Pearl Harbor United States

Legendary

A December 7, 1941 surprise attack on the harbor by Japan would force the United States to enter World War II.

Kid Rating:

Oil still leaks from the USS Arizona. About nine quarts rise to the surface every day, more than 80 years after the ship went down.

Visitors call the drops "black tears." Standing on the memorial, you can watch them spread across the water in slow rainbow circles.

Pearl Harbor is a U.S. Navy base on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. On the morning of December 7, 1941, most of the Pacific Fleet was tied up there, and most of the sailors were asleep or getting ready for Sunday breakfast.

At about 7:55 a.m., 183 Japanese planes swept in from the north. A second wave of 170 followed an hour later.

The planes had launched from six aircraft carriers that had crossed the Pacific in secret. The United States and Japan weren't at war, and nobody in Hawaii was expecting an attack.

The bombers went straight for Battleship Row, where eight battleships sat in a line. At 8:10 a.m., a bomb punched through the deck of the USS Arizona and set off the ammunition stored below.

The explosion lifted the ship out of the water. It sank in nine minutes, killing 1,177 of the men aboard, nearly half of everyone who died that day.

In less than two hours, the attack killed 2,403 Americans and damaged or destroyed 21 ships and 188 airplanes. The next day, President Franklin Roosevelt called December 7 "a date which will live in infamy," and Congress declared war on Japan.

That brought the United States into World War II, which had been raging in Europe and Asia for two years.

Every battleship except the Arizona and the USS Utah was eventually raised and repaired. The Arizona was too damaged to save, so the Navy left it where it sank, with about 900 of its crew still inside.

A white memorial was built over the wreck and dedicated in 1962. It sags in the middle and rises at both ends, which the architect said stood for America's low point after the attack and its victory at the end.

Reserve a free ticket for the boat ride out to the USS Arizona Memorial, and look down through the water at the ship's rusting deck. Walk across to the USS Missouri, where Japan signed the surrender that ended the war in 1945. Then climb through the narrow passages of the USS Bowfin, a submarine that fought in the Pacific.