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

Ensign Kazuo Sakamaki: Underwater Peril at Pearl Harbor

By John Perry

During the early hours of December 7, 1941, five midget submarinesof the Imperial Japanese Navy waited to enter Pearl Harbor, the anchorage of the U.S. Read more

Pearl Harbor

World War II Propaganda Posters

By Eric H. Roth

World War II propaganda posters played a crucial role in motivating Americans to do their best and make sacrifices of all kinds. Read more

Pearl Harbor

Hollywood’s Dream Factory During World War II

By Herb Kugel

World War II came to the Hollywood motion picture studios, the “Dream Factories” as they were sometimes called, the day after Pearl Harbor. Read more

Huge geysers leap skyward as torpedoes from the submarine USS Archer-Fish strike home against the mammoth Japanese aircraft carrier Shinano. The carrier had initially been slated as the third super battleship of the Imperial Japanese Navy.

Pearl Harbor

The Shinano Carrier: How Allied Forces Sunk Such a Secret

By Kelly Bell

The first torpedo struck the Shinano carrier farthest aft. Over the next 30 seconds three more warheads detonated against the massive aircraft carrier’s hull, working their way forward. Read more

Pearl Harbor

Hemingway Goes Sub Chasing

By Robert E. Cray, Jr.

“We are going to have Christ’s own bitter time to win it, if, when, and ever,” commented Ernest Hemingway to his friend and editor, Charles Scribner, at the start of World War II. Read more

General Douglas MacArthur, leader of the allied campaign in the Southwest Pacific, commanded an amphibious drive to the Philippines and beyond.

Pearl Harbor

General Douglas MacArthur’s Navy

by Glenn Barnett

In November 1941, the U.S. Asiatic Fleet weighed anchor in Shanghai, China, for the last time. Alarmed by the growing hostility and aggressiveness of the Japanese, Admiral Thomas Hart ordered the outnumbered and outgunned American vessels moved to the relative safety of Manila Bay in the Philippines. Read more

Pearl Harbor

Pearl Harbor Trilogy: Red Sun Rising

By Joseph Luster

The concept of a beefy but downloadable Wii dogfighting series seems like a surefire bet. Though visual flare isn’t necessarily one of the strong suits of Nintendo’s console, there are other more valuable assets that work well for the genre: namely, motion controls. Read more

Pearl Harbor

Newly Identified Remains from the USS Oklahoma Makes News in Hawaii

By Michael Haskew

On the morning of December 7, 1941, the battleship USS Oklahoma was moored along Battleship Row at Pearl Harbor, outboard of the battleship USS Maryland. Read more

Wounded Allied servicemen are unloaded from the USS Marblehead on the island of Java in 1942.

Pearl Harbor

Dr. Corydon Wassell: Caring for the Wounded in Java

By Michael D. Hull

Allied fortunes were at a low ebb as strategic British and American bases fell like ninepins to the Japanese across the Far East in the early months of 1942. Read more

Pearl Harbor

On This Day: Remembering the Pearl Harbor Attack

It’s now been 74 years to the day since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and America’s foray into the the Second World War. Read more

U.S. Navy Helldiver aircraft attack the Japanese battleship Musashi in the Sibuyan Sea during the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Painting by Sam L. Massette.

Pearl Harbor

Battle of Sibuyan Sea

By John Wukovits

In warfare, desperate times call for desperate measures, and in the fall of 1944 the empire of Japan found itself in precisely that predicament. Read more

Pearl Harbor

Admiral William F. “Bull” Halsey

By Glenn Barnett

Just before dawn, the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise turned into the wind to launch her planes. Nervous and excited pilots roared into the darkness of the vast Pacific toward the unsuspecting Japanese. Read more

New York Blue-Blood Hamilton Fish III Helped Lead the “Harlem Hell Fighters” of in World War I.

Pearl Harbor

Hamilton Fish III and the “Harlem Hell Fighters”

By Blaine Taylor

In July 1918, 30-year-old U.S. Army Captain Hamilton Fish, Jr., was in war-torn France with the 15th New York National Guard Regiment—also known as the (U.S.) Read more

After the terrible end of rivalrous Repulse and Prince Of Wales battleships, Great Britain never again lost such a vessel in wartime.

Pearl Harbor

The Repulse and Prince of Wales Battleships: How They Sunk

by Joseph M. Horodyski

During the 1920s and 1930s Great Britain built up its Far East defenses steadily if slowly, centering around Singapore as its primary naval base in the Pacific area. Read more

Pearl Harbor

Exercise Tiger: Deadly D-Day Rehearsal

by Robert Heege

It was spring 1944, and the morning sun was glinting off the face of the water as the Landing Ship, Tank (LST) transports chugged their way through the choppy surf and headed in close toward shore, their destination a gravel-strewn stretch of beach on the English Channel code named “U” for Utah. Read more

Restricted by Naval Treaties, Britain Turned in the 1920s and 1930s to Cruisers, of Which the HMS Cornwall was the First.

Pearl Harbor

HMS Cornwall: a Symbol of British Naval Power

by William R. Hawkins

Following the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 (and roughly four years prior to the construction of the HMS Cornwall), cruisers became a focus of the interwar naval arms race, no less keenly felt by the British, whose survival depended on the sea-lane. Read more

OSS Captain Frank Farrell was a journalist turned Marine turned spy who uncovered and brought to justice Nazi spies operating after the war in China.

Pearl Harbor

OSS Captain Frank Farrell Prosecuted Nazi Spy Ring In Postwar China

by Colonel Richard D. Camp, Jr. USMC (Ret) and Ms. Suzanne Pool

Marine Captain Frank Farrell stood in the open door of the Army Air Corps C-47 waiting for the “green light,” the signal to leap into space, on a mission that could mean life or death for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people. Read more

Franklin D. Roosevelt employed a network of friends and contacts in covert roles, which inspired the creation of the OSS.

Pearl Harbor

Creating the OSS: FDR’s Network of Personal Spies

by Peter Kross

One of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s longtime interests was the hidden world of espionage. In the months before the United States entered World War II, the commander-in-chief was dabbling in the covert world of intelligence-gathering, using a number of trusted personal friends as his own private eyes and ears around the globe. Read more

Twice-General Joseph Stilwell, nicknamed 'Vinegar Joe,' landed two of the United States’ most coveted commands, and twice he lost them.

Pearl Harbor

General Joseph “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell

By Kevin M. Hymel

General Joseph Stilwell was one of the United States’ best military commanders, yet in the course of America’s involvement in World War II he never led U.S. Read more