“Yesterday, December 7th, 1941, a date, which will live in infamy” started Franklin Roosevelt’s address to Congress that opened World War II.
A shocked America listened to their radio’s growing increasingly angry as they heard each word. People immediately rallied around their President and their Flag and then began grieving for the 2,403 Sailors, Soldiers and Marines killed in that attack.
“Honululu Star-Bulletin” on December 7th 1941.
As the fleet laid at anchored in a clam harbor the process of daily life was coming about. On the deck of the USS Arizona the band was playing the National Anthem as sailors were raising the flag when the first bullets were fired and bombs & torpedo’s dropped. The first ship hit by a torpedo in the attack was the aging target ship, and once proud Battleship Utah. She was a veteran of the Mexican conflict and World War I and the first causality of World War II. The Utah was hit first because she was on the opposite side of Battleship Row where the real targets were anchored, but she was closest to the oncoming planes. The Utah, like the USS Oklahoma, was hit in such a fashion that she quickly rolled over facing straight down at berth. Many crew-members never made it out of their ships to see the light of another day.
Map of Ships in Pearl Harbor.
When the USS Arizona blew up as an enemy bomb pierced her deck and landed in her magazine full of munitions, the force of the explosion took the ship right up out of the water and almost broke in two. Her causality numbers were great. The Attack did not last long, but its impact was devastating.
USS Pennsylvania, behind the wreckage of the USS Downes and USS Cassin.
In the days that followed, airplane hangars and open yards where lined with wooded coffins draped in the red, white and blue of our proud Flag. So many wives, mothers and husbands heard the words of a military officer as they handed them a neatly folded flag. On behalf of the President of the United States and a grateful Nation, we present you this flag in honor of your son’s, daughter’s or husband’s service. Remember Pearl Harbor, and other phrases like remembering the Alamo, and Maine, and closer to our generation remember 9/11 should never be forgotten.
Be one of America’s proud defenders of liberty and freedom, fly the Flag!
An aerial view of the USS Arizona Memorial.
USS Utah in better times.