Pearl Harbor

Pearl Harbor Research paper One of the most infamous days in history occurred on the morning of December 7th 1941 just shortly before 8 am. This was the day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. The Japanese had started the endless with china in mid-1937. The Japanese need oil and other raw materials so the war in the pacific was inevitable. However we did not expect them to attack the east as well. The Japanese sent an air force with the most aerial power that the worlds ocean had never saw before. Just eighteen months before President Franklin D. Roosevelt had sent the United Sates fleet to Pearl Harbor. Just within a few short minutes after the attack had begun five of these eight battle ships had either sunk or was sinking and the rest were damaged. Other ships and most Hawaiian based combat plans were gone and over 2,400 Americans were dead. Seven battle ships had been part of what we called Battleship Row. These ships along with two others had been one short of equaling Japans battle fleet. This made the ships the Japanese raider’s top assignment. Twenty four out of the forty were assigned to send torpedoes sending the ships to their watery grave. Up to twenty one of these torpedoes met their targets. Two hit California, one exploded on the Nevada and as many as nine each hit the Oklahoma and West Virginia. The Oklahoma and the West Virginia sank within minutes of being struck. The Arizona was the ship that was dealt the worst damage. It was hit with many blows with one where it penetrated the ship and caused a massive explosion which immediately sank the ship. Two of the seven ships, the Arizona and the Oklahoma, did not survive the attack others were repaired in time anywhere between a matter of weeks to a year or more. The second target of the Japanese was the airfields in Oahu. The Japanese knew they had to take these airplanes out to prevent the Americans from going to the aid of the battle occurring at Pearl Harbor. If the Americans could get