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when it first started
Pearl Harbor attack, (December 7, 1941), surprise aerial attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor on Oahu Island, Hawaii, by the Japanese that precipitated the entry of the United States into World War II. The strike climaxed a decade of worsening relations between the United States and Japan. -
6:10 am
Already in flight, Commander Mitsuo Fuchida, who will lead the Japanese air attack on Pearl Harbor, sees the Japanese aircraft carriers rocking on a choppy sea. Crewmen cling to the aircraft to keep the planes from going over the side. The carriers turn into the wind, and the first wave of planes — 183 fighters, bombers, and torpedo planes — roars into the sky. Pilots reconfirm their navigation by using a Honolulu radio station’s music as a guiding beam. -
6:45 am
The U.S. destroyer Ward, having found the submarine reported by the Condor, moves in for the kill. The Ward’s captain, Lt. William W. Outer bridge, has been in command for only two days. He orders men to open fire. The second shot strikes the submarine at the waterline. The submarine heels over and appears “to slow and sink.” -
6:53 am
A message is sent from the Ward to the 14th Naval Headquarters at Pearl Harbor Naval Station: “We have dropped depth charges upon sub operating in defensive sea area.” Then, almost immediately, a second, more detailed message: “We have attacked, fired upon, and dropped depth charges upon submarine operating in defensive sea area.” Outer bridge believes that the message will show superiors that the destroyer had not just seen a submarine but actually had “shot at something. -
7:02 am
The Army’s Opana Mobile Radar Station is one of six radar stations on Oahu. Radar is a new defense tool in Hawaii. One of the two privates on duty looks at the radar oscilloscope and can’t believe his eyes. He asks the other private to take a look — and he confirms the sighting: 50 or more aircraft on a bearing for Oahu. The privates call the Fort Shaffer information center, the hub of the radar network. -
7:15 am
The Ward had sent out its message about attacking the sub in code. At headquarters, code clerks decode the message. The message gradually makes its way to the top: Adm. Husband Kimmel, commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet. Because there had been so many “false reports of submarines” recently, Kimmel decides to “wait for verification of the report.” -
7:20 am
An Army lieutenant who is in training at the radio network operations center at Fort Shafter gets the Opana radar station report: “the biggest sightings” the radar operator had ever seen. By now the planes are about 70 miles away. The lieutenant believes that the radar had picked up a flight of U.S. B-17 bombers heading from California to Hawaii. For security reasons, he cannot tell this to the radar operators. All he says is, “Well, don’t worry about it.” -
7:33 am
U.S. code breakers have cracked the Japanese diplomatic codes. From a Tokyo-to-Washington message, President Franklin Roosevelt and Gen. George Marshall, Army chief of staff, learn that Japanese negotiators in Washington have been told to break off talks. Believing this may mean war, Marshall sends a warning to Lt. Gen. -
7:40 am
Japanese pilots see “a long white line of coast”— Oahu’s Kakuku Point -
1 pm
The Japanese strike force turns for home. In the 44 months of war that will follow, the U.S. Navy will sink every one of the Japanese aircraft carriers, battleships and cruisers in this strike force. And when Japan signs the surrender document on Sept. 2, 1945, among the U.S. warships in Tokyo Bay will be a victim of the attack, the USS West Virginia