Pearl Harbor
Silently Japanese ships slipped into Hitokappu Bay in the Kuriles for a rendezvous. Further out the Combined Fleet increased radio chatter to draw the attention of American forces. Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, the commanding officer of the strike force would take no chance on being detected. Along this course he had all crystals removed from radios (rendering them useless) and not even garbage would be thrown out. November 23, 1941 Japanese pilots learn for the first time that they will be bombing the American base in Pearl Harbor. Admiral Yamamoto commands the commencement of the attack and the Japanese ships set out for Hawaii on the 26th of November. December 7, 1941 at 6:00 A.M. 183 Japanese Zero Fighters lift into the darkness, their exhaust shooting sparks.
December 7, 1941 "A date which will live in infamy . . ."
At 7:58 A.M. on that fateful day, American troops in Pearl Harbor were alerted to the presence of a Japanese air force, by 8:00 a.m. two battleships were dealt a fatal blows and were slowly sinking to the bottom of the shallow Hawiian bay. A second wave followed. The surprise attack, led by Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, was over before 10 A.M. The results were devastating; 18 U.S. ships were hit, and 347 aircraft destroyed or damaged. The battleship Arizona was a total wreck; the West Virginia and California were sunk; and the Nevada was heavily damaged. Neither the Arizona nor the Oklohoma would ever see service again. The California, West Virginia, and the Nevada were repaired and sent into battle. Approximately 2,400 Americans were killed-- including 1,177 permanently entombed in the Arizona, 1,300 more wounded, and 1,000 missing. Japanese losses were fewer than 100 casualties, 29 planes, and 5 midget submarines.	The Battleship Arizona after the attack on Peral Harbor. The wreckage of the Arizona is now a memorial to those who have fallen.
The Japanese scored a brilliant tactical victory to mark their entrance into World War II on the side of the Axis powers, apparently crippling U.S. naval power in the Pacific. The Japanese goal had been to destroy Battleship Row and the aircraft at Naval Air Station, Wheeler Field, and Hickam Field. However, this would prove to be a fatal plan on the part of the Japanese as they had "awakened a sleeping giant"; the surprise attack led to avid hatred of the Japanese among American citizens. These feelings were only aggravated more by the fact that Japanese ministers had sat peacefully in Washington as the attack took place, and that a Japanese "tourist" had been allowed to photo the Harbor in the weeks previous, giving the Japanese a concise schematic of the harbor's layout, and thus a precise attack plan. The only good to come from this was that the photographs last taken included all American Aircraft carriers, which by the time of the attack had fortunately been moved for exercises elsewhere. In many ways the Japanese attack had failed to cripple our military forces, due to the fact that oil storage tanks at Pearl Harbor were left untouched, as well as the naval dockyards. In less than six months the Naval Fleet was prepared to inflict the devasting blow at Midway -- America's first major victory in the Pacific War.
The burning wreckage at Pearl Harbor	Sadly, radar at Pearl Harbor had found evidence of the attack, but the results were ignored: the officers on duty believed it to be a fleet of American B-17's arriving from the West Coast. The following day President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked for a declaration of war, and received the vote in six and a half minutes, only one Representative dissenting*. From December 8, 1941 until September 2, 1945 America would be taking part in the Pacific War portion of World War II.
* The one Representative (Jeannette Rankin of Montana) dissented, not because it was felt America shouldn't be going to war. It was merely a symbolic gesture, since war should never be unanimous.