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Subscribe to RSSSeventy years ago, a Japanese air and naval assault on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii claimed 2,390 American lives and propelled the U.S. into World War II. Nearly half of those who died were sailors aboard the USS Arizona, which was sunk by Japanese torpedoes, killing 1,177. Survivors of the attack describe the day.
AP
Believed to be the first bomb dropped on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii in the sneak-attack on Dec. 7, 1941, this picture was found torn to pieces at Yokusuka Base by photographer's mate 2/C Martin J. Shemanski of Plymouth, Pa. One Japanese plane is shown pulling out of a dive near bomb eruption (center) and another the air at upper right.
Commemorations will be taking place today around the country to mark the 70th anniversary of the attack, including several memorials for servicemen who survived the attacks but whom, after their recent deaths, wanted their remains placed at Pearl Harbor. Also, a new exhibit about the attacks is opening at National World War II Museum in New Orleans.
Keystone / Getty Images
The American destroyer USS Shaw explodes during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, home of the American Pacific Fleet during World War II.
US Navy via Time Life Pictures / Getty Images
Smoke pours from wrecked American warships including (L-R) the battleships USS West Virginia & USS Tennessee which were damaged or sunk during Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.
Editor’s note, 11:45 a.m. ET, Dec. 9: We are no longer confident that the picture below was made on the day of the Pearl Harbor attack. We’re investigating, and will have a full story on Monday.
Update, Dec. 12, 2011: We've written a full story tracking down more about this photo, and one of the women in it. Please see that post, where the discussion continues.
Three Lions / Getty Images
Women firefighters direct a hose after the Japanese attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor.
Time Life Pictures / Getty Images
A sailor runs for cover past flaming wreckage hit by dive bombers that had already blasted Pearl Harbor and Hickam Field; Kaneohe Bay Naval Station.
Weegee / ICP via Getty Images
A crowd on Broadway in New York City hold up newspapers announcing the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii during World War II.
December 7 marks the 70 anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack, and author Craig Shirley joins Morning Joe to discuss his new book "December 1941," which gives in-depth details of the attack.
View archival video footage from the attacks and hear survivors describe the day, or see Pearl Harbor then and now from above in new satellite imagery.
More coverage:
- Last witnesses: Memories of Pearl Harbor
- Graphic: How the Pearl Harbor attack unfolded
- After death, Pearl Harbor survivor returns to his ship
- Pearl Harbor memories live on in New Orleans exhibit
- Search msnbc.com for articles about 'Pearl Harbor'
- Pearl Harbor pictures from the Naval History and Heritage Command
- Video: Survivors gather to recall Pearl Harbor attacks
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Didn't have time to read all the posts here, but did anyone see the History Channel's show last night on the 24 hours after Pearl Harbor? For all you "FDR was the best President" people out there, you need to watch this show. You will come away with a totally different opinion. He was asleep at the switch and although I don't think there was any conspiricy to get us into the war, it shows he was a grossy incompetent President. With a war raging in Europe and our relationship with Churchill and England, how could we just sit by and not prepare? Hell, Churchill even declared war against Japan before we did as a result of Pearl Harbor. FDR asked him to wait until he had a chance to do so the next day, but he had already done so. Shows how inept he was. The loss of lives and property at Pearl Harbor can be laid right at the feet of FDR. In addition, his economic plan was a complete failure during the 30's leading up to the war. The war actually helped our economy because it depleted the work force needed to fight the war. That way, everyone else left behind had work. I wish people would stop talking about FDR like he was some great President. He wasn't. Hell, his wife would have made a better President than him.
I remember December 7, 1941..yes..I was only seven (7) years old. I remember looking at my Dad exclaim, WOW! THEY BOMBED PEARL HARBOR !...he looked stunned. We were living on "Dos Castillas street", in Manila, Philippines. It wasn't long...when the Japanese started marching on our street.."HUP, HUP, HUP". They were making GRUNTING noises, while they marched.
I remember an American, asking my Mom and Dad, if he could stay with us for a while. He was afraid the japs would be looking for him. Eventually, they rounded up the Americans and ALL foreigners, and intered them at Santo Tomas University. We were afraid to venture out into the streets. Anything could happen.
Even at that tender age of seven....I could remember certain events, as they happened. Our greatest fear was HUNGER. Manila was eventually declared an "Open City", my Dad went to the Manila Port Area, to buy things....at a great discount, fearing the Japanese would take these goods anyway. Looking back, I think he went to the Port Area, looking to buy food, and maybe anything at a discount.
For the next three and a half years.....yes...our greatest FEAR..was still....HUNGER. Until the Americans came to liberate Manila, and the rest of the Philippines.
