7 Little Known Facts About Pearl Harbor

Friendly fire

In the first few hours of the attack was total chaos. Some American planes took off to attack the enemy in the air… But anti-aircraft defense fired at everything that was in the air, so they shot down five US planes. Also, misfired US shells were falling on the nearby villages, killing more than 50 civilians.

No more survivors from the USS Arizona

Joe Langdell was the last surviving member of the crew of the USS Arizona. He has died at the age of 100, in February 2015. Langdell survived the attack at Pearl Harbor, along with 334 other Arizona crewmen, while 1,177 died in the attack.

Half killed were on USS Arizona

At the USS Arizona were killed half of all those killed in the attacked at Pearl Harbor. Life has lost a total of about 2,400 people (at Arizona 1,177). It was damaged or destroyed 20 American ships and more than 300 airplanes. Most airplanes were destroyed on the ground, so they did not even had a chance to confront the enemy in the air.

The attack lasted only 2 hours

The attack was fast, well-planned and stunning. Americans were completely surprised. The Japanese attacked in two waves and with the two types of bombs. Japanese code name of attack was ‘Zero Hour’, and lasted only two hours.

Brothers, fathers and sons

It is little known that at attack on Pearl Harbor were killed more than 30 sets of brothers, also a large number of fathers and sons. Until then, the practice was that the brothers serve together, but later just because of this are separated brothers and family in the US military. Also on Arizona served twins, Delbert and John Anderson. Delbert was killed, and John never found his body.

One of the consequences the attack is ecological disaster

After the attack, several boats were sunk, and one of them is the battleship USS Arizona. At the time of sinking it contained 1.2 million gallons of oil. Half of oil have flowed into the first few days of the attack which caused a huge ecological disaster, and today oil in a small amount flows out of the wreck. It is assumed to be more than 500,000 liters of oil inside the wreck. Black spot caused by this disaster is called “black tears”.

Jeannette Rankin, the only against the war

America entered the war the next day. President Roosevelt asked Congress to vote on entry into WWII, and this was approved with just one dissenting vote – by the first woman elected to Congress, Jeannette Rankin. In the war has killed more than 400,000 Americans, and total of over 60 million people, which was about 3% of the world population in 1940 (est. 2.3 billion).