Operation Hawaii

In all, 21 ships were labeled damaged or sunk after the attack. Nine of them were still afloat and were either quickly repaired for frontline duty or sent to the U.S. West Coast for repairs and new equipment. But another 12 were sunk, and some of those were even declared lost.

A major flaw with the choice of that date, however, was that some of the highest-value targets—the American aircraft carriers—were absent from the Pearl Harbor. The USS Lexington, USS Enterprise, and USS Saratoga were on missions that kept them at sea on the day of the attack.

Japan. Japanese civilians were more likely to view the actions of Pearl Harbor as a justified reaction to the economic embargo by western countries. Not only were the Japanese more aware of the embargo’s existence, but they were also more likely to view the action as the critical point of American hostility.

The conventional wisdom held that the Japanese would try to seize the resources of Southeast Asia and perhaps attack the Philippines. Other analysts predicted an attack on the South Soviet Union. A Pearl Harbor attack was ruled out because it was believed the Japanese lacked the capacity to mount such an operation.

On the morning of 7 December 1941, at 7.55am local time, 183 aircraft of the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked the United States Naval base at Pearl Harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. Within two hours, 18 US warships had been sunk or damaged, 188 aircraft destroyed and 2,403 American servicemen and women killed.

The Japanese Attacked Pearl Harbor. President Franklin Roosevelt called December 7, 1941, “a date which will live in infamy.” On that day, Japanese planes attacked the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Territory. The bombing killed more than 2,300 Americans.