The USS Arizona (BB-39) burning after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Photo:US Navy
By Dorothy J. Riley, Staff Officer-Publications 7
ing an attack so close to home, the naval facilities at Pearl Harbor were relatively undefended. Almost the entire Pacific Fleet was moored around Ford n the hours leading up to 6:45 a.m. Sunday, Dec. Island in the harbor, and hundreds of airplanes were 7, 1941, the crew of CGC Tiger had no warning that their day would take a turn for the worst. Berthed squeezed onto adjacent airfields. at Pearl Harbor, a naval base near Honolulu, the The day after the assault, President Franklin D. morning for the cutter and its crew started out like Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan. any other. This declaration catapulted the U.S. into wars on two fronts- both the Pacific and the Atlantic. Germany, There was just one confusing blip: the USS Ward Italy, and Japan had signed the Tripartite Pact in (DD-139), an American destroyer, sent out a radio 1940, better known as the Axis alliance, and Dec. 11, dispatch claiming to have engaged an unidentified 1941, Germany declared war on the United States. submarine and to have sunk it. For the next 30 The Coast Guard played a major role during World minutes, there were no further radio transmissions War II by protecting our extensive coastlines and or explanations. No one seemed to know anything placing most of their cutters under Navy control. The about a foreign hostile craft in American waters. Coast Guard ferried infantry soldiers to the beaches Then came the assault: just before 8 a.m. on that of Normandy on D-Day and contributed some of the Sunday morning, hundreds of Japanese fighter most famous photographs of that bloody event. planes descended on the base and destroyed or We as Americans will never forget Pearl Harbor Redamaged nearly 20 American naval vessels, includmembrance Day- Dec. 7- “the day that will go down ing eight battleships and over 300 airplanes. Less in infamy.” than two hours later, the surprise attack was over, and every battleship in Pearl Harbor—USS Arizona, USS Oklahoma, USS California, USS West Virginia, In accordance with United States Code Title 36, Chapter 1, Section 129, the president of the United USS Utah, USS Maryland, USS Pennsylvania, USS Tennessee and USS Nevada—had sustained signifi- States is requested to issue a proclamation (per Flag cant damage. More than 2,400 Americans died in the Code section 7(m)) for the United States Flag to be displayed at half-staff for the entire day (sunrise to attack, including civilians and another 1,000 people sunset) for National Pearl Harbor Remembrance were wounded Day, Wednesday, Dec. 7.Ω Because American military leaders were not expect-
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