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Pearl Harbor

The Japanese Navy made its attack on Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7, 1941. The surprise attack on Pearl Harbor was aimed at the U.S. Pacific Fleet of the United States Navy and its defending Army Air Corps and United States Marine Corps air forces. The attack damaged and destroyed twelve U.S. Warships and 188 Aircraft, and killed 2,403 American servicemen and 68 civilians.

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto planned the raid as the start of the Pacific Campaign of World War II, and it was commanded by Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo who lost 64 servicemen. However, the Pacific Fleet's three Aircraft carrier were not in port and so they was undamaged, as were oil tank farms and machine shops. Using these resources the United States was able to rebound within six months. This attack has been called the Bombing of Pearl Harbor and the Battle of Pearl Harbor but most commonly the Attack on Pearl Harbor or simply Pearl Harbor.


The aim of the attack on Pearl Harbor was to neutralize Pacific Fleet in the pacific, if only temporarily near simultaneous coordinated attack. Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku himself suggested that even a successful attack would gain only a year or so of freedom of action. Planning for an attack in support of further military advances began in January 1941, and training for the mission was under way by mid-year when the project was finally judged worthwhile after some

Imperial Navy infighting. The attack depended on torpedoes, but the weapons of the time required deep water when air launched. Over the summer of 1941, Japan secretly created and tested torpedoes that could be launched in Pearl Harbor. The effort resulted in the Type 95 torpedo that inflicted the majority of the damage to U.S. ships. Japanese weapons technicians also produced special armor-piercing bombs by fitting on 14 and 15-inch naval gun shells. Dropped from 10,000 feet, they would be able to penetrate the armored decks of the American battleships and cruisers in...