<text id=00he0600><title>A Quiet and Pleasant Sunday: Introduction</title>
<history>US Air Force: Events History</history>
<article><hdr>A Quiet and Pleasant Sunday: Introduction</hdr><body>
<p>Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander in Chief of the Japanese Imperial Navy, was right. His plan had worked, and it would give Japan breathing time to win some important victories. From that position of strength, his country then could negotiate with the Western powers for a settlement of the war.
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<p>Yamamoto's plan was only a temporary solution. He knew that his navy could not long stand against the combined strengths of the West, that eventually Japan would go down to defeat. Hence his strategy: strike the main American naval base in Hawaii and do as much damage as possible. If the plan worked, it would give the Japanese military about one year to consolidate their gains in Asia, and to win other battles.
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<p>And so, on the morning of 7 December 1941, a quiet and pleasant Sunday in the Hawaiian Islands, a wave of Japanese carrier-based bombers and fighters roared in over Oahu and attacked the United States Navy's base at Pearl Harbor and the Army Air Forces' main station, Hickam Field.
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<p>There were two waves of attackers, and they spent almost two hours over their targets. When the last Japanese plane pulled away from the verdant island and headed north towards rendezvous with its carrier, the US military installations were a shambles.
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<p>The Navy was hardest hit. It lost 2,086 personnel killed or dead of wounds, and the heart of the Pacific Fleet: proud warships, now blazing ruins where they lay along Battleship Row. The Army Air Forces lost 206 men killed or missing, and 64 of their 231 Oahu-based aircraft were destroyed. Hickam, Wheeler and Bellows Fields were heavily hit, either by bombing, or strafing, or both. There had been no action alert for the USAAF, only an alert against sabotage. The planes were parked closely to simplify guard procedures, and—in their state—required a four-hour notice to be prepared for flight.
