We all know that on the December 7, 1941 Japan bombed the US naval base in Honolulu, Hawaii right before 8 a.m. It was a damaging 2 hour fight. 20 American ships were destroyed. 8 of the ships were important battleships. 200 American airplanes were also taken down. Overall 2,000 Americans died and 1,000 were injured. FDR then declared war on Japan for the grueling attack.
The attack was soon to happen anyways, because the US and Japan were verging on war for many years. The main conflict that the US had with Japan at the time was their hatred towards China. Japan was trying to take over parts of China and declared war in 1937. The US began to hold trade back from Japan. In meeting neither the US or Japan could come to agreements.
The US was expecting an attack from Japan. The US didn’t think the attack would be so close. Japan is 4,000 miles away from Hawaii. Pearl Harbor was undefended at the time of the attack and was not ready for an attack like this.
Japan’s goal was to destroy the US Pacific Fleet. This way the US couldn’t fight against them in the Southern Pacific. Japan had planes loaded with bombs. The USS Arizona was destroyed by an 1800 pound bomb. Then the USS Oklahoma was attacked with torpedoes. The ships that were destroyed in Pearl Harbor were the USS Arizona, USS Oklahoma, USS West Virginia, USS California, USS Maryland, USS Utah, USS Nevada, USS Pennsylvania, and USS Tennessee. The only ships that were not repairable was the USS Arizona and the USS Utah.
http://www.history.com/topics/pearl-harbor
http://history1900s.about.com/od/Pearl-Harbor/a/Pearl-Harbor-Facts.htm
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