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This map predicted how Japan would attack the US during World War II

Jeremy Bender   

This map predicted how Japan would attack the US during World War II
Defense1 min read

On November 7, 1937 the Los Angeles Examiner published a prescient map predicting how Imperial Japan could attack the United States during World War II.

Created by Howard A. Burke, the map imagined a Japanese attack on the US that closely predicted the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor four years later on December 7, 1941. Burke rightly noted that Japan's first target would be Hawaii, and the US fleet docked at Pearl Harbor.

"The first objective must be capture of Hawaii," Burke notes on the map. "This would mean crippling or annihilating the U.S. fleet, giving Japan one of the world's greatest naval bases - Pearl Harbor."

Following that attack, Burke then imagined that Japan would follow up the assault with a two-pronged naval and aerial strike from Hawaii against Los Angeles and San Francisco, with a simultaneous Japanese assault from Alaska working its way down the Pacific Northwest.

You can see Burke's map below.

japan world war II map

Cornell University - PJ Mode Collection of Persuasive Cartography/Los Angeles Examiner

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