On that day, officials from various cities in the United States monitored the implementation of emergency measures to prevent air raids and sabotage from morning to night. New York City Mayor Fiorello? Determined to protect Manhattan "from a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor," LaGuardia carried out a civil defense mobilization. The police gathered the Japanese and other Axis nationals and took them by ferry to Ellis Island, across the harbor, to be guarded. In front of the photo news window in Times Square, crowds of weeping spectators and uniformed sailors all day long delivered a speech to the audience gathered around them: "We will soon defeat them." "Throughout the United States, young people are flocking to sign up for the military, and there are long queues at the entrance of Army and Navy recruiting stations.

On the west coast of a possible Japanese invasion, anti-aircraft artillery batteries were hurrying into positions in Hollywood Hill, Long Beach and Seattle. The two large aircraft factories, Boeing and Douglas, are now obvious targets for enemy bomber attacks. Armed with iron forks and carrying shotguns on their shoulders, peasants patrol the deserted beaches of Puget, ready to crush enemies attempting to land. A police officer reported that an aircraft of unknown nationality was scouting the coast west of San Jose, and the alarm was sounded just after 6 a.m. from Los Angeles to San Francisco. William, who was in charge of the defense of the West? Audrey? General Ryan, "concluded that the planes took off from an aircraft carrier." He denied that it was a false alarm, saying that his fighter jet had scared the Japanese away.

Telephone exchange desks in the western jurisdictions of the United States were overwhelmed, and frequent reports were received of Japanese Americans spying on sentry posts and deliberately destroying Japanese property. In Washington, where the Japanese embassy is guarded by a large number of police, Ambassador Nomura and his staff are now effectively hostages. Across the country, many Americans of Japanese descent have teamed up to pay for their loyalty to the United States in newspapers or telegrams to the White House, but that has not been enough to stop people from smashing down the windows of their stores or for "patriotic" American citizens to boycott Japanese stores and all Japanese goods.

The United States Government was very aware of the possibility of air raids and incursions at any time, night light control was introduced, and the distribution of gas masks continued for several months. Roosevelt agreed to these measures in order to adapt Americans to the conditions of war, to the restrictions on individual liberty and consumption, in order to mobilize the nation for a long and hard struggle.

In Britain, the sound of blaring sirens and whiring bombs is a daily occurrence. The news of Pearl Harbor let the British know that the Americans were going to fight alongside them. But this new sense of camaraderie among the English-speaking peoples, which did not include the Republic of Ireland, contemptuously rejected Churchill's call for reunification. Churchill also sent a telegram of appeal to China: "The British Empire and the United States have been attacked by Japan. We have always been friends, and now we face a common enemy. ”

Churchill demanded that the United States and Britain work together to take action against Japan in the Pacific, but the British Chiefs of Staff did not approve of Churchill's plan, fearing that it would be premature to put pressure on their new allies across the Atlantic immediately after the debacle at Pearl Harbor. Churchill did not listen to their advice, and said cheerfully: "We have to be careful when we courting her, but now that she is married, we will not talk to her like that." Lord Halifax, the British ambassador to the United States, sent back a telegram: "Your Excellency's visit may be unbearable to the host. The telegram actually conveyed Roosevelt's reservations, and Churchill flatly objected, replying: "It would be a disaster if we had to wait another month before taking joint action to deal with the new unfavorable situation in the Pacific." I hope to leave tomorrow evening......" Forty-eight hours later, Roosevelt reconsidered and agreed to his visit. …,

In fact, before the United States was officially at war with Germany, Roosevelt was reluctant to receive the prime minister, and he did not mention this issue when he made a radio address to the nation, calling on the American people to unite and "go to the national crisis together." Once again, he waited for Strassel to act, knowing that he could not risk a divided debate in Congress on whether the Atlantic or the Pacific was important.

At this time, there was also a disagreement in the German High Command. As a result of the defeat of the Italians in the Mediterranean, the German offensive against Britain came to a standstill, and strong opposition to an all-out war with the United States was placed before Strassell. The war was provoked by Japan, and as such, they did not necessarily have to automatically declare war on the United States under the Four-Power Treaty of the Axis powers. Moreover, apart from launching an attack on the United States in the Pacific, Japan did not help much militarily; Even when Berlin received a report from the German chargé d'affaires in Washington on December 10 warning that "the United States would declare war on Germany within twenty-four hours," he felt hurt in his pride and did not make the decision to declare war on the United States.

At this time, Japan was carrying out the first phase of the "Operation Otrum" -- to occupy the territory of the Allied Powers in the southwest Pacific. Once again, the Philippines was shrouded in haze and fog, with Japanese bombers carrying out a massive attack on the Philippines while a small landing force occupied the islands of Bataan and Kamitin, off the northern shore of Luzon. Guam, a lonely and poorly defended American outpost, was brought into the Japanese army's field of vision.

For the defenders of the Malay Peninsula, there is no chance of letting up. The port was bombarded, and the Japanese infantry began to move forward, threatening the colony's defensive strongholds. Japanese commandos, armed with light tanks and bicycles, quickly broke through the weak defensive line on the Malaya-Siamese border, choked the Kra Peninsula, and opened the strategic road on the west coast and the railway line to Johor, the back door of the fort in Singapore. The British attempted to hold the border line was defeated by the fierce Japanese attack, and in a pouring rain, the British infantry was driven back by Japanese tanks. Allied planes took off from a nearby airfield and carried out a bombing raid on the Japanese, but the Japanese then launched a massive air raid that inflicted huge losses on the Allied forces.

The only hope of halting the Japanese advance towards Malaya was pinned on the Indian 11th Division, which had withdrawn from the Siamese border in order to occupy the swampy positions and guard the city of Sitra and the main road to the south. At the same time, the Japanese were launching a second assault from the invading beachhead in Kota Bharu on the west coast of Malaya. The Indian forces belonging to the Central Malaya Defense Zone, commanded by Lieutenant General Heath, were subjected to a massive air attack by Japanese aircraft and gradually retreated into the jungle. The situation was critical, but General Percival's command was still filled with an air of confidence. Although the RAF's Buffalo fighters had lost almost two-thirds of the first day's fighting, he still believed that the British ground forces' three-to-one advantage would be enough to stop the Japanese advance towards Singapore.

Whether or not the goal of stopping the Japanese attack can be achieved depends largely on whether the task force (Force Z), consisting of two large capital ships and four destroyers, can successfully intercept the Japanese escort ships. At this time, Vice Admiral Phillips commanded the fleet to sail northwest for this task, and he circled around the island of Anambas before heading straight to the Gulf of Siam. The sky was covered with thick clouds, and sometimes it was drizzling, and enemy planes could not detect them, and victory was very promising. At noon, a Katarina seaplane of the Royal Air Force flew in to report confirmed information: "Japanese troops have landed north of Songkhla. Phillips intended to end the battle quickly and retreat east before the Japanese had time to gather forces for a massive assault on the British. He estimated that the task force would encounter no more than two old Japanese battleships, and he would order the sailors to open fire and sink them. He confidently predicted that he would not have to wait 18 hours for the invading troops on the Japanese ships to be driven to the shallows of the beachhead, but he did not expect that in the middle of the afternoon, a Japanese patrol submarine discovered the task force, and the Japanese fleet immediately launched a large-scale sea and air search to find his warship. …,

At dusk, two surface flotilla, consisting of seven cruisers and two battleships, headed south at full speed, and the Japanese pilots searched the darkening waters of the Gulf of Siam in an attempt to launch a torpedo bombing attack before nightfall. They flew a long circle, and were ordered to withdraw without spotting the British warship, and it was already nightfall. At about 5 p.m., the British task force was also spotted by seaplanes from Japanese cruisers. And when the Japanese planes appeared, these ominous little black dots on the horizon were also spotted by the lookouts on the battleship "Prince of Wales". Phillips concluded that the battle was imminent. He abandoned his plan and decided to continue sailing north before dark in order to fool the enemy, and ordered the destroyer "Tenedos", which was running out of fuel, to sail south and wait until the next morning to make a radio message requesting fighter cover.

Shortly after 8:15 p.m., the task force turned south, and a group of Japanese cruisers came within range of their guns. Phillips gave the order to fight, and at the same time he received a telegram from his chief of staff from Singapore, justifying the wisdom of his decision to change course. The telegram reminded him that, according to intelligence, the enemy had a flying convoy in southern Indochina: "They can attack you within five hours of your discovery, depending on whether you are discovered today." ”

Despite this clear warning, Phillips was determined to destroy the Japanese cruisers in front of him, and under the powerful artillery bombardment of the "Prince of Wales" and "Counterattack", two Japanese cruisers were sunk, and three of the accompanying Japanese transports were also sunk, and the sea was covered with the corpses of Japanese soldiers, and the officers and men of the "Prince of Wales" were in high spirits when they saw all this. At this time, Rear Admiral Palize sent another telegram: "It is reported that the enemy has landed in Kuantan. "Phillips believed that the enemy must have begun a second large-scale invasion in the semi-mid-rise of the Malayan coast. In order to keep the British forces already engaged in the battle in the north from being cut off, urgent intervention was necessary.

For the remaining hours of the night, the task force sailed westward along a zigzag course across the Gulf of Siam, shaking off the Japanese submarines that were following closely behind. That evening in London, Churchill and his advisers met in the wartime basement of Whitehall. They debated for an hour, arguing about what to do with the "only key weapon in our hands" in the Far East, now that it has lost its deterrent effect. Churchill suggested that the Prince of Wales and Counter Strike should be sent to strengthen the defense of the West Coast of the United States "as a noble gesture" to bring "the English-speaking nations together." Admiral Pound wanted to transfer the warships back to the Atlantic. There was no agreement, and the meeting lasted until late at night, with no result, and it was finally decided to "leave the problem until the next day", but Churchill did not know that by waking up the next morning, the task force would be destroyed.

