It was the beginning of World War II, before the U.S. had  joined the fight. The U.S. Naval Base at Honolulu, Hawaii was moving about in its usual fashion. No one was prepared for the devastating attack.

On December 7, 1941, over 300 Japanese fighter pilots bombed the Honolulu naval base. Over 2,000 American soldiers were killed and 1,000 were injured in the attack that lasted a little over an hour.

The day after the assault, President Franklin D. Roosevelt petitioned Congress to declare war on Japan–a request that was almost unanimously approved. Three days later, Japanese allies, Italy and Germany, declared war on the U.S. America had officially joined the second world war.

“Never a day goes by for all these many years when I haven’t thought about it,” Donald Stratton, a Pearl Harbor survivor, said in an interview with People magazine. “I don’t talk about it too much, but when December rolls around, I do. It’s important the American people don’t forget.”

Pearl Harbor was the beginning of the U.S.’s involvement in World War II. It is an event that still haunts survivors, and the families of those who were killed.  Those survivors are now in their 90’s.

In 2015, President Obama issued a proclamation calling on the people of the United States to observe National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day with appropriate ceremonies and activities.

On December 27th, 2016, President Barack Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will be visiting the Pearl Harbor Memorial in Hawaii in a historic show of our nations’ growing trust. “This will be a visit to console the souls of the victims. I would like to show to the world the resolve that horrors of war should never be repeated,” Abe told reporters at a press release on December 5th.

Linganore’s World War II class discussed the effects of Pearl Harbor after watching a short expose by the History Channel. Instructor Dawn Murphy said, “We couldn’t do as much as I wanted on it. Pearl Harbor is just far too important to cover in one day.”