Eighteen months earlier, President Franklin D. Roosevelt transferred the U. S. fleet to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. At that time Japan was fighting China and badly needed oil and other raw materials. Japan desperately schemed to seize the oil and mineral rich East Indies and southeast Asia. A Pacific war was virtually unavoidable (" Pearl Harbor Raid, 7 December 1941").

    In the late November, with peace negotiations approaching the end, informed U. S. officials fully expected
attacks in Malaya, Hong Kong, Guam, the Philippine Islands, the Wake Island, and the Midway Island ("Pearl Harbor Attacked- Expert information and serious discussion on the attack of Pearl Harbor"). The prospect of Japan attacking the east was unanticipated. 

    The U. S. Fleet's Pearl Harbor base was reachable by aircraft carrier force. Japanese sent an aircraft carrier force over secretly, that had a greater aerial striking distance than had ever been seen on the World's oceans ("Pearl Harbor Raid, 7 December 1941"). That was the start of Pearl Harbor.