There was a thread the other day on this.

A major blunder on the part of Japan. Did they think they would defeat the US?

May the brave men, and women that died at Pearl rest in peace, and may God bless their souls.

they almost pulled it off.
had our aircraft carriers been in port things could have gone the other way.
only good thing that happened that day was my brother being born.

They thought it would give them time for their southeast asia conquest and the U.S. would sue for peace with the Pacific Fleet distroyed.

Of course I have the advantage of hindsight.

Quite a few articles on Pearl Harbor here.
Had they got the carriers, it’d been a whole lot different. I still believe Roosevelt baited them into attacking us, so’s he could get into the war. He never figured on the Pacific Fleet being the target.
7mm

I read somewhere that the attack had serious effects on the US Pacific Fleet. However, the fact the carriers were not in port, the Japanese didn't bomb the ship repair facilities, nor the fuel storage tanks, was the Japanese downfall. Many of the ships were repaired asap and had the fuel to go to war.

We were damn lucky.
7mm

It was probably too late anyway, but I wonder who the officer at Ft Shafter was that told the two radar kids that reported the incoming planes an hour before, "forget it"? 2,000 men, croakers.
But as Hillary so famously said, after the Benghazi guys had croaked, "At this point, what difference does it make?"

The US would have eventually prevailed with the loss of the carriers, the fact that they were not destroyed just shortened the eventual reversal.

The Japanese underestimated how angry the American citizens would become over such an attack. A declaration of war was supposed to be delivered about an hour before the attack, but decoding took longer than anticipated and no declaration was in place at the time of the attack.

Yamamoto hoped to engage the United States at the negotiating table and warned of a protracted war. He had also campaigned for more Naval Air instead of the huge Battleships Musashi and Yamato, which pretty much remained idle during much of the war due to fuel issues.

The Coral Sea battle stopped the (I believe) Port Moresby invasion force and affirmed that the Carrier was the new boss, the Battle ship was going to play second-fiddle now His Midway campaign also violated many Mahanian principles, of which the Japanese Navy was a big believer in.

Their Aviator training program simply could not keep up with attrition, Midway really hurt them there.

The third wave of attacks at Pearl that would have taken out the fuel reserves and drydocks were also another mistake. The fuel at Pearl on the 7th was used in June at Midway.

Admiral Yamamoto predicted what would happen.

I think that was Kermit Tyler, who was not properly trained to act in the position he was in, and was mislead by an expected arrival of a flight of B-17s.

I was born in 1950, nine years after Pearl Harbor. Growing up, I still remember hearing older people talking about where they were, and what they were doing that Sunday. A high school classmate of my fathers is still there, on the Arizona.

The sleeping giant kicked their ass!!!

They were just looking for someone to rebuild their economy.

It would have been a longer war if they hit the dry docks and the fuel farm.

The difference is what you learn from the past.

I don't remember much.I was only three years old at the time. I did know by how my folks were acting that something very bad had happened. I remember hiding in the basement during the air raid drill late at night and wondering it the explosions I heard were the Japanese bombing us or the coastal batteries just practicing? My dad was exempt from the draft due to his job being vital to the war effort but a couple of his cousins ended up fighting the Germans. It wasn't a pleasant time.
Paul B.

most people don't realize December 8th was an important day in history too

Probably didn't say that 'till April of '42 when bombs fell on Tokyo.