Pearl Harbor Panorama-North

Along the eastern shore of Pearl Harbor are visible many features associated with the 1941 Japanese attack. From his bomber over the west coast of Oahu, Cmdr Mitsuo Fuchida gave the signal that meant war with the United States at 7:49 a.m., radioing “To, to, to” to his pilots while still twenty miles away and able to see and count the battleships that appeared to him “majestic.” At the time of the attack, twenty U.S. Navy destroyers were moored in East Loch and none were damaged; destroyer USS Ralph Talbot, moored about 1-1/4 miles away, shot down a Japanese plane before steaming out of the harbor to hunt submarines. At 8:02 a.m., Japanese fighters and dive bombers struck Wheeler Field ten miles up the valley, destroying most of the Army Air Corps fighters parked there and killing thirty-eight Americans while wounding 53 more; the planes had been parked close together to guard against sabotage, which made them highly vulnerable to air attack. USS Phoenix, moored just off McGrew Point, fired antiaircraft guns at Japanese planes and escaped damage; transferred to Argentina in 1951 and renamed General Belgrano, the last surviving warship of the 1941 attack was sunk by a British submarine during the 1982 Falklands War. When the attack began, USS Vestal was moored alongside USS Arizona on Battleship Row; after two bombs struck her, the crippled ship was moved with the help of two tugs to a location off McGrew Point, where she lay beached on shoals as black smoke poured from Arizona and Japanese A6M2 Model 21 “Zero” fighters strafed Americans aboard ships and on the ground. The attacking Japanese planes had been launched from aircraft carriers 230 miles to the north.

Pearl City, Hawaii · United States