At 7:55 in the morning on Sunday December 7, 1941, two waves of Japanese aircraft began to attack the US Pacific Fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor in Oahu, Hawaii. Within two hours of Japanese attacking, eighteen ships had been sunk or damaged, one hundred eighty eight aircraft had been destroyed, and two thousand four hundred and three men and women had been killed (Robinson). Leaving Pearl Harbor, in one huge mess. This paper will discuss all aspects of Pearl Harbor. The bombing on Pearl Harbor was done in two waves. The first wave was where the Japanese B5N2 bombers attacked the ships. They were named the ‘Kates’ by the Americans. Each Kate could hold three men and many bombs, or just one torpedo missile. The bombs hit with great power going through many decks of the ship before exploding. In the second wave Aichi D3A1 dive bombers carried land bombs called ‘Vals’. Vals were used to …show more content…
Japanese planes bombed them and many were kamikaze. Kamikaze is where the pilots would crash into the ships on purpose to cause an explosion. Japanese planes did this because they were not afraid of dying. The USS Arizona had a total of one thousand one hundred seventy seven men on board and one thousand one hundred and two of those men were killed during the attack. As of today only five men are still alive from the USS Arizona (Pearl Harbor). One of the men that survived, Lou Conter, said that the ships continued to burn for days after the attack. They could not access parts of the ships to bring out the bodies for eight to nine days. He also added “We came home, got married, had children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and lived a big life. They lost theirs immediately and they’re the ones that should be called the real heroes.” Conter’s statement proved that even though it has been seventy years since Pearl Harbor was attacked, people are still being affected by it today (5