At this time, seven hundred soldiers of the special naval landing force of the Japanese Navy made the United States lose territory for the first time. They stormed Dungas Beach in Guam and then quickly marched to Agana. Together with a small group of U.S. Marines, the local defending troops engaged in a fierce 25-minute battle with the Japanese troops. When Admiral McMilllin, the governor of the island, learned that 5,000 Japanese troops were landing at the same time in many places around the island, he thought that any further resistance would be tantamount to suicide. Three long car horns announced a ceasefire. The two sides negotiated surrender by gesticulating, and an hour later, the Governor and his soldiers were ordered to take off their clothes, wear only a pair of shirts, and watch as the Sun Flag rises from the flagpole of the Governor's Palace. The Japanese captured Guam at the cost of 20 killed. Forty-seven U.S. troops were killed, and the remaining 300, including a naval medical care team, quickly gathered together to become the first to take prisoners and experience the humiliating treatment of prisoners of war by the Japanese. …,

When the sun rose again, 1,500 miles to the west, the Japanese began to carry out the second phase of their plan to attack the Philippines. The main obstacle to the assault by two escort assault teams was not so much the one-shot line laid out by a Philippine army brigade on the beach as the rough sea. The soldiers on 6 troop carriers, under the cover of artillery fire from 1 heavy cruiser, 2 light cruisers and 6 destroyers and 3 minesweepers, began to land. The attack of five American "B-17" bombers interrupted the landing for a time, one Japanese minesweeper was sunk, and the invading Japanese troops were driven out to sea and fled for their lives. But near dusk, the strategic airfield of Apari fell into the hands of the Japanese. The rough seas also caused another Japanese assault force to abandon its plan to land northwest of Luzon that day. The next morning, the landing operation resumed, and more than 4,000 Japanese troops forced their way ashore, breaking MacArthur's "beach defense" strategy, firmly controlling the landing area, and preparing for a full-scale invasion in the future.

When a Walrus seaplane from the British task force skimmed the coast of Malaya shortly after dawn on 20 December, no ships carrying the landing force were found in the sea a hundred miles off Kuantan. But Phillips still believed that the enemy would definitely land somewhere nearby. Pondering that the Tenedos had signaled to Singapore to provide emergency air cover more than 100 miles to the south, he ordered the task force to turn north and track down a suspiciously looking group of barges that the Counter Attack had spotted earlier.

It was a rash decision. Losing the cover of the clouds, the task force ploughed out winding channels in the calm and mirror-like sea, and observed the sea from the air, with the horizon clearly visible at both ends. The 100 Japanese pilots in the air eagerly searched the sea a hundred miles south of Anambas, and if the British warships had followed the route reported by the submarines earlier, they would have been there by this moment. Towards ten o'clock in the morning, they spotted the Tenedos. For the next half hour, the Australian Navy's veteran destroyer, ducking in a column of water from dozens of bombs, hurriedly signaled that it was being dive-bombed.

The "Prince of Wales" received a distress signal from the destroyer, making Phillips aware of the imminent mortal danger. He abandoned his plans to track down the imaginary invading forces north and ordered the fleet to change course. As the task force began its final sprint toward Singapore, he broke the radio silence and asked for air cover.

The Walrus maritime reconnaissance plane of the "Prince of Wales" was first spotted by a Japanese patrol plane at 10:15 a.m., which lured the pilots of the Japanese 22nd Air Force to pursue the task force. Some of the planes had flown south to Singapore, and the fuel level had already been lowered to the lower part of the scale, when the Japanese reconnaissance planes sent the long-awaited signal: "Enemy ship spotted 70 miles southeast of Kuantan." The pilots of the 50 torpedo bombers and 34 bombers who had been ordered to fly quickly north immediately lifted their spirits when they heard the news. On board the USS Kasaki, the crew was nervously preparing for a second attack when the first planes failed to destroy the British warship.

Shortly after 11:10 a.m., the horizon radar on the anti-aircraft batteries of the battlecruiser "Counterattack" detected the signal pulse of the first Japanese planes that were approaching, and a few minutes later the lookout could see them about 70 degrees from the left bow. The trumpeter blew his horn and ordered the sailors to enter combat positions, and the loudspeaker shouted: "Prepare to shoot!" At 11:13 a.m., 20 Japanese attack planes on the "Tien Shan" ship swooped head-on, and all of a sudden, the shells fired by the antiaircraft artillery group bloomed frequently, and brown mushroom clouds bloomed in the blue sky. The huge main guns of the battlecruisers had no effect at the moment, but every anti-aircraft gun and every machine gun was spewing angry tongues of fire at the Japanese planes that were raining shells and bullets in the air.

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