1941 - THE U.S. AT WAR: Pearl Harbor and Declaration of War Against Japan

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The Japs came in from the southeast over Diamond Head. Civilians' estimates of their numbers ranged from 50 to 150. They whined over Waikiki, over the candy-pink bulk of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. Some were big four-motored jobs, some dive-bombers, some pursuits. All that they met as they came in was a tiny private plane in which Lawyer Ray Buduick was out for a Sunday morning ride. They riddled the plane with machine-gun bullets, but the lawyer succeeded in landing. By the time he did, bombs were thudding all around the city. The first reported casualty was Robert Tyce, operator of a civilian airport near Honolulu, who was machine-gunned as he started to spin the propeller of a plane.

Torpedoes launched from bombers tore at the dreadnoughts in Pearl Harbor. Dive-bombers swooped down on the Army's Hickam and Wheeler Fields. All the way from Pacific Heights down to the center of town the planes soared, leaving a wake of destruction.

Obvious to onlookers on the Honolulu hills was the fact that Pearl Harbor was being hit hard. From the Navy's plane base on Ford Island (also known as Luke Field), in the middle of the harbor, clouds of smoke ascended. One citizen who was driving past the naval base saw the first bomb fall on Ford Island.

Said he: "It must have been a big one. I saw two planes dive over the mountains and down to the water and let loose torpedoes at a naval ship. This warship was attacked again & again. I also saw dive-bombers coming over in single file."

When the first ghastly day was over, Honolulu began to reckon up the score. It was one to make the U.S. Navy and Army shudder. Of the 200,000 inhabitants of Oahu, 1,500 were dead, 1,500 others injured. Washington called the naval damage "serious," admitted at least one "old" battleship and a destroyer had been sunk, other ships damaged at base. Meanwhile Japan took to the radio to boast that the U.S. had suffered an "annihilating blow."