Japanese-American Claims Act
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy on the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941. The attack sank four U.S. battleships, destroyed 188 U.S. aircraft, and killed 2,403 U.S. citizens within two hours, and led to the United States joining World War II. Once the United States entered the war and anti-Japanese sentiment began to circulate, Americans increasingly reacted with racism and hostility, viewing people of Japanese descent were treated as enemies regardless of whether they were U.S. citizens. The U.S. government expressed concerns about the loyalty of the Japanese people living in America and about Japanese spies sending information to Japan. "The U.S. Department of the Treasury froze the assets of all citizens and resident aliens who were born in Japan, and the Department of Justice arrested some 1,500 religious and community leaders as potentially dangerous enemy aliens. Because many of the largest populations of Japanese Americans were in close proximity to vital war assets along the Pacific coast. The result was President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066."
Consequences of the attack on Pearl Harbor
Having been unaware of Japanese plans, Hitler was initially furious that the United States had been dragged into the war at a time when he had not yet acquired full control of continental Europe — on the very day of the Pearl Harbor attack, Hitler himself had issued his Nacht und Nebel decree, concerning the suppression of resistance activities within Nazi-occupied lands. Hitler, who had previously declared the Japanese "Honorary Aryans" claimed that "this is what happens when your allies are not Anglo-Saxons". However, he decided war with the United States was unavoidable, and the Pearl Harbor attack, the publication of Rainbow Five, and Roosevelt's post-Pearl Harbor address, which focused on European affairs as well as the situation with Japan, probably contributed to the declaration. Hitler expected the United States would soon declare war on Germany in any event. He disastrously underestimated American military production capacity, the United States' own 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 — something that would not materialize, due to existing , as well as information submitted in mid-September 1941 by the Soviets' top spy in Japan, Richard Sorge, that the Japanese armed forces were not likely to abrogate any treaties between Japan and the Soviets unless: