The USS Arizona Memorial is fully open following the completion of preservation work

The Attack on Pearl Harbor

December 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy.
Just before 8 a.m. local time on Sunday, December 7, 1941, 353 Japanese aircraft launched from six carriers struck the U.S. Pacific Fleet at anchor in Pearl Harbor. Within two hours, eight battleships were damaged or destroyed, 188 aircraft lay in ruins, and 2,403 Americans had been killed. The first wave hit at low altitude with torpedo bombers; the second arrived twenty minutes later with high-level bombers and fighters strafing what was left.

The articles in this collection examine the attack from every angle: the diplomatic breakdown that preceded the first wave, the radar warning, the strikes on Battleship Row, and the strategic miscalculations the Japanese command made before, during, and after the raid — including the fateful decision not to launch a third wave against the harbor's fuel tanks and dry-dock facilities. Whether you're researching the chain of events, the human toll, or the immediate aftermath, you'll find primary-source accounts, ship-by-ship damage reports, and historian-led analysis here.

When you're ready to walk the harbor itself, book a guided tour of the USS Arizona Memorial and Battleship Missouri — the two sites that bookend America's entry into and victory in the Pacific War. For visitors short on time, the Pearl Harbor Excursion short tour covers the essentials in a single morning, with round-trip transportation from Waikiki.

The attack reshaped the twentieth century in under 110 minutes, drawing a divided isolationist America into the largest war in human history. The articles below help explain how, and why, those minutes still matter.

A Quick History of American–Japanese Relations

May 22, 2017 ·  
On the morning of December 7th, 1941, there was no mistaking the message that Japan wanted to send: they had had enough of being policed by the US. The Empire of Japan sought to take over the Pacific, and nothing was going to stand in its way. Though tensions between the two nations erupted on that […]
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The Consequences of Pearl Harbor

May 20, 2017 ·  
Every drastic action comes with consequences. On December 7th, 1941, Japan surprised the United States in one of the most stunning moves of the war by bombing the naval base at Pearl Harbor. From that decision to attack the officially-neutral power, a series of consequences was set into motion that changed the course of history forever. Within […]
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The American Fleet Damaged at Pearl Harbor

May 19, 2017 ·  
When discussing the ships lost at Pearl Harbor, it’s easy to focus solely on the battleships that took the brunt of the attack, but there were many other ships present, and few of them emerged from the two-hour assault completely unscathed. The following is a list of American vessels that were significantly damaged or destroyed during the attack […]
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Are We Forgetting About Pearl Harbor?

May 16, 2017 ·  
Over 75 years have passed between the day Pearl Harbor was attacked by a Japanese force and today, and there's a real concern that we may slowly be forgetting all that we need to remember about the events of December 7, 1941. Is the weight of the attack slowly drifting away, especially as more and more of the Pearl […]
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From the Ashes of Pearl Harbor: The US Navy Seabees

May 13, 2017 ·  
The heroes of the United States Navy weren’t only the men and women on the front lines. Behind the scenes, doing incredible things that the general public wouldn’t necessarily know about, was a group of naval volunteers performing tasks that, while they wouldn’t make headlines, would assist in the war in an crucial way. After […]
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Facts About the USS Utah

May 10, 2017 ·  
Though the USS Utah (BB-31) was reclassified and demilitarized into a target ship ten years prior to the Pearl Harbor attack, that didn’t save her from suffering the wrath of the Japanese. In the early minutes of the assault, the Utah was struck by two torpedoes and started flooding. Of her crew of 525, 64 officers […]
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Why Didn’t Japan Finish Off Pearl Harbor?

May 08, 2017 ·  
Looking back at when Pearl Harbor was attacked, it’s evident that mistakes were made on both sides. While the United States is believed to have made the gravest mistake by not being prepared for the Japanese assault, it’s also worth noting that Japan's miscues were equally detrimental. For all practical purposes, the attack on Pearl […]
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The Technologies of Pearl Harbor

May 08, 2017 ·  
When humans first walked the Earth, their wars and conflicts were fought with sticks, stones, and whatever natural features they could use to their advantage. Far from the technology we know today, it was primitive but it served as well as it needed to. Keep that in mind as we look back a mere 75 years […]
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The US Navy's Recovery After Pearl Harbor

May 05, 2017 ·  
There’s a reason Japan set its sights on Pearl Harbor. It wasn’t just to send a message to the United States, to show that it wouldn’t stand by while the Americans placed an embargo on the country’s trade. It was a preemptive maneuver to try and diminish the usefulness of the US Navy in the […]
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The Inevitable War, the Surprise Attack

May 03, 2017 ·  
That tensions between the United States and Japan were reaching an all-time high was no surprise. Japanese advances across Asia didn’t bode well for American interests, despite trade deals that saw exports of steel and other raw materials coming from the US to supply Japan’s industries. While much of the nation was against the notion of […]
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