JAPANESE BOMB PEARL HARBOR!
December 7,1941
PEARL HARBOR
Earlier this morning, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor at 7:48 am. 353 Japanese airships dropped bombs all around Pearl Harbor, damaging all U.S. ships, and sinking 4 ships!188 U.S. aircraft were destroyed, and 2,335 U.S servicemen were killed. A total of 1,246 civillians were injured, 68 of them killed, and a huge number of naval men killed after a 1,760 pound air bomb was dropped on the USS Arizona! All this happened in only two waves. in the first wave, 183 Japanese airships bombed the harbor. In the second wave, 167 airships attacked. No one at Pearl Harbor was ready and they were not warned in time to defend.
The explosion of the USS Shaw after a Japanese air raid.
The ship was raised out of the water by the bombings this morning, and was not necessarily damaged until uncontrollable fires appeared. The ship's explosion from the fires caused two other ships around it to become more damaged, and they eventually sunk after being hit with bombs.
USS Arizona, 12 minutes into the attack
The USS Arizona was hit with a 1,760 lb. bomb. it killed 1,104 men! They are still looking for any survivors that might have swam away, but the chance of finding them is slim to none.
Disaster
The USS Arizona burning uncontrollably, the USS West Virginia partially sunken, and the USS Tennessee stuck between them, after both waves.
The Japanese
Commander Mitsuo Fuchida led the attacks. We have heard news that after the first succesful attack, japan celebrated! Unbelievable! In better news, the Japanese lost aircraft and ships as well. They lost 27 planes and 5 midget submarines. 55 known Japanese casualties are accounted for.
Learning
These attacks have shown us that the world is not a peaceful place. A disaster can strike at any second, like the attcaks earlier today. Although we do not wish for these circumstances, we can learn from today's attacks. We can learn to improve in tracking airspace, so that signals can be informed in time. We can also learn to love. You never know when someone you know will die, and you must always tell them "I love you" or at least acknowledge their presence. One last thing we can learn from Pearl Harbor, is what to do if a certain thing like this were to happen. We can hear about the dangerous things people went through today, and learn from their mistakes, which could save lives if this situation were to happen again.
Today
We know that with today's technology, the outcomes of those attacks would not be as deadly. We have advanced technology now that can track airspace thoroughly, and we can message a certain place before the attacks would happen. We would already be armed and ready to shoot down aircrafts. There wouldn't be as big of a casualty list as there was in 1941.