at Pearl Harbour.

Dramatic music intensifies.
Paul Stillwell, Director, History Division, US Naval Institute The timing was ideal – on a Sunday morning, when uh, the fleet was essentially sleeping, both literally and figuratively. And there was a mindset that it couldn’t happen.
Narrator Without warning, or a declaration of war, two waves of Japanese planes – more than 350 in total – crossed the island of Oahu unchallenged.
Richard Fiske, marine bugler When the aeroplanes are coming towards you, you can’t tell whether they’re Japanese or Americans, and they look like ours from a distance. And we wondered, 'What in the heck are they doing, training using live torpedoes?’. And then it – all of a sudden our First Sergeant came up. It blew him out of his office. He was soaking wet and covered with oil. He come up, and he says, 'Get your butts to your battle stations’, he says. 'We’re under attack by the Japanese.’
Man on radio Take your battle stations – all men take your battle stations.
Richard Now, the Arizona was right in back of us and we were up on the bridge when she exploded. The concussion from the explosion blew us into the pilot house, and then we went back out on the – up on the bridge and looked at the Arizona and she was just one tremendous ball of fire. And, I’ll admit it, I was scared. I thought, 'This is the end of everything’.
Narrator In less than two hours, 21 vessels of the Pacific Fleet, including eight battleships, were destroyed or badly damaged. The only compensation for America was that three of her aircraft carriers were at sea on a training exercise and had survived to fight another day.
Richard After the attack was over with about 10 o’clock, things got quiet, except for the burning and the crackling of the ships. That’s when it hit me: my God, we’re in a war. We’re in a war. And we lost it. And, uh, I just sat down and cried.