In those days, before the war, the Philippines was a great place to live, like Hawaii. NOW....it's just another THIRD WORLD country! ...It's amazing how war...CAN CHANGE THE CHARACTER OF A NATION!....And now....nearly ten million Filipinos have to work OVERSEAS....(OFW's) just to make ends meet and feed their families. And some....are being EXECUTED in China,, caught as DRUG MULES!...all in the name of M-O-N-E-Y...!
When you write captions for pics, please check your sources. The Arizona was not hit by torpedoes; it was on the oppposite side of the USS Vestal, between that ship and Ford Island; it was not exposed to any of the Japanese torpedo planes that attacked Battleship Row; the Arizona was sunk by a hit in her forward ammo magazine by a bomb (no it did not go down her smokestack; another myth that still survives). Film footage exists of the Arizona exploding; check it out on the Web. Also, the pic of the plane pulling away from the waterspout explosion is of a torpedo hit, not a bomb hit.
Hey Mark1219747, you probably never heard of my fathers paintings, nor have you ever seen them, one of Col Horace Hickam and one of Maj. Gen. Frederick Leroy Martin, you probably never heard of them either, forget about "photo shop", you'll just be disapointed.
Why does the Japanese government not pay reparations to the families of those who were harmed -- wounded or killed -- during Japan's illegal, peacetime naval attack upon Pearl Harbor?
At the same time are reparations not due to those allied prisoners who suffered brutally inside the infamous Japanese POW camps and elsewhere? Many of these did not survive the barbaric treatment meted out by their Japanese captors and left grieving families behind.
At war's end Japanese foreign minister Shigemitsu instructed all surviving Japanese diplomatic outposts to: "Use your remaining funds to create a journalistic uproar about the American use of the atom bomb in order to steer international attention away from our unfortunate treatment of allied prisoners of war."
These instructions were sent using a diplomatic version of the Ultra code which had already been broken. When Shigemitsu discovered that we were intercepting his instructions he stopped using that avenue of communication.
Other nations have already provided reparations for their inhumane treatment of prisoners --- Why not the Japanese?
Oregon I believe the only Japanese that went to interment camps were those living on the west coast (Calif., Oregon and Washington). It was an injustice, no Germans or Italians were treated this way. We were at war with all three countries. FDR, a democrat ordered it.
In Hawaii about one third (or more) of the population was Japanese American. The Government didn't feel it made sense to round up all of the JAmericans.
They did round up those they felt were leaders in the community. Here is a LINK to a site with pictures and a decent explanation. Many of those were later sent Stateside to California, Texas, and Arkansas.
There were several camps in Hawaii here is a LINK to a Hawaiian Government document.
California had the most, obviously, but there were camps throughout the US. Many combined the JAmericans with German Americans and POWs from both fronts.
The famous historian, Paige Smith, points out that no American citizen was compelled to go to those internment camps. Those American citizens of Japanese descent who did go, went voluntarily, usually in order to stay with their families and friends. Given a hostile environment those are reasonable motivations. Non-citizen Germans and Italians were sometimes, though not always, sent off to similar camps. I do not know how they were selected.
I can tell you that we were all very frightened in those days following the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. We feared, quite naturally, that if the Japanese armed forces landed on our west coast they might be helped by some of the many ethnic Japanese who lived there. Any non-Jaoanese American who was alive then will have felt that fear. Those who weren't around at that time can say what they like but their words ring with emptiness.
Years later, during the late 1950's, I met and worked for a Japanese physicist who was not an American citizen in 1941 but who managed to avoid the 'camps' anyway, simply by relocating to the east coast and transferring his undergraduate credits from Stanford to Columbia University where he managed, also, to secure on-campus employment. He worked hard at his studies and managed to complete the requirements for s PhD in physics shortly after war's end. He told me that some members of his family who did go to the internment camps often spoke, afterwards, about the warm camaraderie which existed there between many of the Japanese internees and, even, some of the Americans. He pointed out that the food rations were the same as those received by our military and included items which civilians living outside the camps found hard to come by. In some ways it was, apparently, a socialist society which some, at war's end had trouble bidding farewell to. Of course it meant that one was a prisoner. I would not have liked that but it certainly beat being a prisoner in some Japanese POW camp where brutal treatment was the rule of the day and many did not survive. To this day, no survivor of a Japanese POW camp has ever received reparations from the Japanese government. The US government, on the other hand, has granted reparations to those who were sent to the detention camps; not only to those who were American citizens at the time, but also to those who were citizens of Japan and, as such, enemy aliens.
Fact…The
first lady in the picture is not Black but of Hawaiian descent. However, it
doesn't really matter because it showed the world that even through such adversity
they stopped at nothing to work together. There were no cultural boundaries that
stopped them from working together. What an amazing photograph!!!
Mahalo Joe-1072601. Appreciate it. Kaneko