DECEMBER 7, 1941
Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2023 8:29 pm
Speech by Franklin D. Roosevelt, New, York President of the United States of America
THE GREAT PACIFIC WAR:
Pearl Harbor was a great gamble for Japan, and especially for the Imperial Japanese Navy. It was also a piece of skilled military planning, the work of Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto. Japan dispatched all six of his precious “fleet carriers” across 3,000 miles of open ocean in total secrecy, with the fleet arriving a few hundred miles north of the Hawaiian islands. The carriers launched their aircraft early on a Sunday morning. US forces were completely unprepared, and in less than ninety minutes, Japanese planes destroyed or damaged 19 US warships and 300 aircraft, and killed over 2,400 US servicemen. Almost half of the dead were crewmen from the battleship USS Arizona, which sank within minutes after a bomb struck its forward magazine, igniting more than a million pounds of ammunition. The ship’s remains still lie in the waters of Pearl Harbor, a constant memorial to that terrible morning.
80-G-13040: Mitsubishi A6M2 “Zero"
Pearl Harbor Attack, December 7, 1941. Mitsubishi A6M2 “Zero” from Japanese aircraft carrier Akagi shot down during the attack.
- Day of Infamy.jpg (71.92 KiB) Viewed 2068 times
THE GREAT PACIFIC WAR:
Pearl Harbor was a great gamble for Japan, and especially for the Imperial Japanese Navy. It was also a piece of skilled military planning, the work of Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto. Japan dispatched all six of his precious “fleet carriers” across 3,000 miles of open ocean in total secrecy, with the fleet arriving a few hundred miles north of the Hawaiian islands. The carriers launched their aircraft early on a Sunday morning. US forces were completely unprepared, and in less than ninety minutes, Japanese planes destroyed or damaged 19 US warships and 300 aircraft, and killed over 2,400 US servicemen. Almost half of the dead were crewmen from the battleship USS Arizona, which sank within minutes after a bomb struck its forward magazine, igniting more than a million pounds of ammunition. The ship’s remains still lie in the waters of Pearl Harbor, a constant memorial to that terrible morning.
80-G-13040: Mitsubishi A6M2 “Zero"
Pearl Harbor Attack, December 7, 1941. Mitsubishi A6M2 “Zero” from Japanese aircraft carrier Akagi shot down during the attack.
- Japanese Zero Aircraft.JPG (66.99 KiB) Viewed 2066 times