Hello, and thank you for listening to the history of World War II podcast, Episode

330, The Doodle of Raid, Part 1.

Perception is reality, and the Americans perceived, or rather, knew they had just been sucker

punched at Pearl Harbor.

Oh, everyone knew war was coming between the Empire of Japan and the United States.

It was just a matter of where, when, and how.

Still, a sucker punch?

No, this demanded payback, but tenfold.

For what it's worth, and it's not worth much, the Japanese did not intend to strike before

they declared war, but as the Japanese ambassadors suffered delays in getting the official message

from Tokyo to Secretary of State Cordell Hall's office, that's the way it worked out, the

attack proceeded the declaration.

As the Pacific reports poured into the Oval Office, all of them bad and only got worse, the

nation was frozen in fear, was California or Alaska next, but the other side of that

coin was anger, or more exactly, hatred.

We hate what we fear.

Again, everyone knew war was coming.

The US Congress had voted through a naval expansion in the mid to late 1930s in preparation

for that war, but that was now offset by the destroyed or heavily damaged battleships

at Pearl Harbor.

No, whatever or however America was going to react, it would not be through her battleships.

But as the American public was still reeling over the surprise attack, the Japanese military

...