December 7, 1941. Attacking planes from Japan came in at about 8:00 AM. At about 7:53 AM the first plane came in and hit the target that he was assigned. The second plane hit at 8:55 AM, before 9:55 AM it was over with the "Attack on Pearl Harbor." Also by 1:00 PM the carries that launched from Japan and attacked us were about 274 miles off the coast of Oahu and were on there way to back to Japan. The planes that attack Pearl Harbor left Chaos behind them. They left 2,403 dead, 188 destroyed planes also a Cripple Pacific Fleet that included 8 damaged or at least destroyed.

On Sunday afternoon as he was eating lunch, President Roosevelt just got word that Pearl Harbor got attacked. On the same day Winston Churchill called to tell him that Japan also attacked the British colonies in the southeast. Asia and Southeast would declare war on the next day. Roosevelt told Churchill that he would go before Congress the following day to ask for a declaration for war on Japan. Winston Churchill: "To have the United States at our side was to me the Greatest Joy. Now at the United States was in the war, up to the neck and in to death. So we had won after all!.... Hitler's fate was sealed. Mussolini's fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to ashes."

On the following Monday, FDR signed the Declaration of war granted by Congress, one day later both Germany Italy, as partners of Japan in the Tripartite Pact, all declared war on us the US.

As we all know, it was December 7 1941, when Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese. Of course this came as a huge shock to everyone, but through the eyes of Americans, how was this viewed?

The expected result of the attack was to cripple the U.S. Pacific Fleet for a period of up to eighteen months, preventing aggressive action imperial forces, with the fleet to later be drawn out into battle and destroyed. This goal eluded the Japanese as U.S. forces were acting aggressively in the South Pacific within 60 days and the fleet was fully effective within a year. There was never the kind of massive fleet battle that the Japanese hoped for. There were two goals for the Japanese during pearl harbor. The first goal was "To illustrate the impact that the bombing of Pearl Harbor had on those living in Green Bay, Wisconsin." And the second goal for the Japanese was "For students to understand the strategy of the Japanese during the booming of Pearl Harbor." Those were the two goals that the Japanese wanted to accomplish. They had planed to do that once they bombed Pearl Harbor. The first goal, that I said before, was going to be easy, at least that is what they thought.

This sneak attack against Hawaii brought an immediate reaction of unprecedented unity from the American people. Families from every class sent their sons and daughters to war, women joined the industrial work force, and no one was untouched by the effort to bring all of U. S. resources to bear upon the war effort. The U. S. war plans strategy had been "Europe first", but the Japanese attack caused a far greater effort to be directed early on to the pacific than would otherwise have been expected and fueled the will of the U. S. to completely defeat Japan regardless of the cost.