Date of Issue: December 2, 1991

KEY DATES 1939 Germans invade Poland; war begins in Europe. 1941 Japan bombs Pearl Harbor; U.S. enters the war against Germany, Italy and Japan — the Axis. 1942 Japan advances in the Pacific. 1943 Germany loses ground. 1944 Allied forces (England, Soviet Union, U.S.) invade Europe. 1945 President Harry Truman orders the dropping of two atomic bombs on Japan. Japan and Germany surrender; war ends.

Remembering the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor
On Sunday, December 7, 1941, the brass band on the USS Nevada kept playing "The Star-Spangled Banner" for the 8 a.m. flag rising even after a Japanese bomber roared overhead and fired a torpedo at the nearby Arizona. The torpedo missed, but the bomber sprayed machine-gun fire at the Nevada’s band.

	"Even after a half-century, the bombing of Pearl Harbor still represents a classic moment of treachery and betrayal."

"This is the best drill the Army Air Force has ever put on," remarked an Arizona sailor standing idly at the battleship’s rail.

"Air raid, Pearl Harbor, this is no drill," said the radio message that went out at 7:58 a.m. from the U.S. Navy’s Ford Island command center, relayed through Hawaii to Manila and then to Washington.

Almost alongside the Oklahoma, another torpedo hurled through the air. "I felt a very heavy shock and heard a loud explosion," said the Oklahoma’s executive officer, Commander Jesse Kenworthy Jr. Realizing that the Oklahoma was beginning to sink, Kenworthy gave the order to abandon ship. Just as the Oklahoma capsized, a tremendous explosion tore open the Arizona.

It is fifty years later. Pearl Harbor is peaceful now, blue waves in the winter sunshine. A concrete canopy shrouds the rusted wreckage of the Arizona, the remains of more than one thousand American servicemen entombed inside. Her flag is still raised and lowered every day on the mast that extends out of the quite water.

The anniversary of the greatest U.S. military defeat, the day President Franklin D. Roosevelt called "a date, which will live in infamy," remains a day of death and disgrace. In American mythology, Pearl Harbor, even after a half-century, still represents a classic moment of treachery and betrayal. The surprise, when the bombing first started over Pearl Harbor, was shattering, and everyone who experienced it can still remember what was going on when the news interrupted that quiet Sunday: the Washington Redskins paying the Philadelphia Eagles, Arthur Rubenstein performing as soloist in the New York Philharmonic broadcast, or friends visiting.

Admiral Husband Kimmel was preparing for his golf game when an officer phoned him with the news that Japanese planes were attaching his fleet. The admiral was still buttoning his white uniform as he ran out of the house. He was the Arizona "lift out of the water, then sink back down — way down."