Pearl Harbor anniversary: Here are 10 things you may not know about the attack
The Arizona is hit on Dec. 7, 1941 The USS Arizona burns after her forward magazines exploded. More than 1,100 people were killed on the Arizona during the attack.
By Debbie Lord, Cox Media Group National Content Desk
It’s been 82 years since the quiet of a Sunday morning in paradise was shattered by an attack from Japanese forces that would claim 2,400 lives in 75 minutes and launch the U.S. into a world war that would last for four years.
The attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on Dec. 7, 1941, began at 7:55 a.m., and each year on the anniversary, a bell tolls at that time to remember those who lost their lives that day.
Here are some things you may not have known about the attack on Pearl Harbor and the people who saw it that day:
Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto came up with the idea of attacking Pearl Harbor, in part, after reading a novel by Hector Bywater called “The Great Pacific War.” It was written in 1925 and gave an account of a clash between the United States and Japan that started with the Japanese destruction of the U.S. fleet. In addition to the book, Yamamoto was said to have taken inspiration from the successful attack of the Italian fleet at Taranto, Italy, by Britain’s Royal Air Force on Nov. 11, 1940.
There were 37 pairs or trios of brothers on the USS Arizona on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941. Twenty-three sets of brothers were killed in the attack. A father and son stationed on the ship, Thomas and William Free, were also killed in action.
The USS Arizona was hit four times by Japanese bombers before it sank with more than 1,177 crewmen aboard. A 1,760-pound bomb hit the ship and lifted it out of the water before it went down. Among the dead were all 21 members of Arizona’s band, known as U.S. Navy Band Unit (NBU) 22. When the attack began, most of its members were up on deck ready to play music for the daily flag-raising ceremony.
There were 102 ships stationed at Pearl Harbor when the attack happened, and eight were battleships. Seven battleships were sunk during the attack with the USS Arizona, the USS Oklahoma, and the USS Utah being total losses. The USS Nevada made a run for the channel to get out of the harbor, but was forced to run aground after it was damaged so as not to block the channel opening. Sixty-nine vessels received no damage at all. Top military commanders were later criticized for being unprepared for the attack. They generally believed that Pearl Harbor was too shallow to allow for a successful attack with torpedoes.
The ashes of a 2-year-old girl rest in the hull of the sunken USS Utah. A sailor stationed on the ship had brought the ashes of his daughter aboard to eventually bury at sea, but he never got the chance. Sixty-four men and the ashes of the little girl are entombed with the ship.
Opana Point, a radar station on the northern tip of the island of Oahu, spotted the incoming planes from the Japanese fleet. Radar technology was new then and the men who were manning the site were inexperienced. The planes were misidentified as American planes scheduled to be coming in that day from the U.S. mainland.
While the U.S. was given exclusive rights to set up a naval base at Pearl Harbor in 1887, it would be 21 years before one was formally established. In 1940, the U.S. Pacific Fleet was moved to Naval Station Pearl Harbor to deter Japanese expansionism.
Elvis Presley played a large role in funding the memorial at Pearl Harbor. In 1961, Elvis performed a benefit concert at Pearl Harbor that raised nearly $65,000 for the Memorial. Presley had just finished a two-year stint in the Army.
Far from demoralizing the U.S., the attack on Pearl Harbor galvanized support for America to enter World War II.
Today, 82 years after the attack, oil still leaks from the hull of the USS Arizona. It’s believed between 14,000 and 64,000 gallons of oil have leaked from the ship since the attack, and that about nine quarts of oil escapes from the ship each day. The National Park Service estimates it could continue to leak for 500 years. Survivors of the attack have called the leaking oil the “black tears of the Arizona.”
