December 7, 1941
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise attack that shocked the US. On the morning of December 7, 1941, planes and midget submarines of the Imperial Japanese Navy began a surprise attack on the U.S. under the command of Vice Admiral.
Despite long-standing assertions that this attack could have been predicted and prevented by the United States Military, the US forces at Pearl Harbor appeared to be utterly unprepared, and the attack effectively drew the United States into World War II. At 6:09 a.m. on December 7, 1941, the six Japanese carriers launched a first wave of 181 planes composed mainly of torpedo bombers, dive bombers, horizontal bombers and fighters.
 The Japanese hit American ships and military installations at 7:55 a.m. They attacked military airfields and at the same time they hit the fleet anchored in Pearl Harbor. The battleship "USS Arizona" was hit with an armor piercing bomb which penetrated the forward ammunition compartment, blowing the ship apart.
Overall, twenty-one ships of the U.S. Pacific fleet were damaged and the death toll reached 2,350, along with 68 civilians and 1,178 injured. Of the military personnel lost at Pearl Harbor, 1,177 were from the Arizona. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared Dec. 7, 1941, "a date which will live in infamy."
Article Resource: http://www.wikipedia.org
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