World

Pearl Harbor Day 2010

by Jordan Yerman | December 7, 2010 at 08:35 am

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Pearl Harbor Day: December 7

Pearl Harbor Day commemorates the attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor, a US naval base in Honolulu, Hawaii on December 7, 1941. The Pearl Harbor attack brought the United States actively into World War II, and also led to the internment of over 100,000 Japanese-Americans who lived in the western US. In Hawaii, more than 120 people of Japanese origin were interned.

In the Pearl Harbor attack, seven US ships were sunk and 11 more were damaged. 2,459 Americans were killed, and 1,282 wounded. The USS Arizona, whose crew comprised nearly half of the Pear Harbor military deaths, is still at the bottom of Pearl Harbor, slowly leaking fuel to this day. The USS Utah also remains at the bottom of Pearl Harbor.

Why Attack Pearl Harbor?

The Japanese were intent on invading the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), mainly to take over that colony's oil reserves. The US had stopped its export of oil to Japan in 1941. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto was convinced that the US was about to enter the war in the Pacific, since FDR was moving the US fleet into the Philippines (this was part of War Plan Orange, which was never implemented).

The Japanese military decided upon a pre-emptive strike on the US naval base in Hawaii, despite the fact that American aircraft carriers were not in Pearl Harbor at the time.

Shortly after the Pearl Harbor attack, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. Within hours of the attack, the internment of Japanese-Americans and Japanese immigrants was beginning.

Some 100 survivors, the youngest of whom are in their late 80s, have traveled from around the country to attend Tuesday's ceremony.

The event is being held across the harbor from the USS Arizona, which sank in the attack and where the remains of nearly 1,000 sailors and Marines are still entombed.