Pearl Harbor

Essay by vanillasunHigh School, 11th gradeA, August 2004

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Pearl Harbor

The attacks of Pearl Harbor were very random and very harmful to the US. You will see the damage, the good and the bad throughout these attacks.

The leaders of the armed forces of Japan become conscious of the fact that America's marine strength was one of the biggest threats of the United States to the Japanese armed forces. The Commander-in-chief of the Japanese navy, began to plan out a shock attack on the United States Pacific Fleet, in 1941. They figured that before the United States could recover from a massive surprise attack like this, that the Japanese would be able to take control of what they were going to do in the Far East, and could then last all the way through the whole war.

The Japanese had 30 ships which included six aircraft carriers with about 430 planes. There were also about 20 submarines that took part in the attack.

Submarines began to make their way across the Pacific Ocean by November, and arrived near Oahu about December 5th. During the night of December 6th, five midget submarines that had been carried on large submarines dropped off and began making its way to Pearl Harbor. A midget submarine is a submarine that can only hold two crew men, or one man and a captain, or just two men.

Nagumo's task force sailed and arrived undetected by the Americans on December 7, 1941. A total of almost 360 planes were launched in three waves. A wave is usually a term that means that the planes were sent away in sections. As they quickly recovered from the shock of a random attack, the Americans fought back with antiaircraft fire. So many planes were taken down that only a few could fight back. The Japanese had...