User blog:ARTaylor/76 Years of the Attack on Pearl Harbor

December 7th, 1941, a date which lives in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. Allied with the Axis powers of Germany and Italy, Japan planned the attack as an preventative measure to keep the U.S. Pacific Fleet from interfering with their plans for Southeast Asia and the Pacific territories. Three-hundred fifty-three Japanese fighter planes, bombers, and torpedo planes attacked in two waves damaging all eight U.S. Navy battleships, sinking four with all but the Arizona being later raised, destroying one-hundred eighty-eight aircrafts, and killing two-thousand four-hundred three Americans while wounding one-thousand one-hundred seventy-eight more. The attack woke the "sleeping giant" and filled "him" with terrible resolve. The attack ended American isolationist ideology and propelled the nation into the Second World War. The following day, the United States declared war on Japan. Neutral support for the United Kingdom was transformed into an active alliance and on December 11th, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy declared war on the United States who then declared war on them the same day.