Attack On Pearl Harbor

Essay by PaperNerd ContributorHigh School, 10th grade June 2001

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Attack on Pearl Harbor With all the current hoohah and whatnot concerning a certain movie whose title should be quite obvious after you read this paper, what a better important event to do a report on than the invasion of Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor was likely the most well known event in America's history of war. No one had ever pulled such a stunt on us before, and it was because of that that we didn't see it coming in the first place, though that last statement will be argued against further into this paper. The attack on Pearl Harbor certainly cheesed us off, and proved to be a major turning point in the war, in that the US might have not gotten as involved, nor done as well, if the attack had not taken place.

It was approximately 8:00AM, or more like 7:53AM on December 7th, 1941 when the first wave of Japanese bombers encroached upon Pearl Harbor, a US naval base on the island of Oahu, Hawaii.

No one knew it was coming and being a lazy Sunday, the base's defenses weren't quite up and ready for much of anything. As the bombs began to rain down, the occupants of the base did not choose to run. Instead, they picked up what they still had and began to fight. The Japanese were not expecting so much resistance, but several US fighter planes managed to get into the air and do their best to defend the base. By the time the first wave had passed, the defenses had improved somewhat, and the second wave was greeted with anti-aircraft fire. In total, the Japanese had launched 353 aircraft against Pearl Harbor, but unfortunately for the personnel on the ground, the attack had been so swift and devastating that despite...