At 7:55 a.m. local time on Sunday, 7 December 1941, the first Japanese dive bombers appeared over Pearl Harbor on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. In two waves, aircraft from six carriers wrecked the battleships of the U.S. Pacific Fleet and hundreds of planes on their airfields, and killed more than 2,400 Americans. The next day the United States declared war on Japan.
Two waves
A Japanese fleet built around six aircraft carriers had crossed the North Pacific to a point some 275 miles north of Hawaii, and from there it launched about 360 planes. The first dive bomber came over the harbor at 7:55 a.m., a second wave struck at 8:50, and the attackers withdrew shortly after 9:00. The raid was one part of a wider offensive: Britannica notes that the Japanese landing in Malaya began some 40 minutes earlier, and that Hong Kong, Guam, the Philippines, Wake Island and other targets were struck within a day.1
In less than ninety minutes, the National WWII Museum says, the attackers destroyed or damaged 19 American warships and 300 aircraft; Britannica gives more than 180 aircraft destroyed. The battleship Arizona sank within minutes after a bomb set off her forward magazine. The National Park Service records that 1,177 of her crew lost their lives, and that more than 900 of them still lie in the hull.2
The cost and the answer
Britannica counts 2,404 Americans killed, 68 of them civilians. The Pacific Fleet's three carriers were not in harbor, and many of the damaged ships were raised, repaired and sent back to sea.3
On 8 December, at 12:30 p.m., President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed a joint session of Congress. The Senate voted for war unanimously and the House with one dissenting vote, that of Jeannette Rankin of Montana, and Roosevelt signed the declaration of war at 4:00 that afternoon.4
The attack is told in full in our article on the attack on Pearl Harbor.5
