Attack On Pearl Harbor

Pearl Harbor The people of America learned about the attack on Pearl Harbor late in the day on December 7, 1941. They learned while listening to a radio broadcast of the Dodger-Giant football game. Ward Cuff had just returned a Brooklyn kickoff to the twenty-seven yard line when the announcer interrupted: The Japanese had just attacked Pearl Harbor. Half of America learned of the attack during this announcement, while the other half learned during the New York Philharmonic Concert at Carnegie Hall around half an hour later. Before this tragic event occurred, in 1940, the U.S. moved their Pacific fleet to the Pearl Harbor base in Oahu, Hawaii. On the morning of December 7, 1941, the Japanese released bombs in an effort to destroy Pearl Harbor.

The attack on Pearl Harbor was a tragedy. On November 26, 1941 Japanese warships set sail towards Pearl Harbor. On November 27, the U.S. was warned to be careful and to be ready. None of the efforts to warn the U.S. worked. On December 7, 1941 the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. The Japanese sent six aircraft carriers, two battleships, two heavy carriers, six destroyers, and several submarines. "Now it was 7:58 A.M.—two minutes to go—and planes started coming in low from Southeast Loch. Heavy muffled explosions began booming down the line...enough to worry anyone. And then it was eight o'clock the band crashed into 'The Star-Spangled Banner'" (Lord 67). When the band of planes crashed into the Star-Spangled Banner, the United States was offended. This was an insult to their way of living and on what their country was founded on. The worst part of it all is that many people didn't know what to do, they just had to sit there and wait. "I heard a lot of commotion; I could hear planes. I awoke and I could see a plane—it looked like it was only fifty feet off the water—coming from Merry's Point landing and flying directly over our ship" (Marcello 49). The attack on Pearl Harbor destroyed most of the U.S.'s fleet of ships, but three of the ships were salvaged. Even though the USS Arizona, the USS Oklahoma, and the USS Utah were all salvaged, the families that were destroyed can never be