December 7: On This Day in World History … briefly
A Japanese task force launched a massive attack on the US base at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii. Even though intelligence reports had warned of Japanese fleet movements in the Hawaii area, the US base was completely unprepared.
1941: Japan attacks Pearl Harbour
The attack on Pearl Harbour was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbour, Hawaii Territory, on the morning of December 7, 1941. The attack, also known as the Battle of Pearl Harbour, led to the United States’ entry into World War II. The Japanese military leadership referred to the attack as the Hawaii Operation and Operation AI, and as Operation Z during its planning.
Japan intended the attack as a preventative action to keep the US Pacific Fleet from interfering with its planned military actions in Southeast Asia against overseas territories of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the United States. Over the course of seven hours there were coordinated Japanese attacks on the US-held Philippines, Guam and Wake Island and on the British Empire in Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong.
The attack commenced at 7.48am Hawaiian Time (18.18 GMT). The base was attacked by 353 Imperial Japanese aircraft (including fighters, level and dive bombers, and torpedo bombers) in two waves, launched from six aircraft carriers. All eight US Navy battleships were damaged, with four sunk. All but the USS Arizona were later raised, and six were returned to service and went on to fight in the war.
The Japanese also sank or damaged three cruisers, three destroyers, an anti-aircraft training ship, and one minelayer. One hundred eighty-eight US aircraft were destroyed; 2 403 Americans were killed and 1 178 others were wounded. Important base installations such as the power station, dry dock, shipyard, maintenance, and fuel and torpedo storage facilities, as well as the submarine piers and headquarters building (also home of the intelligence section), were not attacked. Japanese losses were light: 29 aircraft and five midget submarines lost, and 64 servicemen killed. One Japanese sailor, Kazuo Sakamaki, was captured.
The surprise attack came as a profound shock to the American people and led directly to the American entry into World War II in both the Pacific and European theatres. The following day, December 8, the United States declared war on Japan, and several days later, on December 11, Germany and Italy each declared war on the US. The US responded with a declaration of war against Germany and Italy. Domestic support for non-interventionism, which had been fading since the Fall of France in 1940, disappeared.
There were numerous historical precedents for unannounced military action by Japan, but the lack of any formal warning, particularly while negotiations were still apparently ongoing, led President Franklin D Roosevelt to proclaim December 7, 1941, ‘a date which will live in infamy’. Because the attack happened without a declaration of war and without explicit warning, the attack on Pearl Harbour was later judged in the Tokyo Trials to be a war crime.
Most notable historic snippets or facts extracted from the book ‘On This Day’ first published in 1992 by Octopus Publishing Group Ltd, London, as well as additional supplementary information extracted from Wikipedia.
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