Climb Mount Niitaka

Everyone, well, most everyone, knows about December 7th, 1941, and the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan.  What most do not know was that the Japanese fleet was sitting in the far north Pacific several hundred miles north of Hawaii waiting for the command from the homeland that would contain that particular phrase; "Climb Mount Niitaka".  With that phrase delivered on December 2, 1941, Japanese Admiral Yamamoto opened a sealed envelope that contained the orders from Minister of War Tojo to attack Pearl Harbor on December 7th at 8:00 a.m. Hawaii Time- EXACTLY because that would be when the Japanese Foreign Ministers would have finally delivered the declaration of war to our State Department in Washington, D.C. some 30 minutes before the first bomb was dropped. Some of this is played out in the movie "Tora Tora Tora."

Actually, the attack began at 7:55 a.m. Hawaii time. Many think that this was just the Japanese being overly aggressive but in reality they were trying to strike a single blow to keep the USA out of Indo-China.  The USA had already been pursuing some activities in China via General Joe Stilwell prior to 1940 and Japan was worried that their oil supplies would be cut off.  The attack on Pearl Harbor was, in my humble opinion, an "all or nothing" attack that, eventually, proved to be a ghastly mistake.

More coming on December 7th.