On December 7th 1941, hundreds of Japanese fighter planes attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbour near Honolulu Hawaii. Almost the entire Pacific Fleet, which at the time consisted of nine battleships, three aircraft carriers, 12 heavy cruisers, eight light cruisers, 50 destroyers, 33 submarines, and 100 patrol bombers were moored around Ford Island in the harbour. There were also hundred of planes on the adjacent airfields.
The attack completely destroyed the American battleship U.S.S. Arizona and capsized the U.S.S. Oklahoma. The attack sank or beached a total of twelve ships and damaged nine others. 160 aircraft were destroyed and 150 others damaged. The Japanese attack was split into two separate waves, in the first wave the Japanese used B5N2 bombers also known as ‘Kates’. The B5N2 was the largest aircraft on Japanese carriers, it included a crew of three, a pilot, observer/bombardier and a gunner/radio operator. It was capable of carrying either a single torpedo or several bombs. The Japanese used 40 B5N2s carrying the Type 91 Model 2 torpedo. Most ships were sunk due to these torpedos. Another 49 B5N2s carried converted naval shells, Type 91 Model 5. It was this bomb which had destroyed the Arizona. 51 Aichi D3A1 dive bombers also known as ‘Val’ were used for land attacks. Each dive bomber carried a single Type 98 land bomb.
In the second wave, both B5N2s and 51 Aichi D3A1 dive bombers were used. However, due to the smoke the Japanese needed to pinpoint their targets, thus the Type 99 ordinary bomb was used. This bomb was designed for destroying ships. As America was ill prepared for the attack, many of their aircrafts and ships were destroyed, thus they had to rely primarily on submarines to defend themselves.
Voice recording from 7th December 1941 on the attack on Pearl Harbour