Dbq Attack On Pearl Harbor

America was thoroughly shocked when Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7th, 1941. Japan attacked the U.S. Naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii with 353 aircraft at approximately 7:55 am. It took less than two hours to lose 2403 Americans and 19 U.S. Navy ships. There are multiple accounts of Intelligence failures, that if handled properly, could have changed the outcome of the Pearl Harbor. Was the intelligence gathered prior to December 7th 1941 analyzed properly? Were there unheeded warnings of a Japanese attack that were overlooked by leadership?
Prior to Pearl Harbor cryptologist intercepted and decoded messages from Tokyo radio broadcasts. The machine that gathered the intel was called “Purple” the decoded messages were called “Magic”. Pearl Harbor only received “Magic” that Washington considered important. Personnel at Washington more specifically the U.S. Planners that handled the intel thought the Japanese would be foolish to attack Pearl Harbor. Such a major assumption had a huge impact on what was sent to Pearl Harbor. Washington was underfunded making the amount of traffic received hard to analyze. Cryptologists had a hard time decoding messages in a timely manner and could not separate important intel from the noise. To make matters worse messages could take up

The 14-part message was sent by the Japanese to warn about the attack and to declare war on the United States.13 pages were sent on December 6th 1941 to express that the ongoing negotiations between U.S. and Japan are over. The last 14th page was to be sent on December 7th 1941, 30 minutes’ prior the attack to officially declare war. The reason it was to be sent 30 minutes prior was to give the United States a warning, because a surprise attack is shameful to the Japanese. The message was sent and received at Pearl Harbor 6 hours after the attack making the message