Pearl Harbor

It was a Sunday morning. Many sailors were still sleeping in their quarters, aboard their ships. Some were sleeping on land.

At 7:02 a.m. at the Opana Radar Station on Oahu, privates Joseph Lockhard & George Elliott saw something on their screen. It looked like a lot of planes flying toward them. Opana's was the only radar turned on just then, and it was on only for training. The other radar stations had been turned off. It was standard procedure.

Following standard procedure, Lockhard and Elliott reported what they saw. The commanding officer on duty knew that a squadron of American planes was due in from California about the same time. Reasoning that what Lockhard and Elliott saw was that squadron of American planes, the commanding officer told the two privates not to worry.

What they didn't know and what nobody in America knew was that Japanese planes had taken off at 6 a.m. from aircraft carriers 230 miles away. What nobody in America thought was possible was happening: The Japanese were attacking Pearl harbor.

At 7:55, the Japanese attacked with deadly force. The first wave of 183 planes dropped bombs and fired bullets at the almost defenseless American ships in Pearl Harbor and planes at three nearby airfields. A second wave of 167 planes followed about an hour later. American sailors fought back, struggling to get their planes off the ground and fire their guns at targets they couldn't quite see.

A fleet of midget submarines was also part of the Japanese attack. These subs dropped deadly torpedoes, which had been modified with wooden fins to run their course in the shallow waters of Pearl Harbor.

In a little more than two hours, the Japanese had sunk 21 ships and killed more than 2,000 Americans. It was a devastating blow.

However, the American aircraft carriers were not in port. They were out to sea. As later results would prove, the aircraft carrier was the dominant ship in the navy. By not sinking the American carriers, the Japanese left the American left fleet largely intact. Of the 21 ships that were sunk on December 7, 1941, all but three were eventually refitted and sailed again under the American flag during the war.

When U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan the day after the attack, the answer was a resounding yes. An American that had been deeply divided over how much aid to give the Allies was not united in a common purpose: make the Japanese pay for their attack and rid the world of Nazism and Fascism.

Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto, who had planned the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, had studied at Harvard University and knew well the temperament and capabilities of the American people. He had warned others in the Japanese government that for the Pearl Harbor attack to succeed, it must be a crushing blow.

The attack was devastating, yes, but it wasn't a crushing blow. Moreover, it gave the American soldiers and their families a rallying cry that carried them through to the end of the war: "Remember Pearl Harbor."

Watch this video about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

This clip is from the fictionalized Pearl Harbor movie but it illustrates well how unprepared we were for an attack. 

Here is FDR's speech stating that America was entering the war. 

Comment on the blog: What new thing did you learn about the attack on Pearl Harbor?