PEARL HARBOR

Pearl Harbor

PEARL HARBOR

Introduction

For more than sixty years now, "Pearl Harbor" has been one of the most famous place names in United States history. On Sunday, December 7, 1941, one of the most carefully planned and devastating military attacks ever made on a nation at peace occurred at Pearl Harbor, Oahu, in what was then the US Territory of Hawaii. Most people in the continental United States had never heard of Pearl Harbor before that time.

At 7:45 AM, US Navy personnel of the Pacific fleet docked in the harbor heard a shattering sound overhead as bombs fell from the sky. Japanese planes came in two waves, first bombing the battleships in the harbor, then the supporting cruisers and destroyers, followed by the military airfields near the shore. By 9:55 that morning 2,390 people were dead, 1178 more were wounded, and the Pacific fleet was crippled with 21 ships sunk, beached, or damaged, and 323 airplanes damaged or destroyed. (Dorsey, 2009)

That Monday President Franklin D. Roosevelt stood before Congress, declared December 7, 1941 "a date that will live in infamy," and asked for a Declaration of War against Japan. The following day, Germany and Italy, Japan's allies, declared war on the United States, and Americans were plunged into World War II, shouting the slogan "Remember Pearl Harbor!" (Daniel, 2003)

Geography and Early History

In the nineteenth century, Pearl Harbor, six miles west of Honolulu on the south coast of Oahu, was a beautiful inlet. It was though fifty to sixty feet deep, it was useless for navigation since it was landlocked, being separated from the ocean by a sandbar ten feet wide. In 1887, however, the United States saw the possibilities of the site and negotiated with Hawaii's King Kamehameha for exclusive rights to develop a repair and cooling station in the inlet. American engineers removed the bar, and the inlet became a modest working harbor. In 1898, when the US annexed Hawaii, Pearl Harbor was envisioned as a naval base. Engineers dredged the harbor entrance, scraping away sandbar and coral reef to a depth of thirty-five feet, and finally completed the work in 1911. (Dorsey, 2009)

In 1939, as war encompassed Europe and Japan threatened from the East, the United States improved its defenses in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. It was decided that Pearl Harbor would be America's "Gibraltar of the Pacific," acting as the home port for the Pacific fleet. New dry-dock and repair facilities were built and were in use by 1940, and the bulk of the fleet -- eight battleships, nine cruisers, 29 destroyers, and five submarines -- was in the harbor at the time of the Japanese attack. (Horn, 2005)

The two battleships most badly damaged were the Oklahoma and the Arizona. The Oklahoma was hit by five torpedoes and capsized and 429 men were lost. During the days following the attack, rescuers hacked open the hull of the capsized Oklahoma, reclaiming thirty-two survivors. A torpedo hit the Arizona at 8:05 AM, followed by eight bombs, sinking the ...