Pearl Harbor Attack Essay, Research Paper
The Pearl Harbor Attack, 7 December 1941
Related Resources:
Ships Present at Pearl Harbor, 0800 7 December 1941
Action Reports for commands and ships at Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor Attack message
Cryptologic Histories relating to the Pearl Harbor Attack
Related Web Sites on the Pearl Harbor Attack
The road to war between Japan and the United States began in the 1930s when differences over China drove the two
nations apart. In 1931 Japan conquered Manchuria, which until then had been part of China. In 1937 Japan began a
long and ultimately unsuccessful campaign to conquer the rest of China. In 1940, the Japanese government allied their
country with Nazi Germany in the Axis Alliance, and, in the following year, occupied all of Indochina.
The United States, which had important political and economic interests in East Asia, was alarmed by these Japanese
moves. The U.S. increased military and financial aid to China, embarked on a program of strengthening its military
power in the Pacific, and cut off the shipment of oil and other raw materials to Japan.
Because Japan was poor in natural resources, its government viewed these steps, especially the embargo on oil as a
threat to the nation’s survival. Japan’s leaders responded by resolving to seize the resource-rich territories of Southeast
Asia, even though that move would certainly result in war with the United States.
The problem with the plan was the danger posed by the U.S. Pacific Fleet based at Pearl Harbor. Admiral Isoroku
Yamamoto, commander of the Japanese fleet, devised a plan to immobilize the U.S. fleet at the outset of the war with
a surprise attack.
The key elements in Yamamoto’s plans were meticulous preparation, the achievement of surprise, and the use of
aircraft carriers and naval aviation on an unprecedented scale. In the spring of 1941, Japanese carrier pilots began
training in the special tactics called for by the Pearl Harbor attack plan.
In October 1941 the naval general staff gave final approval to Yamamoto’s plan, which called for the formation of an
attack force commanded by Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo. It centered around six heavy aircraft carriers
accompanied by 24 supporting vessels. A separate group of submarines was to sink any American warships which
escaped the Japanese carrier force.
Nagumo’s fleet assembled in the remote anchorage of Tankan Bay in the Kurile Islands and departed in strictest
secrecy for Hawaii on 26 November 1941. The ships’ route crossed the North Pacific and avoided normal shipping
lanes. At dawn 7 December 1941, the task force had approached undetected to a point slightly more than 200 miles
north of Oahu.
At 6:00 a.m., the six carriers launched a first wave of 181 planes composed of torpedo bombers, dive bombers,
horizontal bombers and fighters. Even as they winged south, some elements of U.S. forces on Oahu realized there was
something different about this Sunday morning.
In the hours before dawn, U.S. Navy vessels spotted an unidentified submarine periscope near the entrance to Pearl
Harbor. It was attacked and reported sunk by the destroyer USS Ward (DD-139) and a patrol plane. At 7:00 a.m.,
an alert operator of an Army radar station at Opana spotted the approaching first wave of the attack force. The
officers to whom those reports were relayed did not consider them significant enough to take action. The report of the
submarine sinking was handled routinely, and the radar sighting was passed off as an approaching group of American
planes due to arrive that morning.
The Japanese aircrews achieved complete surprise when they hit American ships and military installations on Oahu
shortly before 8:00 a.m. They attacked military airfields at the same time they hit the fleet anchored in Pearl Harbor.
The Navy air bases at Ford Island and Kaneohe Bay, the Marine airfield at Ewa and the Army Air Corps fields at
Bellows, Wheeler and Hickam were all bombed and strafed as other elements of the attacking force began their
assaults on the ships moored in Pearl Harbor. The purpose of the simultaneous attacks was to destroy the American
planes before they could rise to intercept the Japanese.
Of the more than 90 ships at anchor in Pearl Harbor, the primary targets were the eight battleships anchored there.
seven were moored on Battleship Row along the southeast shore of Ford Island while the USS Pennsylvania
(BB-38) lay in drydock across the channel. Within the first minutes of the attack all the battleships adjacent to Ford
Island had taken bomb and or torpedo hits. The USS West Virginia (BB-48) sank quickly. The USS Oklahoma
(BB-37) turned turtle and sank. At about 8:10 a.m., the USS Arizona (BB-39) was mortally wounded by an
armorpiercing bomb which ignited the ship’s forward ammunition magazine. The resulting explosion and fire killed
1,177 crewmen, the greatest loss of life on any ship that day and about half the total number of Americans killed. The
USS California (BB-44), USS Maryland (BB-46), USS Tennessee (BB-43) and USS Nevada (BB-36) also
suffered varying degrees of damage in the first half hour of the raid.
There was a short lull in the fury of the attack at about 8:30 a.m. At that time the USS Nevada (BB-36), despite her
wounds, managed to get underway and move down the channel toward the open sea. Before she could clear the
harbor, a second wave of 170 Japanese planes, launched 30 minutes after the first, appeared over the harbor. They
concentrated their attacks on the moving battleship, hoping to sink her in the channel and block the narrow entrance to
Pearl Harbor. On orders from the harbor control tower, the USS Nevada (BB-36) beached herself at Hospital Point
and the channel remained clear.
When the attack ended shortly before 10:00 a.m., less than two hours after it began, the American forces has paid a
fearful price. Twenty-one ships of the U.S. Pacific Fleet were sunk or damaged: the battleships USS Arizona
(BB-39), USS California (BB-44), USS Maryland (BB-46), USS Nevada (BB-36), USS Oklahoma (BB-37),
USS Pennsylvania (BB-38), USS Tennessee (BB-43) and USS West Virginia (BB-48); cruisers USS Helena
(CL-50), USS Honolulu (CL-48) and USS Raleigh (CL-7); the destroyers USS Cassin (DD-372), USS Downes
(DD-375), USS Helm (DD-388) and USS Shaw (DD-373); seaplane tender USS Curtiss (AV-4); target ship
(ex-battleship) USS Utah (AG-16); repair ship USS Vestal (AR-4); minelayer USS Oglala (CM-4); tug USS
Sotoyomo (YT-9); and Floating Drydock Number 2. Aircraft losses were 188 destroyed and 159 damaged, the
majority hit before the had a chance to take off. American dead numbered 2,403. That figure included 68 civilians,
most of them killed by improperly fused anti-aircraft shells landing in Honolulu. There were 1,178 military and civilian
wounded.
Japanese losses were comparatively light. Twenty-nine planes, less than 10 percent of the attacking force, failed to
return to their carriers.
The Japanese success was overwhelming, but it was not complete. They failed to damage any American aircraft
carriers, which by a stroke of luck, had been absent from the harbor. They neglected to damage the shoreside
facilities at the Pearl Harbor Naval Base, which played an important role in the Allied victory in World War II.
American technological skill raised and repaired all but three of the ships sunk or damaged at Pearl Harbor (the USS
Arizona (BB-39) considered too badly damaged to be salvaged, the USS Oklahoma (BB-37) raised and
considered too old to be worth repairing, and the obsolete USS Utah (AG-16) considered not worth the effort).
Most importantly, the shock and anger caused by the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor united a divided nation and was
translated into a wholehearted commitment to victory in World War II.