TODAY: Today marks the 82nd anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor — Dec. 7, 1941, “a date that will live in infamy.”
President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave that moving speech from handwritten notes on his third draft, without a communications team writing it for him, or a teleprompter to feed him words to say.
The attack had come without warning. “Torpedo planes struck first, flying low over the water and launching torpedoes toward Ford Island’s Battleship Row, the primary target. They struck West Virginia, Oklahoma, California and Nevada, along with vessels berthed in the navy yard. Dive-bombers destroyed hangers and other buildings and parked aircraft at Hickam Field and on Ford Island. Bombs dropped from aircraft high above the harbor tore through Arizona and other battleships. Fighter planes wheeled and dived, strafing aircraft and military personnel,” reads an account on a website for Pearl Harbor events. A second wave followed. The attack had weakened, but not crippled, the U.S. Pacific Fleet.
“Each year on Dec. 7, Pearl Harbor survivors, veterans and visitors from all over the world come together to honor and remember the 2,403 service members and civilians who were killed during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. A further 1,178 people were injured in the attack, which permanently sank two U.S. Navy battleships (the USS Arizona and the USS Utah) and destroyed 188 aircraft.”
The attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, marked a pivotal moment in world history, bringing the U.S. into World War II.
After the U.S. declared war on Japan, Germany and Italy declared war on the U.S., bringing the strength of America to the Allied Forces in the Second World War.
