Japanese war crimes
The U.S. officially classified all 3,649 military and civilian casualties and destruction of military property at Pearl Harbor as non-combatants as there was no state of war between the U.S. and Japan when the attack occurred. Joseph B. Keenan, the chief prosecutor in the Tokyo Trials, says that the attack on Pearl Harbor not only happened without a declaration of war but was also a treacherous and deceitful act. In fact, Japan and the U.S. were still negotiating for a possible peace agreement which kept U.S. officials very distracted when Japanese planes bombed Pearl Harbor. Keenan explained the definition of a war of aggression and the criminality of the attack on Pearl Harbor:
Japanese submarine I-17
During the attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, "I-17" patrolled north of Oahu. Its mission was to reconnoiter and engage any ships that tried to sortie from Pearl Harbor. "I-17" proceeded to a patrol station off Cape Mendocino following the attack on Pearl Harbor. The 6912-ton General Petroleum tanker "SS Emidio" was sailing in ballast from Seattle, Washington en route to San Pedro, California. "I-17" hit the tanker with five shells in the early afternoon of 20 December 1941. The tanker was within sight of land, and survivors reached the Blunt Reef lightship in lifeboats. The tanker drifted north onto rocks off Crescent City, California where the wreck remained until scrapped in 1959. A scheduled shelling of American coastal cities on Christmas Eve of 1941 was canceled because of the frequency of coastal air and surface patrols.