What was pearl harbor ww2

At the White House, Roosevelt learned of the attack as he was finishing lunch and preparing to tend to his stamp collection. He spent the remainder of the afternoon receiving updates and writing the address he intended to deliver to Congress the following day asking for a declaration of war against Japan.

As he drafted and redrafted the speech, Roosevelt focused on rallying the nation behind a war many had hoped to avoid. The discovery of a Pearl Harbor veteran in the family tree leads to discovery of service and sacrifice.

On December 7, , Kermit Tyler was called about aircraft approaching Pearl Harbor and told the radar tech not to worry about it. His reply has been debated for the past 80 years. The Path to Pearl Harbor. David M. Kennedy, PhD. The Impending Crisis President Franklin Delano Roosevelt made one of those escalating moves in July when he cut off shipments of scrap iron, steel, and aviation fuel to Japan even as he allowed American oil to continue flowing to the empire.

The Attack On November 26, , as US officials presented the Japanese with a point statement reiterating their long-standing position, the Japanese Imperial Navy ordered an armada that included planes aboard six aircraft carriers to set to sea.

Like this article? Read more in our online classroom. Pacific Theater of Operations. From the Collection to the Classroom. Just before 8 a. More than 2, Americans died in the attack, including civilians, and another 1, people were wounded. The day after the assault, President Franklin D.

Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan. The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise , but Japan and the United States had been edging toward war for decades. To this end, Japan declared war on China in , resulting in the Nanking Massacre and other atrocities. American officials responded to this aggression with a battery of economic sanctions and trade embargoes. They reasoned that without access to money and goods, and especially essential supplies like oil, Japan would have to rein in its expansionism.

Instead, the sanctions made the Japanese more determined to stand their ground. During months of negotiations between Tokyo and Washington, D. It seemed that war was all but inevitable. Pearl Harbor, Hawaii , is located near the center of the Pacific Ocean, roughly 2, miles from the U.

No one believed that the Japanese would start a war with an attack on the distant islands of Hawaii. Additionally, American intelligence officials were confident that any Japanese attack would take place in one of the relatively nearby European colonies in the South Pacific: the Dutch East Indies, Singapore or Indochina. Because American military leaders were not expecting an attack so close to home, the naval facilities at Pearl Harbor were relatively undefended.

Almost the entire Pacific Fleet was moored around Ford Island in the harbor, and hundreds of airplanes were squeezed onto adjacent airfields. The Japanese plan was simple: Destroy the Pacific Fleet. On December 7, after months of planning and practice, the Japanese launched their attack.

At about 8 a. Bombs and bullets rained onto the vessels moored below. At , a 1,pound bomb smashed through the deck of the battleship USS Arizona and landed in her forward ammunition magazine.

The ship exploded and sank with more than 1, men trapped inside. By destroying the U. So Yamamoto decided to move forward with a surprise attack on the U. So on November 26, , 31 warships carrying fighter planes and bombers slipped from Japan into the North Pacific.

They moved silently until they closed in on the Hawaiian Islands. The bombers dropped bombs on American warships below, while the fighter planes targeted the U. Following both attacks, 19 U. In all, 2, servicemen and women were killed, 1, were wounded. Sixty-eight civilians—people who are not in the military—also lost their lives. The attack lasted just under two hours. Repair crews went to work on the ships. Except for the U.