Pearl Harbor Photographs

In the early morning of December 7, 1941, Japanese warships attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, at the time a U.S. territory, using fighter planes and bombers to weaken U.S. military capabilities and presence in the Pacific. Japan planned to overtake countries in southeast Asia for their oil and saw the attack as a way to do so without fear of U.S. interference. The attack lasted almost two hours and destroyed both U.S. aircraft and naval vessels, including eight battleships, and killed over 2,000 servicemen, women, and civilians, as well as wounded over 1,000. The attack drew the United States into World War II, as it declared war on Japan. The site of the attack is now the Pearl Harbor National Monument. It was built above the wreck of the U.S.S. Arizona, one of the battleships that was sunk, as a memorial to all those who died.