Attack on Pearl Harbor
At 7:55 a.m. on 7 December 1941, a Japanese carrier task force launched 353 aircraft in two waves against the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, sinking four battleships, damaging four more, destroying 188 aircraft, and killing 2,403 Americans — the deadliest surprise attack in US history. Admiral Yamamoto, who had planned the operation while expressing private doubt about its strategic wisdom, had hoped to cripple American naval power for six months. The raid missed its most important targets: all three Pacific Fleet carriers were at sea. The following day, President Roosevelt addressed a joint session of Congress, calling 7 December 'a date which will live in infamy,' and the United States declared war on Japan. Germany and Italy declared war on the US three days later, bringing America into the European war simultaneously. Churchill, who had spent two years trying to draw the US into the conflict, later wrote: 'So we had won after all.' Pearl Harbor transformed the war from a European and Asian conflict into a genuinely global one, and from one America could stay out of into one it could not afford to lose.
- Year: 1941 CE
- Category: Military
