Pearl Harbor. Declaration of war

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In one blow, the Japanese achieved a notable advantage for their naval forces in the Pacific. Of the eight American battleships in Pearl Harbor, one was destroyed, the second overturned, the third received heavy damage, three more ships of this class were damaged, but did not lose the ability to go on their own. 3 cruisers and 2 destroyers received serious damage, 2 auxiliary vessels were sunk and 2 were damaged. By the same blow, the enemy destroyed on the ground 161 and in the air 5 aircraft. In the first minutes of the war, the losses were 2,345 American soldiers and sailors killed.

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Aerial view of a number of battleships in the first minutes of the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

For the United States, Pearl Harbor was the complete failure of American intelligence agencies and the tragedy that disgraced the country.

While the United Kingdom was delayed with proper decorum with the declaration of war, the United States Congress raged and the next day rushed to declare war. Only one pacifist in the House of Representatives, who at one time voted against entry into the First World War, and this time made the vote not absolutely unanimous.

With the intercepted and deciphered Japanese dispatches to Berlin, the president postponed the declaration of war to the European countries - members of the Tripartite Pact, so that the responsibility for declaring war lay on their shoulders. Three days passed, three hard days after Pearl Harbor, and European allies of Japan were silent. But, as Roosevelt noted in his speech on the radio, what was the point of defending freedom, defeating Japan if the Nazi colossus was still uncontrollably trampling Europe and Africa with its feet?Nevertheless, Hitler had reason to be dissatisfied with the Japanese: they acted without consulting Germany, and the Nazi Fuhrer was not eager to face the United States until the Russian company was completed. On the other hand, he essentially instigated the Japanese to a one-sided attack, promising to enter the war, even if the Japanese attacked first.

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President Roosevelt signs an act of declaring war after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, at the White House in Washington, DC, December 8, 1941

On December 11, the waiting was over. Both Germany Hitler and Italy Mussolini finally declared war on the United States of America.

In light of the catastrophe that occurred at Pearl Harbor, and the inability of the United States and Britain to defend their possessions in the Pacific and the Far East, with the exception of only some of them, the prospects for the Allies turned quite oppressive.

Despite the fact that in summer and by the end of 1941 the number of sunk ships in the Atlantic was decreasing, which was a result of both the improvement by the British in the methods of anti-submarine defense, and the transfer of German aircraft and submarines to other theaters to participate in the war against Russia, the average tonnage of monthly sinking ships was about 160 thousand tons - a figure large enough to not cause alarm among the Allies.With the exception of tiny Switzerland and Portugal, the whole of continental Europe was under the direct or indirect dominance of Axis powers; depressingly real was the possibility that a totalitarian Spain would either attack the Gibraltar itself to block the passage of Allied ships to the Mediterranean, or allow it to be made to the Germans. Not showing active commitment to Axis powers, the countries of the French Commonwealth in Africa were loyal to the collaborating government of Vichy and pledged to resist any attempts by the Western allies to involve them in the war, and the dangerous remnants of the French navy were still afloat.In the last phase of the battle, which took place with varying success along the coast of North Africa, the British troops defending Egypt, the Suez Canal and the oil sources of the Middle East were pushed back to the borders of Egypt. Despite the operations on December 6 near Moscow, which were the beginning of a major counter-offensive by the Russians, the Soviet Union was still in mortal danger.

Moreover, neither the American army nor the American naval forces were even approximately ready for war.