Pearl Harbor at 85: The Morning of December 7, 1941

At 6:37 a.m., the officer of the deck on the destroyer USS Ward reported something in the water outside Pearl Harbor: the conning tower of a small submarine, following a Navy supply ship toward the harbor entrance.

At 6:45, the Ward opened fire and dropped depth charges. Her commanding officer sent a message to headquarters: "We have attacked, fired upon, and dropped depth charges on a submarine operating in defensive sea areas."

It was Sunday morning on Oahu. The submarine was one of five Japanese midget submarines sent to the attack. None of them returned. The planes were already on their way.

Eighty-five years later, this is that morning as the National Park Service, the Naval History and Heritage Command, and the National Archives record it. Times are Hawaii time.

7:02 a.m.: A blip on the radar

On the north shore of Oahu, at a mobile radar station called Opana, two Army privates, Joseph Lockard and George Elliott, saw a very large return on their screen. It was about 130 miles north of the island.

They reported it. The officer on duty at the information center, Lieutenant Kermit Tyler, took it to be a flight of American B-17 bombers expected from the mainland that morning. The Park Service notes that radar was still new, and that the center was not fully staffed. No further action was taken.

The plot of what Lockard and Elliott saw survives. It is a sheet of paper about 22 by 31 inches, and it is now in the National Archives.

7:55 a.m.: The first wave

The Japanese force had come from six aircraft carriers. The Naval History and Heritage Command counts 353 planes in two waves. The first wave, 183 aircraft, was led by Commander Mitsuo Fuchida. According to the Park Service, he radioed back the code words tora, tora, tora, the signal that surprise had been achieved.

At 7:55, the planes struck Pearl Harbor and the airfields around it.

Within minutes, a dispatch went out to the fleet. The original is in the National Archives. It reads, in the telegraph style of the day: "AIR RAID ON PEARL HARBOR X THIS IS NOT DRILL."

8:06 a.m.: The Arizona

On Battleship Row, the USS Arizona was hit. A bomb set off her forward magazines, and the explosion destroyed the ship. Navy records put it at about 8:06. The Park Service counts 1,177 sailors and Marines killed aboard her.

Moments later, the USS Oklahoma rolled over. Hit by torpedoes, she capsized within about 12 minutes of the first torpedo hit. Four hundred twenty-nine of her crew died.

On the USS West Virginia, a sailor named Doris Miller helped move his mortally wounded captain, then manned a machine gun until he was ordered off the bridge. He received the Navy Cross. The Naval History and Heritage Command notes that he was the first Black American to receive it.

8:50 a.m.: The second wave

After a short lull, the second wave arrived at about 8:50, according to the Park Service. By about 9:45, the Naval History and Heritage Command says, the last Japanese planes had left.

Survivors remembered the scene in interviews for the Library of Congress Veterans History Project. Richard Paull, who served on the USS Nevada, recalled "so much smoke in the harbor, it just blocked out the sun."

Norwood Teague of the USS Tennessee put it this way: "That was the day. Total devastation, total amazement, dazed. But we were doing our job. We had to do our job, didn't think beyond just that."

The count

By 10 a.m., 21 American naval vessels had been sunk or damaged. The Park Service lists 2,403 Americans killed and 1,178 injured. In the Navy's breakdown, 68 of the dead were civilians. The National Archives says 188 aircraft were lost or badly damaged.

The Arizona was never raised. She still rests where she sank.

December 8: "A date which will live in infamy"

The next day, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern time, President Franklin D. Roosevelt went before a joint session of Congress. He spoke for about six minutes, and the country listened on the radio.

His first draft, now at the National Archives, had called December 7 "a date which will live in world history." Roosevelt crossed out "world history" and wrote "infamy." He also changed "simultaneously" to "suddenly." The words he spoke said that the United States "was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan."

Congress voted right after the speech and declared war. The Senate vote was 82 to 0. The House vote was 388 to 1. The lone vote against was Representative Jeannette Rankin of Montana.