 The initial bombs struck the island at 07 : 57 local time , prompting the historic dispatch : " Air Raid , Pearl Harbor — this is no drill . " The battleships ringing Ford Island were the Japanese attackers ' primary targets . Twenty @-@ four of the forty Japanese torpedo planes were assigned to attack Battleship Row , and five more came over to that side of Ford Island after failing to find battleships in other parts of the harbor . The planes carried 29 Type 91 aerial torpedoes , each with a high @-@ explosive payload of 450 pounds ( 200 kg ) , of which 12 are thought to have found their targets : two in California , one in Nevada and a possible total of nine in Oklahoma and West Virginia ; the latter two ships sank within minutes of being hit . 
