| 7 December 1941 Japanese Aircraft Attack Pearl Harbor |
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| In order to prevent the U.S. Navy from interfering with Japanese
ambitions in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, the Japanese Admiral Yamamoto Isoruku developed a
plan to send a task force of aircraft carriers across the Pacific Ocean. Their target was to be
the main U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Once negotiations broke down between the United
States and Japan in late November, the task force set sail from the Kurile Islands, heading toward
Hawaii.
On Sunday morning, December 7, nearly 400 Japanese aircraft attacked Pearl Harbor in two separate waves. There they found lying at anchor all of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, with the exception of the aircraft carriers Lexington and Enterprise, which had been dispatched to Wake and Midway Islands. The air strike came as a complete surprise, as Japan’s declaration of war had not yet been delivered. The first wave of planes reached their target just before 8:00 am local time, and within a few minutes they had sunk no fewer than six battleships and two light cruisers. They also destroyed a large number of U.S. aircraft before they could leave the ground. A second wave followed about an hour later, damaging another battleship and sinking three destroyers. The Japanese lost only twenty-nine aircraft in the operation. The following day President Franklin D. Roosevelt called December 7 “a date which will live in infamy,” and asked Congress for a declaration of war. Histories: Campaign Maps: Personal Accounts: Documents: Photographs: |
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