The attack on Pearl Harbor was a Japanese military strike run by the Japanese Navy against the United States naval base located in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. This attack took place the morning December 7, 1941. It was known to the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters as Operation Z. As a result of this attack the United States entered into WWII.
The Japanese intended to use this attack to prevent the U.S. Pacific Fleet from having influence on the war the Empire of Japan was planning against Britain and the Netherland, and the U.S. in the Philippines.
During this attack there were two aerial attack waves that consisted of 353 aircraft taking off from 6 different Japanese aircraft carriers and some submarines. Four of our U.S. Navy battleships were sunk and the other 4 battleships in the area were all damaged. Two of these Navy battleships that were sunk were later repaired and used later on in the war. Here are some of the other things that were either damaged or sunk:
-Three cruisers
-Three destroyers
-Anti-aircraft training ship
-One minelayer
And 188 U.S. aircraft were destroyed. On this ay 2,402 people were killed and another 1,282 were wounded.
On the bright side the power station, shipyard, maintenance, and fuel and torpedo storage building were not attacked. Also the Submarine piers and the headquarters building were not attacked.
The Japanese lost some but not anything that matched up to the loss we had. They lost 29 aircraft, 5 midget submarines, and 65 Japanese servicemen were either wounded or killed. We did manage to capture one Japanese sailor.
The U.S. hadn’t expected anything like this to happen. As a result of this attack the strong support for isolationism that many Americans had was now gone and the US entered into WWII. It also moved The US into active alliance and participation in the European Theater which was a huge area of heavy war across Europe all the way from September 1, 1939 when Poland was invaded by Germany until the war ended on May 8, 1945 when Germany surrendered.
I think that this attack was kind of worthless because Japan didn't destroy all the stuff they felt was really important to destroy. On top of that they lost some of their own men andd equipment. It probably wasn't one of their smarter moves. It would have been better if it never happened because we might not have gone to war. I wonder what the U.S. would be like now if we didn't fight.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Theatre_of_World_War_II
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_kind_of_weapons_were_used_to_bomb_Pearl_Harbor
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