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USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor
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The Japanese planes inflicted heavy damage to nearly all of the U.S. battleships. At about 8:10 a.m., a 1,760 pound armor-piercing bomb found it's mark on the USS Arizona, piercing the deck and striking the forward ammunition magazine. The resulting explosion turned the entire ship into a blazing inferno. Billowing fire and thick, black smoke, the ship sank in
less than nine minutes with 1,177 crew members aboard, making it the most disastrous loss of the entire attack.
The Japanese launched a second wave of planes that continued the attack at Pearl Harbor, while other planes attacked airfields at Hickam, Wheeler, Bellows, Ewa, Kaneohe and Schofield. Hundreds of planes were destroyed and hundreds of men were killed or wounded.
The attack, although devastating to the U.S. military, served to galvanize previously divided public opinion regarding entering World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in a radio address to the nation, declared the date of the attack "a date which will live in infamy." Congress passed a declaration of war less than an hour after his speech.