Discuss Time Rider
Notes: As this story
focuses on the attack on Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941, here are
some facts of that historic attack.
According to wikipedia.org,
Japan's Allies' Response
Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy declared war on the United States on
December 11, four days after the Japanese attack. Hitler and
Mussolini were under no obligation to declare war under the mutual
defense terms of the Tripartite Pact. However, relations between the
European Axis Powers and the American leadership had deteriorated
since 1937. Earlier in 1941, the Nazis learned of the U.S.
military's contingency planning to get troops in Continental Europe
by 1943; this was Rainbow Five, made public by sources unsympathetic
to Roosevelt's New Deal, and published by the Chicago Tribune.
Hitler seems to have decided war with the United States was
unavoidable, and the Pearl Harbor attack, the publication of the
Rainbow Five plan, and Roosevelt's post-Pearl Harbor address, which
focused on European affairs as well as the situation with Japan,
probably contributed. Hitler also underestimated American military
production capacity beyond Lend Lease, the nation's ability to fight
on two fronts, and the time his own Operation Barbarossa would
require. Similarly, the Nazis may have hoped the declaration of war,
a showing of solidarity with Japan, would result in closer
collaboration with the Japanese in Eurasia, particularly against the
Soviet Union.
Regardless of Hitler's reasons, the decision was an enormous
strategic blunder and it further enraged the American public. It
allowed the United States to immediately enter the European war in
support of the United Kingdom and the Allies without much public
opposition. Opening a second front against the Soviet Union, which
never actually happened, would have been of considerable value to
the European Axis powers' war effort.
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