Pearl Harbor

The attack on Pearl Harbor and other U.S. military installations on the island of Oahu, territory of Hawaii, Sunday, December 7, 1941, plunged the United States into World War II. The Pearl Harbor anchorage of the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Fleet was attacked by two waves of Japanese planes flying from aircraft carriers more than 200 miles north of Hawaii. Eight battleships of the Pacific Fleet, as well as numerous other ships, were sunk or damaged, and 2,403 American lives were lost. Pearl Harbor has become an enduring symbol of American resolve in the wake of the surprise air raid. President Franklin Roosevelt called the date of the Pearl Harbor attack one that would “live in infamy.”

Pearl Harbor

“John Ford’s Navy”: A Filmmaker in the OSS

By Michael D. Hull

With such award-winning films as Stagecoach, Young Mr. Lincoln, Drums Along the Mohawk, The Grapes of Wrath, The Long Voyage Home, and How Green Was My Valley behind him, John Ford was one of Hollywood’s most respected directors by the time World War II broke out in 1939. Read more

Pearl Harbor

Japan’s Underwater Aircraft Carriers

By Phil Zimmer

Lieutenant Commander Stephen L. Johnson had a problem on his hands; a very large problem. His Balao-class submarine, the Segundo, had just picked up a large radar contact on the surface about 100 miles off Honshu, one of Japan’s home islands, heading south toward Tokyo.  Read more

Nicknamed “Peashooter,” the P-39 Airacobra was maligned by many.

Pearl Harbor

WWII Planes: The Bell P-39 Airacobra “Peashooter”

by Sam McGowan

If there is an American combat airplane that has achieved an ill-deserved reputation, no doubt it would be the much-maligned Bell P-39 Airacobra, a tricycle landing gear single-engine fighter whose reputation was greatly overshadowed by the more famous, and of more recent design, Lockheed P-38 Lightning, Curtiss P-40 Tomahawk, Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, and North American P-51 Mustang. Read more

Was Emperor Showa ("Hirohito" as he is typically referred outside Japan) a warmonger, pacifist, or both?

Pearl Harbor

The Real Hirohito/Emperor Showa

by Blaine Taylor

He was the longest-reigning monarch and head of state in the 20th century, and the third-longest in history behind King Louis XIV of France (72 years) and England’s Queen Victoria (64 years). Read more

Admirals Chester W. Nimitz and Isoroku Yamamoto took great risks in committing their fleets to the Battle of Midway—but for different reasons.

Pearl Harbor

Comparing Admiral Chester Nimitz and Isoroku Yamamoto

by Michael Haskew

“Japan cannot defeat America; therefore, Japan should not go to war with America.” Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy, spoke those words to a group of school children as his government contemplated just that. Read more

Allied efforts at the Battle of Wake Island gave America hope in the opening days of WWII. The heroism of the Marines was never forgotten.

Pearl Harbor

WWII’s Battle of Wake Island: An Unsteady Victory

by John Wukovits

In mid-December 1941, during the thick of the Battle of Wake Island, the 400 U.S. Marines who called the island outpost home stood a lonely sentinel in the watery Central Pacific wilderness, like a cavalry fort in an oceanic version of the Western frontier. Read more

Pearl Harbor

The Doomed Expansion of Imperial Japan

by Michael E. Haskew

Since 1931, Japan’s army had asserted control over territory on the continent of Asia, brushing aside Chinese resistance, condemnation and political pressure from other nations, and most recently, the Allied military. Read more

Pearl Harbor

Escape From Bataan

By Glenn Barnett

Most Americans were surprised by the Japanese attack on pearl Harbor, but the military had known that war with Japan was inevitable. Read more