This is perhaps tangential, but since it was all part of the same operation, maybe it is fitting. We also tend to only talk about Pearl Harbor. It was but one

This is perhaps tangential, but since it was all part of the same operation, maybe it is fitting. We also tend to only talk about Pearl Harbor. It was but one piece of a much larger strategy for the Japanese. On Dec 7 or 8th over a roughly 12 hour period, Imperial Japan launched simultaneous invasions of Thailand, the Philippines, Hong Kong, what are now Indonesia and Malaysia, and a half-dozen small islands including Guam and Wake, with about a million soldiers across a theatre spanning some 8000 miles. Allied control in Asia was essentially eliminated within two months. A systematic, wilful, underestimation of the Japanese potential before their flood outwards is a theme throughout, from Pearl Harbor to "Fortress Singapore".