WEST VIRGINIA (LOOTPRESS) – December 7, 1941, is a day that Americans will never forget, and each year since Americans have come together to remember the over 2,400 U.S. personnel and 68 civilians that were killed in the attack on Pear Harbor that occurred 81 years ago today.
On the morning of December 7, 1941, Japanese fighter planes descended on Pearl Harbor and engaged in a surprise attack on the naval base in Honolulu, Hawaii.
The attack damaged or destroyed 19 U.S. Navy ships, including 8 battleships. The USS West Virginia was one of the ships that were damaged and sunk that day. The battleship was hit by two bombs and at least seven torpedoes, which blew huge holes in her port side.
The attack killed more than 100 members of the crew onboard the USS West Virginia. After the attack, the ship was salvaged and was eventually repaired and modernized at the Puget Sound Navy Yard in Washington and returned to service in 1944.
Following the attack, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked that Congress declare war on Japan. The attack on Pearl Harbor is what caused the U.S. to enter WWII.
Later on during WWII, on August 6, 1945, the U.S. would drop the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Days later Japan’s Emperor Hirohito announced his country’s unconditional surrender in World War II.