John Mantha - What Was Pearl Harbor?

In memory of Uncle Jack Conway, navy man in the
Pacific, and to my beloved Aunt HelenPBD

For my wife, Leanne JM

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What Was Pearl Harbor?

December 7, 1941

It was another bright and beautiful Sunday at Pearl Harbor. Nearly every day was lovely on the Hawaiian island of Oahu.

In 1941, Pearl Harbor was home to a giant military base. Altogether, eighteen thousand US Navy and US Army men were based there. More than one hundred warships docked at the harbor. The fleet included eight massive battleships, armored and armed to the hilt. Most of them stretched the length of two football fields. There were airfields scattered around the island, too, filled with hundreds of American warplanes.

The American sailors and airmen were training hard in case the United States joined World War II. The war, however, seemed far away. All the fighting was in Europe and Africa.

The only threat in the Pacific was from Japan. Lately, tensions had grown between Japan and America. But peace talks were underway. So on this December morning, the men at Pearl Harbor were thinking about their Sunday plans, not war.

At 7:55 a.m. sailors on every ship were getting ready to raise the flag. Aboard the battleship Nevada, a navy band lined up to play The Star Spangled Banner. Some of the band members saw planes in the distance. They were flying low to the ground. It seemed odd, but the men thought little of it. US pilots were probably having drills.

The planes, however, kept coming straight toward the harbor. That was even odder. Some in the band started to feel nervous. What was going on?

Then, just as the band began playing, fighter planes flew directly over the harborand they started dropping bombs!

One plane dove over the Nevada and started spraying the band with bullets. The band saw a red sun on its wings, the symbol of Japan. All doubts vanished: This was a Japanese attack!

For just a moment, the players lost the beat. But they refused to stop in the middle of their national anthem. They played to the endthen raced for cover! Amazingly, no bullets hit them.

Thousands of others were not so lucky. All around the Nevada, American sailors were dying as battleships exploded.

The Japanese were hammering Pearl Harbor in an air attack. They had caught the United States by complete surprise. By the time the attack ended a couple of hours later, 2,402 Americans were dead.

The events of that day plunged the United States into World War II, a war that would not end until the summer of 1945.

December 7, 1941, at Pearl Harbor became a day burned forever into Americas memory.

Pearl Harbor

Pearl Harbor is on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. (At the time of the attack, Hawaii was a US territory. It would become the fiftieth US state in 1959.) Besides the harbor itself, there were shipyards, airfields, power plants, barracks, office buildings, and a navy hospital with a thousand beds.

In the middle of the harbor was Ford Island. Seven battleshipsthe pride of the US Pacific Fleetwere anchored together on the eastern side of the island, lined up neatly in what was called Battleship Row. These ships were the Arizona, California, Maryland, Nevada, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and West Virginia. On the day of the attack, a repair ship called the Vestal was also there, moored beside the Arizona. The battleship Pennsylvania was dry-docked nearby.

Battleship Row was the prime target of Japanese torpedo pilots.

CHAPTER 1
Becoming Enemies

While bombs fell on Pearl Harbor, one seaman exclaimed, I didnt even know [the Japanese] were sore at us!

Until the attack, many Americans had not realized that Japan and America were becoming bitter enemies. The enemy on most peoples minds was Adolf Hitler. Hitler was the ruthless dictator of Nazi Germany. His aim was to conquer all the democracies of Europe.

In 1939, Hitler had started World War II when his troops stormed into Poland. Immediately, Britain and France declared war on Germany.