World War II Day by Day

Pearl Harbor, Hawaii · December 7, 1941

On this date in 1941, a quiet Sunday morning on the Hawaiian is­land of Oahu just before 8 o’clock, Japan staged a devious, vicious, un­pro­voked air and naval attack on America’s door­step, the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor and its defending Army Air Corps and Marine air­fields that dotted the harbor peri­meter. Twelve days earlier, on Novem­ber 26, over 30 vessels of the Japa­nese First Air Fleet, among them 6 air­craft carriers with over 420 em­barked planes, left Japa­nese waters on a 3,400‑mile/­5,472‑km jour­ney for a point 250 miles/­402 km north of the Hawaiian Islands. The most power­ful carrier task force yet assem­bled sailed into history under the command of 54‑year-old Vice Adm. Chūichi Nagumo.

On Decem­ber 1, Tokyo sent Nagumo the coded signal to bomb Pearl Harbor. By the after­noon of Decem­ber 7, 1941—the “Day of Infamy,” as President Franklin D. Roose­velt called the date—the heart of the Amer­i­can Pacific fleet lay burning or settled on the bottom of the har­bor, among them 8 great battle­ships. (By sheer good for­tune, the fleet’s air­craft carriers, which soon would play a deci­sive role in turning the tide against Japan at the Battle of Midway the following June, were at sea.) Over 3,500 U.S. sail­ors, Marines, air­men, sol­diers, and civil­ians lay dead, many of them en­tombed for eter­nity in ships such as the USS Ari­zona and USS Utah; another 1,178 were wounded. More than 340 Army and Navy aircraft were destroyed or damaged. On the Japa­nese side, losses were modest: 64 airmen killed, 5 vessels sunk, and 29 planes destroyed.

The sur­prise attack over 8 decades ago began a non­stop on­slaught of Japa­nese con­quests that brought down Ameri­can, British, French, and Dutch flags through­out South­east Asia and the Paci­fic. Yes, Pearl Har­bor was the most devas­ta­ting mili­tary assault in Amer­i­can his­tory and a stun­ning tacti­cal vic­tory for the Japa­nese mili­tarists. But Pearl Harbor also spelled Japan’s doom, just like Adolf Hitler’s and Benito Musso­lini’s decla­ra­tions of war against the U.S. 4 days later effec­tively spelled their coun­tries’ doom. The aroused U.S., with deep pock­ets of wealth, in­dus­trial power, and pro­spec­tive mili­tary strength, was now allied with tiny em­battled Great Britain against the am­bi­tious and autho­ri­tarian des­pots in Tokyo, Berlin, and Rome. Within 3 years, U.S. forces were knocking down the doors of Japan’s and Germany’s home fortresses to their nations’ grief.

Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941, the Day of Infamy

Above: Route of the Japanese Pearl Harbor Striking Force to and from Pearl Harbor (bold black). Routes of U.S. car­riers Enter­prise (red) and Lexing­ton (blue) in early Decem­ber are shown to the west of the Hawaiian Islands. After launching its air and sea attack on Pearl Harbor with over­whelming force, the Japa­nese carrier task force sailed away undetected and virtually unscathed.

Left: Photograph from a Japanese plane of Pearl Harbor’s Battle­ship Row at the beginning of the attack. The explo­sion in the cen­ter is a torpedo strike on the USS Okla­homa. Two attacking Japa­nese planes can barely be seen—one over the USS Neosho, a fleet oiler, and one over the Naval Yard. Of 8 battleships in the harbor, the attack destroyed the USS Arizona, sank the USS Cali­fornia and the USS West Virginia at their moorings, and caused the USS Okla­homa to capsize. The USS Nevada was forced to beach and 3 were damaged but remained afloat. Addi­tionally, the attack severely damaged 9 other war­ships, destroyed 188 air­craft, and killed 2,335 U.S. service­men and 68 civilians. The greatest loss of life occurred aboard the USS Arizona, which lost 1,177 sailors and Marines; just 335 men survived the attack.

Right: Hit by an armor-piercing bomb, the forward maga­zines of the USS Arizona exploded, sending the battle­ship to the harbor bottom just 14 minutes after the Japa­nese attack began. The supporting struc­ture of the forward tripod mast col­lapsed after the maga­zine exploded. The Arizona burned for 2 days. Today the sunken ship is a war memo­rial that com­memo­rates the “initial defeat and ulti­mate victory” of all lives lost on December 7, 1941.

Left: The battleship USS California is seen slowly sinking along­side Ford Island, Pearl Harbor, as a result of bomb and torpedo damage that killed 100. The destroyer USS Shaw burns in the floating dry dock in the left dis­tance. The battle­ship USS Nevada is beached in the left-cen­ter dis­tance, having lost 60 men in the attack. The California returned to service in Janu­ary 1944, the Shaw in June 1942, and the Nevada in October 1942.

Right: The battleship USS West Virginia took 2 aerial bombs, both duds, and 7 tor­pedo hits into her port side, one of which may have come from a Japa­nese mid­get sub­marine. Sailors in a motor launch are pic­tured rescuing a sur­vivor from the water along­side the sunken ship during or shortly after the attack, which killed 106 men. The West Virginia returned to ser­vice in July 1944. She and the light cruiser USS Detroit were the only Pearl Harbor sur­vi­vors to take up station in Tokyo Bay the next Septem­ber when Japan signed the sur­ren­der docu­ment. The battle­ship USS Tennes­see, which lost 5 sea­men in the attack, is visible behind the West Virginia. The Tennessee returned to service in February 1942, rejoining the fleet in June.

Left: Admiral Husband E. Kimmel’s flagship, the battleship USS Penn­syl­vania, can be seen in dry dock behind the wrecked destroyers USS Downes and USS Cassin at the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard soon after the end of the Japa­nese air attack. The Cassin capsized against the Downes. The torpedo-damaged crui­ser USS Helena can be seen in the right dis­tance beyond the crane. In the cen­ter dis­tance is the cap­sized Okla­homa with the USS Maryland along­side. The smoke is from the sunken and burning Arizona, out of view behind the Penn­syl­vania. The California is par­tially visible at the extreme left. The Pennsylvania, which lost several dozen men while fending off enemy air­craft with anti­air­craft fire, under­went imme­di­ate repairs at the Puget Sound Naval Ship­yard and was over­hauled in San Fran­cisco’s Mare Island Naval Ship­yard. The war­ship returned to active service in March 1942.

Right: Hit by 6 bombs and 1 torpedo, which killed 60 men, the battle­ship USS Nevada is seen attempting to escape from the har­bor. The crew beached the ship, which returned to service in October 1942.

Left: Japanese aircrews bombed and strafed Navy air bases at Kaneohe Bay and Ford Island, in the cen­ter of Pearl Har­bor; Army Air Corps fields at Bellows, Wheeler, and Hickam (shown here); and the Ewa Marine airfield. A total of 188 aircraft were destroyed and 159 damaged.

Right: A destroyed U.S. Army Air Forces Boeing B-17C Flying For­tress rests near a hangar at Hickam Field, Decem­ber 7, 1941. Flown from California to Hickam, it arrived during the attack. On its final approach, the air­craft’s magne­sium flare box was hit by Japa­nese strafing and ignited. The burning plane sepa­rated upon landing. The crew survived the crash.

Frank Capra’s “Why We Fight,” U.S. Government World War II Propaganda Series