Pearl Harbor

Just before 8:00 on Sunday morning, December 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy commenced a surprise air and submarine attack against the military forces of the United States stationed on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. Japan’s strategic goal for the attack was to prevent the United States from interfering with Japan’s expansionist plans in the Western Pacific and Southeast Asia by crippling the U.S. Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor.

The Japanese First Air Fleet strike force of six aircraft carriers had sailed on November 26, 1941, from the southern Kurile Islands and reached a point north of the Hawaiian Islands early on December 7. A total of 353 Japanese aircraft in two waves sank or damaged eight battleships and nearly a dozen other ships in Pearl ...