Tuesday is Pearl Harbor Day.
Pearl Harbor Day is commemorated every year on Dec. 7, 1941, the day of the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt transferred the United States Fleet to Pearl Harbor 28 months before to deter the Japanese military. As of July 1941, the United States had ended trade with Japan.
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The United States expected an attack in the Indies, Malaya and the Philippines, but never expected the attack at Pearl Harbor on the Island of Oahu, Hawaii.
On Dec. 7, 1941, 190 attack planes took off to attack the Fleet. After 45 minutes, 170 more attack planes did the same.
In 1941, radar wasn’t what it is today, and there was no television, only radio, and no satellites.
The attacks began at 7:55 a.m. and the ships in the harbor were under fire fro 30 minutes beginning at 8 a.m.
The Japanese lost 28 planes and a total of 64 men in the attack. The United States lost more than 2,400 men.
Pearl Harbor was the largest deadly attack by an enemy until the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
