Attack on Pearl Harbor



On December 7th, 1941 the Japanese sent out a surprise attack on the naval military base on Pearl Harbor, they sent a fleet of planes and began an attack on the US ships and everything else. There’s was a message telling about the closing in of planes, but they thought they were American planes, and so they began getting attack. The Japanese sank ships with heavy artillery, it was catastrophic. The US defended but was devastated. That event pulled the US into WW2.

Allies side
At 0755 local time, Japan launched a surprise attack and dropped high-explosive and inflammable bombs on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, the third largest and chief island in Hawaii. During the first wave, between 50 to 150 planes struck the naval base for 25 minutes causing several fires and “untold damage”, followed by the second strike at 0900 when a force of at least 100 planes pounded the base for an hour. The Japanese bombers and torpedo-carrying planes mainly targeted warships, aircrafts and military installations. In all, 6 Japanese airplanes were shot down, and 4 submarines were sunk by the US forces, but unfortunately, around 104 army personnel were killed and 300 were wounded in the raid. As soon as the news of invasion was out, the US president, Franklin D Roosevelt, mobilized all his forces and prepared to declare war on Japan. Although at the time, the attack shocked the American people it was in fact expected as Japanese relations with the United States have started to decline since 1931 when Japan conquered Manchuria in northern China and again, last year, when the US forced trade permits on Japan. The conflicts that have resulted over the last decade have intensified until Japan’s fury finally proclaimed war.

Japanese perspective
At 0700 the Japanese left the carriers and began flying over the ocean and began getting closer to Pearl Harbor. After an hour and 45 minutes they could see a clear view of the battleships and at 0749 they got the message to being their attack. They dropped bombs and spread out throughout the place; some went for the boats and some for the fields. At 0800 there were no enemy planes there. They began receiving fire from the ships but they still manage to sink most of them down. The mission was a success, even though some of their planes were shut down. The people at Pearl Harbor were shocked and terrorized, and the whole time their command on the air was unchallenged.