I was wondering if anyone could help me!
I'm not too hot on my WW2 knowledge and i've only jsut seen Pearl Harbour! I loved the film thought it was great but i was a bit confused at why the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour in the first place?! i get the fact that a whole US fleet was there and stuff, but if America weren't in the war it didnt seem to me that Japanese should have a problem with the Americans?! Were the Japanese on the German side?!

Hope someone can clear this all up for me!!

one i doubt that the film is much help in the historical factor of things.

Put simpley the Japanese attacked pearl habour because they decided on expanding East instead of west due to problems defeating China. This meant that they would eventully have come in to conflict with the US. Thus they decided to try and deliever a knock out blow as quickly as possible because the US would be able to build things quicker than them. Un/fortually the US Airship carriers were out to sea so the attack merely delayed the turning of the tide.

As for the Japanese been allies with the Nazis, this was the case although it had little postive effect for Germany because once they declared war on US, the US decided to fight on in Europe. The only advantage the Germans could have got with an alliance with the Japanese would have been if the japanese had attacked Russia at the other end at the same time the Germans attacked however this didnt happen.