The Pearl Harbor Attack

• Date: December 7, 1941
• Location: Primarily Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
• Result: Clear Japanese tactical victory, long term strategic failure; Empire of Japan declares war on the United States and the British Empire; United States declares war on the Empire of Japan; Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy declare war on the United States, which enters World War II on the side of Allies.
• Combatants:
  • United States
    • Commanders: Navy: Husband Kimmel, Army: Walter Short
    • Strength: 8 battleships, 8 cruisers, 29 destroyers, 9 submarines, 50 other ships, 390 aircraft
    • Casualties and losses: 5 battleships sunk, 2 destroyers sunk (1 damaged), 1 other ship sunk, 3 damaged, 3 battleships damaged, 3 cruisers damaged [1] 188 aircraft destroyed, 155 aircraft damaged, 2,345 military and 57 civilians killed, 1,247 military and 35 civilians wounded. [2][3]
  • Empire of Japan
    • Commander: Chuichi Nagumo
    • Strength: 6 aircraft carriers, 9 destroyers, 2 battleships, 2 heavy cruisers, 1 light cruiser, 8 tankers, 23 fleet submarines, 5 midget submarines, 414 aircraft
    • Casualties and losses: 4 midget submarines sunk, 1 midget submarine run aground, 29 aircraft destroyed, 55 airmen, 9 submariners killed and 1 captured.

The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise attack against the United States' naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii by the Japanese navy, on the morning of Sunday, December 7, 1941, resulting in the United States becoming involved in World War II. It was intended as a preventive action to remove the US Pacific Fleet as a factor in the war Japan was about to wage against Britain, the Netherlands, and the United States. Two aerial attack waves, totaling 353 [4] aircraft, launched from six Japanese aircraft carriers, intending to reduce or eliminate United States' military power in the Pacific.

The attack wrecked two U.S. Navy battleships, one minelayer, and two destroyers beyond repair, and destroyed 188 aircraft; personnel losses were 2,388 killed and 1,178 wounded. Damaged warships included three cruisers, a destroyer, and six battleships (one deliberately grounded, later refloated and repaired; two sunk at their berths, later raised, repaired, and eventually restored to Fleet service). 

Vital fuel storage, shipyard, maintenance, and headquarters facilities were not hit. Japanese losses were minimal, at 29 aircraft and five midget submarines, with 65 servicemen killed or wounded.

The intent of the strike was to protect Imperial Japan's advance into Malaya and the Dutch East Indies — for their natural resources such as oil and rubber — by neutralizing the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Both the U.S. and Japan had long-standing contingency plans for war in the Pacific, continuously updated as tension between the two countries steadily increased during the 1930s. Japan's expansion into Manchuria and French Indochina were greeted with steadily increasing levels of embargoes and sanctions by the United States and others. 

In 1940, under the Export Control Act, the U.S. halted shipments of airplanes, parts, machine tools, and aviation gasoline, which Japan saw as an unfriendly act. [5] Nevertheless, the U.S. continued to export oil to Japan, in part because it was understood in Washington cutting off oil exports would be an extreme step, given Japanese dependence on U.S. oil exports, [6][7] likely to be taken as a provocation by Japan. In the summer of 1941, after Japanese expansion into French Indochina, the U.S. ceased oil exports to Japan, in part because of new American restrictions on domestic oil consumption. [8] 

President Franklin D. Roosevelt had earlier moved the Pacific Fleet to Hawaii and ordered a buildup in the Philippines, hoping to deter Japanese aggression in the Far East. The Japanese high command was (mistakenly) [9] certain an attack on the United Kingdom's colonies would bring the U.S. into the war, [9] so a preventive strike appeared to be the only way [9] Japan could avoid U.S. interference in the Pacific. [10]

The attack was one of the most important engagements of World War II. Occurring as it did before a formal declaration of war, it pushed U.S. public opinion from isolationism to an acceptance war was unavoidable, as Roosevelt called December 7, 1941 "... a date which will live in infamy."

Contents

• Background to conflict
• Approach and attack
  • 2.1 First wave
  • 2.2 Second wave composition
  • 2.3 Possible third wave
• Aftermath
• References & Notes