More than 1,100 Sailors were killed when he USS Arizona’s forward magazine exploded from a direct bomb strike. Some put their comrades before them and risked their own lives to save a stranger.įifty minutes later, a second wave of 170 planes intensified the attack arriving almost simultaneously from three different directions. Army pilots dodged bombs and machine gun fire to make it to their planes in attempt to take to the air and drive off the attackers. Ammunition and weapons lockers were broke open in order to fight back. It was truly a living hell.īut in American fashion, these brave men and women pulled together. Some had to choose between staying aboard a doomed ship, or take a chance by diving into a harbor aflame with burning fuel and littered with the dead bodies of their fellow sailors.

Some were trapped only to drown inside as water slowly replaced the air in their ship. Some Sailors went down with their ship while still asleep in their bunks.

Japanese pilots strafed everything in their path with wing mounted machine guns while others dropped torpedoes. Bombs were dropped on fuel and ammunition dumps, buildings, and ships. What appeared to be another beautiful day in paradise would quickly turn into a nightmare.Īt five minutes before 8 a.m., 183 Japanese aircraft raced across the mountains north of Pearl Harbor with a mission to destroy the US Fleet. Some were eating breakfast a few were on duty, others just straggling in after a long night. Many of the 60,000 Sailors and other military personnel stationed there were still in their bunks resting after a Saturday night on the town. It was a quiet and beautiful Sunday morning at Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor – home of America’s U.S Pacific Fleet. Battleship USS West Virginia engulfed in flames and smoke during the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec.

Empire of the sun awakening