In this Dec. 7, 1941 file photo, a small boat rescues a USS West Virginia crew member from the water after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. (AP Photo/FILE)
Japanese pilots get instructions aboard an aircraft carrier before the attack on Pearl Harbor, in this scene from a Japanese newsreel, May 4, 1943. It was obtained by the U.S. War Department and released to U.S. newsreels. (AP Photo/FILE)
Zenji Abe stands with his plane, part of the bombing mission on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. (Kent D. Johnson)
This Japanese navy airview of smoking U.S. ships during Pearl Harbor attack appeared in a 1942 publication called "The New Order in Greater East Asia," a copy of which became available, Oct. 14, 1945 in New York. (AP Photo/FILE)
This is one of a series of official Navy photos on Pearl Harbor- U.S. Sailors man boats at the side of the blazing USS West Virginia to fight the flames started by Japanese torpedoes and bombs on the battleship at Pearl Harbor. (AP Photo/U.S. Navy)
Smoke billows from the USS Arizona after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. The attack triggered the U.S. entry into World War II. (AP Photo/U.S. Navy, File)
This line of three U.S. battleships attests to the damage done by the treacherous Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, last Dec. 7th. (U.S. Navy/ACME)
Fantastic patterns of flame and smoke are seen at the moment the magazine exploded on the destroyer USS Shaw during the attack on Pearl Harbor in this Dec. 7, 1941 photo. (AP Photo/FILE)
The above photo released by the U.S. Navy for publication in the morning papers of February 3rd,1942, shows the battered hulk of the USS Arizona lying in the mud of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. (U. S. Navy/ACME)
PEARL HARBOR, HAWAII... Taken by surprise during the Japanese aerial attack. Photo shows wreckage at the Naval Air Station, Pearl Harbor. 12-7-1941 (Official U.S. Navy Photograph)
This charred and smouldering mass of wreckage was once a prosperous business section in Honolulu, wrecked by Japanese bombs in the first raid of the war Dec. 7th. (Acme staff photographer Allan Campbell)
The battleship USS California is afire and listing to port in the Japanese aerial attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on Dec. 7, 1941. (AP Photo/FILE)
Firemen and civilians rushed fire hoses to the scene to save homes and stores in the Japanese and Chinese section, wrecked and burned as Japanese aviators rained bombs on Pearl Harbor, starting the war in the Pacific.(AP Wirephoto)
Selling papers on Dec. 7, 1941 at Times Square in New York City, announcing that Japan has attacked U.S. bases in the Pacific. (AP Photo/Robert Kradin)
Troops man a machine gun nest at Wheeler Field, which adjoins Schofield Barracks in Honolulu, after the Japanese attack on the island of Oahu, Dec. 7, 1941. (AP Photo/FILE)
President Franklin D. Roosevelt appears before a joint session of Congress appealing for a declaration of war against Japan in Washington D.C. in this Dec. 8, 1941 file photo. (AP Photo/FILE)
Tense faces of Congressmen, cabinet members, Supreme Court justices, crowded galleries looked to a grim President Franklin D. Roosevelt as he asked for war against Japan. (AP Photo/FILE)
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the declaration of war following the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, at the White House in Washington, D.C., Dec. 8, 1941 at 3:08 p.m. (AP Photo/FILE)
The United States' declaration of war against Japan complete with his signature, President Franklin Roosevelt turned to talk with congressional leaders who witnessed the historic event in the white house, Washington on Dec. 8, 1941. (AP Photo/FILE)
Officers' wives, investigating explosion and seeing smoke pall in distance on Dec. 7, 1941, heard neighbor Mary Naiden, then an Army hostess who took this picture, exclaim "There are red circles on those planes overhead. (AP Photo/Mary Naiden)
A Japanese bomber on a run over Pearl Harbor, Hawaii is shown during the surprise attack of Dec. 7, 1941. Black smoke rises from American ships in the harbor. Below is a U.S. Army air field. (Kent D. Johnson)
The shattered wreckage of American planes bombed by the Japanese in their attack on Pearl Harbor is strewn on Hickam Field, Dec. 7, 1941. (AP Photo/FILE)
Young Japanese Americans, including several Army selectees, gather around a reporter's car in the Japanese section of San Francisco, Dec. 8, 1941. (AP Photo/FILE)