On December 7, 1941, America’s service members and civilians awoke on a quiet Sunday to the surprise attack by Japanese forces on Pearl Harbor. More than 3,500 Americans were killed or wounded in the attack that united a nation.
You can view a short film on Pearl Harbor on YouTube as part of the U.S. Navy Heritage Mini-Series. The Naval History & Heritage Command, the official history program of the Department of the Navy, has photographs, a digital artifact gallery, oral histories from survivors of the attack and official action reports available on the Pearl Harbor Raid 7 December 1941 website.
Before dawn on December 7, 1941, the Japanese fleet approached undetected to a point slightly more than 200 miles north of Oahu. At 6:00 am, the six Japanese carriers launched a first wave of 181 planes composed of torpedo bombers, dive bombers, horizontal bombers and fighters. At 7:00 am, an operator of an Army radar station at Opana spotted the approaching first wave of the attack. Unfortunately, the officers who received the reports did not consider them significant enough to take action. As a result, the Japanese achieved complete surprise when they hit the ships and military installations at Pearl Harbor shortly
before 8:00 am. They attacked Navy air bases, Marine airfields and Army Air Corps fields at the same time they hit the fleet anchored in Pearl Harbor to destroy American planes before they could take off and stop the Japanese.
The second wave of the attack began shortly after 8:30 am when 170 Japanese planes appeared in the harbor. The second wave continued to attack ships and airfields.
When the attack ended just before 10:00 am, the American forces station at Pearl Harbor suffered devastating losses. Twenty-one ships of the U.S. Pacific Fleet were sunk or damaged, 188 aircraft were lost and 159 aircraft damaged. In comparison, the Japanese lost twenty-nine planes. A fact sheet with detailed information on American losses is available from the U.S. Navy Museum.
On December 8, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered a Presidential Address to a Joint Session of Congress. President Roosevelt opened the speech with the famous words, “Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.” To end the speech, President Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan and it passed within an hour. You can view a video of the speech by clicking here.
Every year on December 7, we remember the attack on Pearl Harbor. America honors the sacrifices of our service men and women who lost their lives on that fateful day.
