Pearl Harbor: A Day of Remembrance

On a crisp Sunday morning, six Japanese carriers and their escorts launched an airstrike at the US Pacific Fleet at dock, achieving total surprise and complete local air superiority, while inflicting critical damage on US battleships and escorts.

Officially, the World War II began in Europe on September 1, 1939, with the German invasion of Poland, but fighting had been occurring since 1935 in locales as diverse as Ethiopia, China, and Spain.

While the United States had wished to remain neutral, their Navy was already engaging German submarines attacking lend-lease convoys to Britain before war was declared, unknown to many. 

For the U.S., World War II began on the morning of Sunday, December 7, 1941, when elements of the Imperial Japanese Navy launched a surprise attack on the American Naval Base at Pearl Harbor.

Hoping to damage the American naval presence in the Pacific enough to solidify their territorial gains, Japan was inspired by the equally devastating 1940 British air raid on the Italian Port of Taranto.

In a stroke of luck for the US, the three carriers of the US Pacific  fleet, The USS Enterprise (CV-6,) the USS Lexington (CV-2), and the USS Saratoga (CV-3) were away from Pearl Harbor at the time.

In his famous speech, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt referred to December 7, 1941 as “A date which will live in infamy,” and, reeling from the shock of the attacks, the United States declared war on Japan on December 8th,  with Germany and Italy declaring war on the United States three days later. The United States of America had officially entered the World War II.

As the war heated up over the next four years, each nation embarked on an intensive program of research and development, and aircraft development was accelerated as dozens of new warplanes, dogfighting tactics, and deployment methods were invented, tested, and employed in combat zones all over the world.

Today, at 8:00 AM Hawaii time, and wherever you are -- 10 AM Pacific Time, 11 Central, 1PM Eastern -- we would like to dedicate a moment of silence to the memories of all of the soldiers and civilians lost in this conflict, and to the survivors, whose lives were forever altered by the war, which began for the United States on this date seventy-two years ago.

Thank you.