Return to the year 1941
Japanese attack Pearl Harbor
Japanese war planes made a successful surprise attack on O`ahu military installations early on a quiet Sunday morning. They hit the Pacific Naval Air Base at Mokapu Peninsula first, disabling 36 seaplanes and leaving 84 Americans dead or wounded. Seven minutes later, two waves of planes attacked Pearl Harbor where 145 vessels were anchored, 96 of them warships. The Japanese sank 19 ships, destoryed 33 planes on Ford Island, disabled a majority of the 140 planes parked wingtip-to-wingtip at Wheeler Airfield, and killed 2,300 Americans. The sinking of the USS
Arizona accounted for nearly half the dead; it sank with 1,102 men aboard when a bomb hit its powder magazine. President Franklin Roosevelt declared war on Japan the same day as the attack, and America stepped into World War II as a combatant.
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