Pearl Harbor

       The attack on Pearl Harbor occured on the morning of December 7th 1941, the attack was orchestrated by Japan. The attack was picked up on radar, but was determined by a general to simply be jets returning from a basic test. Soon they would find out this was not the case, when a swarm of Japanese fighter jets bombed Pearl Harbor. This sunk or damaged 18 ships, killing over 2,400 people and wounding over 1,000 more. The United States knew an attack was coming, they just didn't know when, or where the attack would take place.

My reaction to this event is that you can never be too careful. It sort of shows that the United States thought they would be prepared for any attack on American soil. You can never be over prepared, especially when the rest of the world is involved in some sort of war. This shows the lack of readiness by the United States. I think maybe most of the people felt they couldn't, and wouldn't be attacked by any foreign country. Clearly this thought proved to be wrong, and very devastating. Had Japan gotten all of the United States fleet, this attack could have completely changed the war, more than it already did.