USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor
On Sunday, December 7, 1941, Japan, without warning and without declaring war, launched a devastating attack on Pearl Harbor and other military bases on Oahu. The Japanese fleet of 33 ships, including six aircraft carriers and five midget subs, avoided detection by following a route far north of normal shipping lanes and by choosing an attack position 230 miles north of Oahu, facing its least populated coast. At 6 a.m., the first wave of
attack planes was launched.
At Pearl Harbor, crew members of the U.S. Pacific Fleet's 130 ships were just awaking to a peaceful, sunny Sunday morning. At 6:40 a.m., someone on the destroyer USS Ward spotted the conning tower of one of the midget subs outside Pearl Harbor. The Ward sank the sub and reported to headquarters.
After more than 68 years, small amounts of oil still seep from the submerged hull of the USS Arizona, resting where it was sunk on Sunday, December 7, 1941.
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