Pearl Harbour History

The story of the attack on Pearl Harbor goes back back to January, 1941. Admiral Yamamoto, Commander of the combind fleet, formed a small group of officers to make a study on an attack on Pearl Harbor. After hundreds of grueling, it became apparent to Admiral Yamamoto that the only way the Japanese would successfuly attack Pearl Harbor would have to be a suprise attack.

It wasn't until November 1, 1941, that Admiral Yamamoto's plan to attack Pearl Harbor was signed. Admiral Yamamoto assigned Vice-Admiral Nagumo to form an attack force and set sail for Pearl Harbor. On November 26, the attack force was under way. The attack force consisted of 6 aircraft carriers, 2 fast battleships, 2 heavy class cruisers, 1 light class cruiser, 9 destroyers, 3 submarines, and 8 tankers and had a total compliment of 432 aircraft.

At 6:15am, on the morning of December 7, 1941, the task force was only 230 miles away from Pearl Harbor. At this time, the first wave of attack plans, torpedo planes and bombers were dispatched. Leading the first wave of Japanese aircraft was Lieutenant-Commander Nakaya. At about 7:58 Hawain time, the attack force was given the word TORA, TORA, TORA!

The Japanese first target was the airfields. If they were able to take out all the airfields in one shift, quick blow, the Americans would be unable to launch a counter offense. This would also give the Japanese a beter chance in succeeding and would make them almost invinsible. Within minutes, the Japanese had destroyed the hangers, barracks and 358 military aircraft. There were also 12 B-17 bombers comming in at the time of the attack. When they appeared in the skies over Pearl Harbor, they saw that all the landing strips were destroyed. Most of the bombers were destroyed attempting to land because they were running out of fuel.

The U.S.S. Arizona was hit by five torpedoes. Then one bomb hit her ammunition bay creating an enourmous explosion. Another fell through her smokestack and into the engineering section. The Arizona sank in an incredible 9 minutes. 1,104 men were killed on board the Arizona.

Pearl Harbor was pounded by the Japanese first and second wave of aircraft. After the attack, over 2,000 saliors and civilians were killed.

The United States were luckly that there aircraft carriers were out on patrol, or they would have more then likly would have been destroyed.

The attack on Pearl Harbor through America into World War 2.

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