On the morning of Sunday, December 7, 1941, the Japanese navy attacked the United States’ naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The attack consisted of two aerial attack waves totaling 353 aircraft, launched from six Japanese aircraft carriers.
The attack sank four U.S. Navy battleships and damaged four more. The Japanese also sank or damaged three cruisers, three destroyers, and one minelayer, destroyed 188 aircraft, and caused personnel losses of 2,402 killed and 1,282 wounded.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed, “December 7th, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy”.
Admiral Hara Tadaichi summed up the Japanese result by saying, “We won a great tactical victory at Pearl Harbor and thereby lost the war.”
An unverified legend says that Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto may have said something to the effect of, “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve” or possibly “A military man can scarcely pride himself on having ’smitten a sleeping enemy’” or possibly “Gentlemen, we have just kicked a rabid dog.”
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1 NYSE // Dec 7, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Good info !!!…Thanks for sharing.