Research Assignment Paper About Pearl Harbor (Japan 1941)

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Pearl Harbor
In the morning of 1941, the Japanese landed one of the greatest and most devastating attacks in the history of the United States. The attack left more than 2000 people dead and thousands more injured. In 90 minutes, the Japanese had left the people in Pearl Harbor reeling and seething in pain, anger, and helplessness. The US had adopted a policy of isolation which meant that it stayed away from any involvement in the world affairs. Nothing had driven the country to take part in anything that happened on a global scale yet but Japan had other plans. Like today, the US was well aware of its interests within and without its borders and therefore, it always worked and entered into deals that protected its interests. Japan, on the other hand, was in a transformational period and its emperor Hirohito was on an expansion spree. Hirohito wanted to amass as much power as some of the European nations. However, with such ambitious plans, Japan was bound to cross paths with countries like Britain and the US whose opposition forced Japan to reconsider its approach. Instead of seizing or using force to acquire the resources, Japan opted to attack the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. The aim of this attack was to keep the US occupied at home so that Japan could have enough time to seize the resources it needed for its plans. The plan to attack did materialize and Japan managed to land one of the most painful and memorable attacks to-date. Like other historical events, the attack on Pearl Harbor has been used as a plot for a movie called the Pearl Harbor which forms the basis of this analysis. However, and sadly, like all other movies trying to remake history, this movie is filled with scenes which inaccurately represent the events of the day. By juxtaposing the real events to the ones presented in the movie, this article seeks to showcase the inaccuracies as well as some exaggerations that were captured in the film.
One of the events shown in the movie but not accurately shown as what happened in real life is the American military taking flight and refusing to be a defenseless victim. This was factual but it was not accurately presented as what happened in real life. As per the movie, only two pilots responded to the attacks. However, according to historians, there were more men in the air fighting the Japanese attackers. The focus of the film is on two pilots Rafe McCawley and Danny Walker who are subtly linked to Second Lieutenants George Welch and Kenneth Taylor. The two characters in the movie are indeed quite similar to the real heroes of the day. Like in the movie, Welch and Taylor managed to get off the ground first. However, according to Walsh and Thorpe (2001), there were as many as “90 American men thought to be in the air during the raid.” The movie is indeed greatly off the mark by only depicting two pilots as fighting and repelling the Japanese attacks. “Survivors are furious as they feel their fellow soldiers - many of whom died during the attack - are not represented fairly or accurately” (Walsh and Thorpe, 2001). The distortion of facts as well as the invention of others is indeed evident and even thought the movie was nominated and even won...