Chapter 4 The cause of the first section

1.1 Lushun Port and Pearl Harbor The Pearl Harbor incident, which opened the prelude to the Pacific War, occurred on the morning of Sunday, December 7, 1941 (Tokyo time is dawn on Monday, December 8). The sailors of the US Pacific Fleet, who were approved to go ashore after lunch on the first day (Saturday), returned to the ship the next morning.While having breakfast, the first wave of 183 attack aircraft fleets of our Navy’s Warhawks, bathed in the rising sun, flashing the dazzling sun emblem on the silver wings, faced the U.S. fleet on Pearl Harbor, Oahu, which is like summer all the year round. The attack was carried out while the American fleet was in the midst of dreaming.

Bombs rained down from the sky, and the bluish-white tracks of aviation torpedoes intertwined on the narrow sea, like weed patterns.The United States, which had always been paralyzed and thought that Japan would not attack by surprise, was caught off guard and fell into a panic.U.S. Pacific Fleet Command urgently telegraphs the entire army: The attack on Pearl Harbor was not a drill! The U.S. military suffered heavy losses.All the main battleships of the Pacific Fleet were completely destroyed.count: Four ships were sunk, one was severely damaged, and three were slightly damaged. As a result of being held accountable for this fiasco, Kimmel, commander of the US Pacific Fleet, was forced to resign and was replaced by General Nimitz.Nimitz was the mortal enemy of the Japanese Navy throughout the entire Pacific War. This famous general has left a deep impression not only in the minds of our naval officers and soldiers, but also in the minds of all the people.

The Port Arthur Incident, which occurred 38 years before Pearl Harbor, was the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904-1905.The Lushunkou incident occurred on the night of Maria Naming Festival on February 8, Meiji 37, and the exact time was 0:20 am on the 9th. There is a custom in Russia that women named Maria receive blessings on this day, and high society usually holds a stage.The wife of Lieutenant Admiral Staruk, the commander of the Russian Lushun Fleet, was also named Maria, so the heads of the army and navy were dancing and drinking vodka at the commander's residence. Half of the fleet's officers and soldiers have gone ashore, the sea security is relaxed, and the ships at anchor have not put down their lightning protection nets.Large-caliber guns did not prepare shells, and sailors could sleep in pajamas.

Russians who are used to long nights have endless balls.Just after midnight and the banquet was in full swing, a big and unusual event suddenly happened outside Lushun Port, which was only a short distance away. Asai Asai, commander of the Japanese Fleet's First Destroyer Fleet, who was the vanguard of the night attack, ordered the entire army to attack when he was about a kilometer away from the enemy ship.Dozens of cannons of the suddenly attacked Russian fleet were destroyed as if by countless lightning strikes. The Japanese army launched a surprise attack! Three warships, including the battleship Zizalevich, were injured. Commander Staruk was dismissed due to negligence in his duties, and Makarov, a world-renowned admiral comparable to General Mahan of the US Navy, took over.However, Makarov was also abandoned by the god of fate.Two months later, on April 13, his flagship, the Peter Pavlovsk, sank after triggering a mine laid by the Japanese Navy, and he died at the same time.

In this way, the Pearl Harbor incident and the Lushunkou incident both took advantage of the enemy's surprise and carried out surprise attacks at the beginning of the war, which is really unique in this regard. About ten days before the Pearl Harbor incident, on November 25, 1941, at the White House's highest military meeting, then US President Franklin D. Roosevelt pointed out that the Japanese had always He is notorious for fighting and conducting surprise attacks; the United States may be attacked around next Monday (December 1). When he said this, he was probably thinking about the story of Lushunkou in his mind.

However, the surprise attack on the Russian fleet moored outside Port Arthur was extremely incomplete and cannot be compared with Pearl Harbor.One of the biggest reasons is that the surprise attack on the Russian fleet consisted of only a few destroyers, and the Pearl Harbor operation was a huge gamble that related to the fate of our country. Shortly after the New Year in 1941, on January 7, Commander-in-Chief of the Joint Fleet Yamamoto Fifty-Six wrote in a letter to the Secretary of the Navy Kawako Shiro, who for the first time formally announced the operational concept of the war against the United States, said that in view of the situation of the Russo-Japanese War A lesson from the incomplete night attack of the Japanese destroyer fleet outside Lushun Port. The initial battle plan adopted must have the determination to decide the outcome on the first day.

Regarding the essentials of combat, he described as follows: If most of the enemy's main force is anchored at Pearl Harbor, it will be completely destroyed by the aviation fleet. It seems that there seems to be a strange relationship between Lushunkou and Pearl Harbor.And not just because the surprise attacks at the start of the war were very similar. It turns out that the history of military confrontation between Japan and the United States can be traced back to the Lushunkou incident and continued until the Pearl Harbor incident 38 years later.With the end of the Pacific War, forty-one years of confrontation came to an end.