Just before 8 a.m. on December 7, 1941, 353 Japanese aircraft attacked the Pacific naval base, damaging eight battleships and killing 2,403 Americans.
Just before 8 a.m. on December 7, 1941, 353 Japanese aircraft attacked the Pacific naval base, damaging eight battleships and killing 2,403 Americans. Luckily, the U.S.’s aircraft carriers—which would go on to prove vital to the war effort in the Pacific—were not at Pearl Harbor at the time of the attack. Because the attack was launched without any declaration of war, the Attack on Pearl Harbor was eventually tried as a war crime at the Tokyo Trials in 1946.