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PEARL HARBOR, 7 DEC 1941
Tactical - Total defeat, though losses occurred in a U.S. controlled anchorage, enabling easy recovery of survivors and salvage of vessels.
Operational - Defeat. Gave Imperial Navy freedom of action in the Pacific until Leyte Gulf and initiative until Midway. Interestingly, removed battleship Navy from the U.S. equation and forced acceptance of naval air power as preeminent, requiring new thinking to be successful
Strategic - Victory. Thrust U.S. into total war against the Axis, and united public sentiment in support of the war. The U.S. shut down civilian industry and converted it to war production, rationed critical items for civilian use, put over 10% of the population in uniform, and in four years, built 90.000 tanks, over 2.200.000 transport vehicles and 240.000 planes. Public sentiment supported submarine warfare against commercial shipping, conventional and firebombing of civilian targets, and deployment of two nuclear weapons against Japanese cities to end the war.
Just a few observations.
TR
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"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - President Theodore Roosevelt, 1910
De Oppresso Liber 01/20/2025
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