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Associated Press
December 8, 1941
Japan's bombing of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on December 7, 1941, led the United States into World War II (1939-1945). An Associated Press report of December 8, 1941, covered the developments. This account reflects the conventions and biases of the era in which it was written. Because it was published at the time the events took place, it may contain information that has been subsequently revised or updated.
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Japan assaulted every main United States and British possession in the Central and Western Pacific and invaded Thailand today (Monday) in a hasty but evidently shrewdly-planned prosecution of a war she began Sunday without warning.
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Her formal declaration of war against both the United States and Britain came 2 hours and 55 minutes after Japanese planes spread death and terrific destruction in Honolulu and Pearl Harbor at 7:35 a.m., Hawaiian time (10:05 a.m., P.S.T.) Sunday.
The claimed successes for this fell swoop included sinking of the United States battleship West Virginia and setting afire of the battleship Oklahoma.
From that moment, each tense tick of the clock brought new and flaming accounts of Japanese aggression in her secretly launched war of conquest or death for the land of the Rising Sun.
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As compiled from official and unofficial accounts from all affected countries, including such sources as the Tokyo and Berlin radios, the record of Japan's daring all-or-nothing gamble ran like this:
United States transport Gen. Hugh Scott, carrying lumber, sunk, 1600 miles from Manila;
Liner President Harrison, now a transport, seized or sunk in the Yangtze River near Shanghai;
British colony of Hongkong bombed twice;
Small United States garrison at Tientsin, China, disarmed and presumably captured;
United States island of Guam bombed, surrounded and oil reservoir and hotel set afire.
Honolulu bombed a second time;
Shanghai's International Settlement seized; United States gunboat Wake captured there and British gunboat Peterel destroyed;
United States island of Wake captured;
Many points throughout the Philippine Islands bombed;
Northern Malaya and Thailand (Siam) invaded and Singapore and Bangkok bombed.
The first United States official casualty report listed 104 dead and more than 300 injured in the Army at Hickam Field, alone, near Honolulu. An N.B.C. observer in Honolulu reported the death toll at Hickam was 300.
There was heavy damage in Honolulu residential districts and the death list among civilians was large but uncounted.
The German radio reported that a sea battle between the Japanese navy on one side and the British and United States on the other was in progress in the Western Pacific, with a third United States warship hit in addition to the West Virginia and Oklahoma.
The British command at Singapore announced the Japanese invasion and said empire forces are engaging the foe.
There was little news of United States defensive actions, except the report that a number of the attacking planes at Honolulu had been shot down in dogfights over the city; an unconfirmed report that a Japanese aircraft carrier had been sunk off Hawaii, and announcement that United States Army and Navy forces had started carrying out secret instructions long since issued to them in event of just such an emergency.
A formal United States declaration of war could not come until today at the earliest, and Britain summoned her Parliament to meet today for similar action. President Roosevelt, the Cabinet and Congressional leaders met Sunday night.
The Dutch government in London, the Dutch East Indies, Canada and the little Central American nation of Costa Rica, near the blacked-out Canal Zone, quickly declared war on Japan.
At the exact moment Japan was irrevocably embarking on her course of “conquer or die,” her emissaries in Washington were seeking still another appointment to continue the peace talks with which they have consumed the time since last August, with every protestation of good faith.
Finally, when they saw Secretary of State Hull and gave him the latest statement of Japan's position, he told them he never had seen a document “so crowded with falsehoods and distortions.”
With embarrassed smiles, the Japanese left.
Germany, officially and gleefully, declared:
“As a result of constantly increasing warmongering of the American President Roosevelt in recent weeks, the first clashes between Japanese and United States armed forces occurred today.”
A Tokyo radio broadcast said informed Japanese sources believed Germany will declare war on the United States within 24 hours, but the Germans left this point entirely open since their alliance with Japan calls for aid only in case Japan is attacked.
Details of Japan's explosive rupture of the peace of the Pacific came from many sources.
A Reuters (British news agency) dispatch from Shanghai quoted unconfirmed reports saying the Japanese had occupied United States-owned Wake Island between Guam and Hawaii.
Japanese troops in Shanghai seized the water front of the International Settlement and sank the British gunboat Peterel near by.
The United States gunboat Wake, lying not far from the Peterel, was undamaged. A pro-Axis radio broadcast from Shanghai, however, said Japanese troops had captured the American gunboat.
In London, Prime Minister Churchill summoned Parliament for a joint declaration of war with the United States against Japan.
A black-out of the Panama Canal Zone, vital link between the Atlantic and Pacific, was ordered, starting at 6:30 p.m. yesterday.
Governor Poindexter of Hawaii reported to President Roosevelt that heavy damage had been inflicted on life and property in Honolulu.
In the Panama Canal Zone, Panama police swiftly acted to protect the vital canal by rounding up all Japanese and taking them to Colon under heavy guard.
Domei, the Japanese news agency, reported that “naval operations are progressing off Hawaii with at least one Japanese aircraft carrier in action against Pearl Harbor.”
A White House bulletin said heavy damage had been inflicted in the attack on Hawaii and that there probably had been heavy loss of life.
An N.B.C. broadcast said Japanese planes—estimated as high as 150 in the opening assault—struck at Ford Island in Pearl Harbor, the United States Navy's mighty fortress of the Pacific, and dropped high-explosive and incendiary bombs on Honolulu itself.
Imperial Japanese headquarters said the state of war became effective at dawn yesterday.
Thus the war that Adolf Hitler started in September, 1939, exploded at last into a real World War, with the great navies of the United States and Japan seemingly destined to play the major role in what probably will be largely a sea campaign.
Latest reports indicated that the United States already had won the first battle of the new conflict.
Source: Associated Press, December 8, 1941.
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World War II; Pearl Harbor; Hawaii (state)
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