Peral Harbor Day

Pearl Harbor is a U.S. Navy base in Hawaii. On December 7th, 1941, Japanese airplanes bombed Pearl Harbor, which was not then a state, but a U.S. territory. The United States was taken completely by surprise. Hundreds of Japanese fighter planes targeted the U.S. fighter planes on the ground, in order to prevent them from taking off and fighting back. Japanese bombers dropped bombs and torpedoes on the U.S. war ships. The attack came in two waves, and many U.S. ships, fighter planes, and other aircraft were destroyed. This attack was the reason that the U.S. entered World War II.

Most of Europe had already been fighting for two years at the time of this attack, and the U.S. had tried to stay neutral. But Japan feared that having U.S. Navy ships so close to Asia would interfere with their plans to take over other countries and add them to the Japanese empire. They feared that the U.S. would attack them, and hoped that by destroying the U.S. war ships, they could prevent any attack. Instead, the U.S. declared war on Japan. Three days later, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States.

Japan suffered relatively few casualties during the Pearl Harbor attack, though they did lose some aircraft and a few ships. A few thousand Americans were killed that day, including over 1,100 U.S. military personnel that were on board a ship called the Arizona. The Japanese did a lot of damage to the U.S. fleet. They damaged warships, destroyers, cruisers, fighter planes, and aircraft. Three ships — the Arizona, the Utah, and the Oklahoma — were destroyed, but the others were repairable, and the U.S. Navy recovered quickly. No aircraft carriers were destroyed in the attack, and aircraft carriers were soon playing a critical role in the war. Neither had the attack damaged important facilities on the Hawaiian Islands like oil storage depots and repair yards.