In the United States, December 7 is known as Pearl Harbor Day. It honors the 2,403 Americans who were killed when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7, 1941.The attack was a surprise. We were not at war with Japan, yet their planes showed up and bombed our navy ships that were docked in Hawaii and our planes that were sitting on runways there.Why did Japan do that? There are a lot of reasons, and whole books have been written about them. Let us look just at the main reason.Today, the United States and Japan are friends and have been friendly for many years. But back in 1941, we were not friends. We were not exactly enemies, either.In 1939, WWII began. Germany, Italy, and Japan (known as the Axis powers) were fighting against Great Britain, France, and China (known as the Allies).In Europe, Germany and Italy were fighting Great Britain and France. In Asia, Japan was fighting China.The United States had not joined the war yet. Some people here wanted us to join the Allies and help Britain, France, and China. Other people here wanted us to stay out of it.The United States was worried that Japan would expand its attacks and endanger other places in the South Pacific. So our government stopped doing business with Japan. We stopped selling them airplanes, machine parts, tools, and gasoline. This angered the Japanese.We thought that if Japan did attack us, two things would happen first: they would declare war against us—meaning they would send us a formal message saying we were officially enemies—and then they would attack friends of ours in Asia, such as the Dutch East Indies, Singapore, or Indochina.The Japanese government knew that if they declared war against us and attacked our friends, then our huge, powerful navy in the Pacific (known as the Pacific Fleet) would attack them. So they did two things we didn’t expect. They attacked our navy base in Hawaii, trying to destroy it, and they did it without first declaring war.Almost our entire Pacific Fleet was anchored in Pearl Harbor, an inlet, or bay, on the southern coast of Oahu Island, in Hawaii. The harbor lies just west of Hawaii’s capital, Honolulu.The United States is on one side of the Pacific Ocean, and Japan is on the other. Hawaii is around 2,000 miles from the U.S., but it’s twice that distance, about 4,000 miles, from Japan. There’s no way, we thought, they would attack that far. We were so sure our ships were safe, the area was pretty much undefended.The attack began at 7:48 a.m. Hawaiian Time on December 7, 1941. Imperial Japanese aircraft had taken off from six aircraft carriers out in the Pacific. There were 353 enemy planes of various types: bombers, dive bombers, torpedo bombers, and fighters.All eight of our battleships were damaged, and four of them were sunk. Three of our cruisers, three destroyers, an anti-aircraft training ship, and a mine-layer were also hit. More than 180 U.S. aircraft were destroyed, and 159 were damaged.The attacked killed 2,403 Americans and injured 1,178 more.We weren’t prepared for the attack on our Pacific Fleet, but the Japanese were not prepared for what happened next.The attack made the people of the United States very angry. The day after the attack, the United States declared war on Japan. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in a speech to Congress, called the bombing of Pearl Harbor “a date which will live in infamy.”Within days, all across America people were lining up, wanting to join the Navy and the Army. The United States entered World War II on the side of the Allies. Four years later, the Allies defeated Japan and the other Axis powers.In 1962, a memorial was opened in Pearl Harbor to honor the Americans who died in the attack.Though Pearl Harbor Day is not a national holiday, it’s a day when people all across our country honor those who died or were wounded in the attack. There are special ceremonies that day, such as the one held at the Pearl Harbor National Memorial in Hawaii.U.S. flags are flown at half mast.Interesting Facts• Hawaii didn’t become a state until 1959. Back in 1941, it was a U.S. territory.• Pearl Harbor Day is also called Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.• Admiral Hara Tadaichi, of the Japanese navy, later said, “We won a great tactical victory at Pearl Harbor, and thereby lost the war.”• The Pearl Harbor National Monument is built on the water above the wreckage of the U.S.S. Arizona, one of the eight battleships hit during the attack. From there you can look down and see the remains of the sunken ship 40 feet below the water.
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