Tora ! Tor The Day Of Infamy

Tora! Tora! Tora!

The surprise attack from the Japanese forces on December 7, otherwise known as ‘The Day of Infamy’, brought the United States into World War Two. A film that shows the moments leading up towards the attack is shown in the film, ‘TORA! TORA! TORA!’. In this essay, I will use the film as my historical source to reconstruct the events leading to the attack on the Pearl Harbour and the attack itself.

‘Tora Tora Tora’ shows quite frequently the attempts to form diplomacy with the U.S., so that both nations can have peace. In the beginning, the film shows the German, Italian and Japanese governments signing the Tripartite Treaty. The film then continues to depict senior military commanders and admirals discussing a preventive

The Emperor at first wanted to go into war as a last resort and during the delivery of the fourteenth part message, the ambassador to the United Sates for Japan, Kichikisaburo Nomura said that the war he tried to prevent may finally have arrived.

The element of surprise was known by all to be vital to the success of the operation. However, in the film, we see that Mitsuo Fuchida was aggrieved at the fact the third wave would not be launched due to the uncertainty of whether the U.S. had sufficient power to defend against the third wave and also because the element of surprise had been lost. Had the third wave been launched, the third wave’s target would have been the facilities which may have altered the war. In the bridge of the carrier flagship Akagi, we see the admirals’ reluctance to leave without the launch of the third

At Pearl, on a Saturday (the day before the strike), the admiral called back everybody into their offices and a few officers had worked during the early hours of Sunday morning trying to figure out what was happening. Therefore, I would come to the conclusion that the film was trying to show that the Americans were trying to effectively make use of the information and make realistic decisions. However, the assumption that the Americans that an attack was imminent was when the message, “HOSTILE ACTION AT ANY MOMENT…IF HOSTILITIES CANNOT. REPEAT CANNOT. BE AVOIDED. THE UNITED STATES DESIRES THAT JAPAN COMMIT THE FIRST OVERT ACT. THIS POLICY SHOULD NOT. REPEAT NOT. BE CONSTRUED AS RESTRICTING YOU TO A COURSE OF ACTION THAT MIGHT JEOPARDI[S]E YOUR DEFENCE” was sent out and on two occasions, the commanding officer issued out two twenty-four hour alerts. In the hour of attack, Fuchida was surprised at the lack of resistance of anti-aircraft fire which shows that they were not prepared for an attack on Pearl Harbour. It should be further noted that Admiral Kimmel was portrayed as taken defensive measures. This meant the storing of ammunition for peace time regulations and the aircraft formation on the ground which made them sitting ducks for Japanese bombers. The film showed that the American response to the attack was ineffective except for the two pilots who