WW2 in the Pacific Article #1
When the Japanese invaded China in the spring of 1937, U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt put an embargo on Japanese shipping to America. This really angered the Japanese. Especially Japanese general Isoruko Yamamoto. He planned one of the worst (and on his side, surprise attacks ever carried out in WW2. December 7, 1941 Ken Potts woke up to a nice warm day on his battleship, the USS Arizona. Ken worked on the cranes that retrieved the Arizona’s small seaplanes. When the first dive bombers came, he was bringing fresh produce onto the ship. When they started strafing he dove for the ship and helped rescue his shipmates. 335 servicemen survived the sinking. Out of 2403 dead, 1177 were from the Arizona. The Arizona was not the only ship lost in the Pearl Harbor attack. The USS Cassin (dd 372) and Downes (dd 375) were in dry dock when the attack came. An incendiary bomb ignited fuel tanks on the Downes. The Cassin slipped from her keel and rolled over onto the Downes. Each ship was ravaged by fires and considered lost, but the machinery was salvaged and put on other ships. The USS Nevada, Uss California, Uss West Virginia, and the USS Oglala were all sunk at pearl. The airfields at Pearl Harbor were also heavily damaged at Pearl that day. Hickam Field, Wheeler Field, and Ford island were all targets of the Japanese planes. The attack lasted for 1 hour and 2 minutes. In that time about 2,335 military personnel and 68 civilians were killed and 1,178 were wounded. 1,777 of the dead were from the Arizona. Six ships were sunk and 169 aircraft were destroyed. About the writer: My name is Beck, and I’m a 5th grader. I am an avid historian. I especially like WWII. My next article will be about the Doolittle Raid and the crew’s adventure in China. Meanwhile, I hope you keep reading about some of the greatest battles of WWII.
1 Comment
Wyatt Dawson
1/10/2020 09:33:38 am
Hi Beck,
Reply
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
June 2021
|