Pearl Harbor — History Reading Comprehension Lesson

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Pearl Harbor

On the morning of Sunday, December 7, 1941, the United States Naval Station at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, was attacked by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service. The attack came in two waves — the first beginning at 7:48 a.m. Hawaiian time — and lasted less than two hours. Nearly 360 Japanese aircraft launched from six aircraft carriers struck the American fleet at anchor and the airfields nearby. The attack killed 2,403 Americans, wounded 1,178 more, destroyed 188 aircraft, and sank or damaged 19 naval vessels — including eight battleships. The USS Arizona sank almost immediately after a bomb ignited its forward ammunition magazine; more than 1,100 of her crew went down with the ship.

Japan’s decision to attack the United States grew out of years of escalating tension in the Pacific. Japan had been at war with China since 1937, and its military expansion in Asia alarmed Western nations. The United States had imposed economic sanctions on Japan — including a critical oil embargo — to pressure it to withdraw from China. Japan depended on imported oil for its military and economy, and its leaders calculated that war with the United States was inevitable. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, who planned the attack, argued that Japan’s only hope was to destroy the American Pacific Fleet before the U.S. could mobilize its enormous industrial capacity.

American military and political leaders were aware of rising tensions with Japan and expected an attack somewhere in the Pacific — but not at Pearl Harbor, which was considered too shallow for aerial torpedoes and too far from Japanese bases. Warnings of an imminent attack were misread or delayed. A radar station on Oahu detected the approaching Japanese aircraft, but operators assumed they were American B-17s expected from California. The attack was a complete surprise. Most sailors were eating breakfast or still sleeping when the first bombs fell. American forces fought back as quickly as they could, shooting down 29 Japanese planes, but the damage was catastrophic.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed Congress the following day, December 8, 1941, calling it ‘a date which will live in infamy.’ Congress declared war on Japan within hours — with only one dissenting vote. Three days later, Germany and Italy — Japan’s allies under the Tripartite Pact — declared war on the United States, bringing America fully into World War II in both the Pacific and European theaters. The sleeping industrial giant of the United States mobilized with stunning speed: factories converted from consumer goods to weapons, millions of men and women enlisted or were drafted, and the nation’s enormous productive capacity was turned to winning the war.

The attack on Pearl Harbor was a tactical success for Japan but a strategic blunder. Yamamoto himself reportedly said, ‘I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.’ The aircraft carriers of the Pacific Fleet — the most valuable ships in modern naval warfare — were not at Pearl Harbor that day and survived intact. The United States rebuilt its battleship fleet and, within six months, won the decisive Battle of Midway, sinking four Japanese aircraft carriers. The war in the Pacific lasted nearly four more years, ending with Japan’s surrender on September 2, 1945. Pearl Harbor remains one of the most pivotal moments in American history.

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