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On the morning of December 7th, 1941, six Japanese carriers, (I'm not sure about the names, Zuikaku, Shoho, Kaga, Akagi, Hiryu etc.) sailed to a point several miles off Honolulu. With the ubiquitous words Tora Tora Tora, (Tiger, Tiger Tiger, which was the codeword for attack) the first wave of Japanese aircraft took off, this wave was mostly Zero fighters, and headed for Pearl Harbour. The fighters split into flights, some strafed parked US planes on Hickham airfield and the other airfields on Honolulu, others attacked ships in the harbour. However they weren't identified as hostile by the US radar because they though it was a flight of B-17 bombers returning from a patrol, and a lot of the ships' AA gun ammo was stored away. Nevertheless, after almost annihlating the USAF on the island, the dive bombers and torpedo planes began their runs as part of the second wave. They targeted 'Battleship Row', a row of anchored US battleships (again I'm not sure of the names, USS Oklahoma, USS Arizona, USS Nevada, USS California, USS West Virginia, USS Pennysylvania) And all of them were either badly damaged or sunk. The US Pacific fleet had been crippled, however their Aircraft Carriers were out on maneuoveres, and so it wasn't a complete loss for the Americans. Overall about 18 ships were sunk or put out of action, and about 2,000 men killed, and about 600 planes were destroyed.

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13y ago

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