Sunday morning, December 7, 1941, Japanese fighters, bombers, and submarines attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Eighteen U.S. ships were sunken or badly damaged; more than 2,000 Americans were killed and many wounded. The following day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke to congress, referring to "the day, which will live in infamy," and acknowledging that a state of war existed between the United States and Japan. Within a few hours war was declared.

The desires of Japan for its growth brought them into conflict with the colonial powers. These colonial powers included: France (French Indochina), the Netherlands (Dutch East Indies), Britain (Burma, India, and Malaya), and the United States (Guam and the Philippines). Japan wanted their empire to stretch from Manchuria and China, south to Thailand and Indonesia. While France and the Netherlands lost to Germany in 1941 and Hitler was fighting the British, only the United...