Pearl Harbor. Of all the aspects of the attack on that 7 December 1941 Sunday morning-including its treachery, swiftness, daring, and skillful execution-none seems more compelling than the assault's total surprise. This element is even more striking, knowing that just prior to the attack, a U.S. Army radar site at Opana Point, on Oahu, tracked incoming aircraft, and the Navy discovered a foreign submarine at the entrance to Pearl Harbor. Add to this mixture that American code-breakers were reading Japanese diplomatic messages of all types, and it seems simply incredible that Japan could pull off a thorough surprise attack.
Yet it did precisely that. How Japan could do so has intrigued Americans ever since. Vast literature, written mostly from an American perspective, has poured out in the last six decades pursuing answers to the same questions: How did the Japanese arrive in secret, and why were the Americans caught so off guard?
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