p In December 1941 the US Navy suffered a defeat unique in the history of wars.

p It was night, clear and cloudless, on December 7, 1941. The large naval base of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, slept serenely. US planes were on the ground. In the harbour, behind a coral reef, not barred off from the sea, 93 US warships were packed tightly, the vastness of the 8 battleships rising above them.

p In a hut on a mountain, having comeoff duty two soldiers and a sergeant played idly with a radio locator. At dawn they noticed numerous spots on the screen, which could possibly be water-borne vessels. They informed the officer on duty, but were dressed down for their pains. Neither Japan nor anyone else, the officer said, would ever think of attacking the United States. Yet within 30 minutes the Japanese attack became a stark fact.

p At 7.55 a.m. Pearl Harbor was turned into a blazing hell. Several hundred planes rose wave after wave from Japanese aircraft-carriers, raining bombs on US vessels and shore installations. In the first run they encountered no resistance and dropped their bombs unhindered, hitting the targets. Meanwhile, Japanese submarines attacked the anchored warships in the harbour.

p In 110 minutes five of the proud eight US battleships were sunk and the remainder badly damaged. The entire crew of more than 2,000 men went down with the battleship Arizona. And a few days later a British naval group was sunk in the open sea.

p This originated the secret of Pearl Harbor, one of the secrets of the Second World War. It is a mystery how, with a world war ablaze, the US Armed Forces could be in a state of total unpreparedness, taking no precautions against a surprise attack. The shroud of mystery grows denser still 88 when one learns that US intelligence had cracked the Japanese diplomatic code, and had monitored and deciphered communications from Tokyo to Japanese diplomats abroad, including those in the United States. The communications were sufficiently revealing, containing but slightly veiled references to the imminent Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

p In time the secret was discovered. Japan and the United States had for some time negotiated a settlement. Japan wanted a deal to secure its rear in the event of a war against the Soviet Union. And the US Government tried assiduously to convince the Japanese that they had nothing to fear if they attacked the USSR. Washington was willing to make concessions it would have never otherwise made.

p On May 12, 1941, Japan couched her predatory claims in the form of a proposal for elaborating a "joint policy of combating communism”. On June 21, 1941, on the eve of Hitler Germany’s assault on the USSR, Washington informed Japan of its concessions to the latter and its readiness to continue discussing this joint policy.

p The anti-communism reigning in Washington lulled the vigilance of the US rulers. They ignored the indications that Red Army resistance to the nazis had compelled the Japanese militarists to revise the order of their aggression. Though earlier Tokyo had thought of first joining the war against the Soviet Union and turning later against the United States and Britain, they reversed the order in the autumn of 1941.

p From then on Japanese diplomacy was busy dulling the vigilance of the US Government and its generals by faking negotiations. And the success was complete. On October 16, 1941, the US War and Naval departments informed the Pacific Ocean Command that "hostilities between Japan and Russia are a strong possibility. Since the United States and Britain are held responsible by Japan for her present desperate situation, there is also a possibility that Japan may attack these two powers".  [88•1  The local commanders, however, gave credence to but the first half of the communication, and totally overlooked the second. They lifted all precautions against a sudden Japanese attack.

p Making most of the naval advantage they had gained, the 89 Japanese militarists overran Malaya, Burma, Indonesia, the Philippines and many other islands in the Pacific in a matter of five or six months. The British, US and Dutch armies stationed in those territories were not strong enough to stem the Japanese offensive, largely due to their unpopularity among the indigenous population.

p Some time later a popular movement, a desperate fight for national independence, began in the Japanese-occupied Southeast Asian countries and the Pacific islands. Directed at the time against the Japanese, the movement was also against the imperialist colonial system. It was a harbinger, the beginning, of the powerful national liberation surge of the colonial and dependent peoples that later tore down the colonial system.

p By the end of March 1942 a mass organisation, the Hukbalahap, was formed in the Philippines that led the struggle against the Japanese. An anti-Japanese people’s army was formed in Malaya, and an anti-Japanese national liberation league in Burma. Guerrillas were fighting the Japanese in Indonesia, Indochina and Korea. And in this guerrilla fighting, the Communists, its initiators, stood in the van. The peoples of India were seething. In China, a powerful people’s struggle was under way.

p The rulers of the United States and Britain were deeply perturbed about mass participation in the anti-Japanese action. They were hostile to the national liberation movement. When the Filipino patriots proposed joint action against the Japanese invaders, Washington turned down the offer.

p When making their fatal decision to wage a war against the United States and Britain, the Japanese imperialists left many factors out of the reckoning. To begin with, they did not reckon with the fact that the heroic Soviet resistance to the nazis would enable the United States and Britain to transfer substantial forces to the Pacific. Secondly, they overlooked the fact that popular resistance in occupied territories would pin down considerable Japanese forces. These factors made it possible for the United States and Britain to turn the tide in a war that had begun so unfavourably for them.

There was a big naval engagement in the Coral Sea,’ near Australia, in May 1942 between Japan and the USA. The adversaries used their air power, while the guns of their warships were silent. The losses were approximately equal. But the Japanese fleet admitted defeat and made off. In 90 another battle, near Midway, Japan suffered her first major setback, losing four aircraft-carriers, a cruiser and many planes. The balance of strength had changed. The Japanese offensive stalled, and a long pause ensued in the hostilities, In the meanwhile, the battles on the Soviet-German Front increased in scale. There were no protracted pauses there. The decisive Second World War theatre, this Front gained continuously in importance.