Top 10 Things You Didn't Know About the Attack on Pearl Harbor

Despite the extensive coverage of the event, these are things you may not have known about the fated day of December 7, 1941. Welcome to WatchMojo.com, and today we’re counting down our picks for the top ten things you didn’t know about the attack on Pearl Harbor.

For this list, we’re discussing various facets of the attack on Pearl Harbor that you may not be aware of.

The Americans had about a one-hour warning that danger was imminent, but a combination of miscommunication and inexperience prevented the warning from reaching the right people. George Elliot and Joseph Lockard spotted the approaching first wave using the SCR-270 radar. This reached the ears of Lieutenant Kermit Tyler, but due to his inexperience and the fact that the operators failed to mention the sheer number of targets, he thought it was the scheduled B-17 bombers and ignored the warning. He was wrong. And this was after Americans spotted and attacked an approaching Japanese submarine!

His name was Kazuo Sakamaki, and he was a Japanese naval officer. Sakamaki attacked Pearl Harbor in a midget submarine, but it was soon disabled and trapped on Waimanalo Beach. He attempted to blow it up, but the charges failed to go off. He then swam underneath the sub to investigate the charges but passed out mid-investigation. He was found by David Akui and became the first Japanese prisoner of war. In turn, the Japanese struck his name from record and pretended that he never existed - though he was eventually allowed to return home after the war, where he later worked for Toyota before dying in 1999.

Pearl Harbor had themselves a real “Saving Private Ryan” situation. Before World War II, it was common practice for brothers to serve on the same ship. Such was the case for the USS Arizona, which saw 37 pairs or trios of brothers, a total of 77 men. However, only 15 of them survived, with 23 sets of brothers perishing in the attack. The effect on family members was so noticeable that the military attempted to stop the practice of placing blood relatives on the same ship, but it largely continued throughout the remainder of the war.

Turns out that Mother Earth was a victim of Pearl Harbor as well. In 1992, Pearl Harbor was added to the Environmental Protection Agency’s National Priority List. The major contributing factor to its status as a priority is the massive subsurface oil plume. Current estimates say that over 5 million gallons of oil have been spilled, and the plume is roughly 15 football fields long, although officials have said that it is stable and contained. On top of that, the sunken USS Arizona is STILL leaking fuel today, at a rate of about 2-9 quarts every day.

Turns out that the Japanese decision to attack Pearl Harbor was not a unanimous one. Osami Nagano served as the Chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy General Staff from April 1941 to February 1944, and he vehemently opposed an attack on Pearl Harbor. He and Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto fought with each other regarding the attack, and Nagano finally gave his consent after Yamamoto threatened to leave his position as commander. And wouldn’t you know it, not only did the attack fail to go as planned, but it was widely considered a disappointment. Nagano was later tried as a war criminal but died from a heart attack before its conclusion.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the government needed to act fast. At 12:30 p.m. on December 8 (only one day after the attack), president Roosevelt requested a declaration of war to both Congress and the nation. The vote passed the House by 1:10 that same afternoon with a vote of 388-1. That one person was the fervent pacifist and first woman in Congress, Jeannette Rankin. Her vote reportedly resulted in hissing (yes, hissing) from her peers, and many desperately tried persuading her to change her vote. However, she stuck to her guns, saying, “As a woman, I can’t go to war, and I refuse to send anyone else.”

Roosevelt’s Infamy Speech is often considered to be one of the finest American speeches in political history. It was only seven minutes long, but its impact was immediate. Congress declared war on Japan within an hour after the speech was finished and the public became highly supportive of the war effort, inundating the white house with letters of praise and support. The line, “A date which will live in infamy” has become engrained into the public conscience, but that was almost not the case. The original line was, “A date which will live in world history,” but Roosevelt personally scratched it out and added “infamy” in its place. It was a good decision.

The USS Arizona memorial sits on top of the sunken USS Arizona. Over two million people visit the memorial on an annual basis, and visiting it is considered a highly emotional experience - and we have Elvis Presley to thank (at least in part) for its existence. President Eisenhower approved the memorial’s creation in 1958, but it was stipulated that it be privately financed at a cost of $500,000 (about $4.25 million today). On March 25, 1961, Elvis put on a benefit concert which raised $64,000, or nearly 13% of the structure’s cost. Construction went ahead, and the memorial was opened on May 30, 1962.

During the attack, the USS Utah was hit by Japanese torpedoes, which caused the ship to quickly take on water and sink. 64 people were killed in the attack, and, like the USS Arizona, the dead remain entombed with the ship. One of its occupants are the ashes of a baby girl. Nancy Lynne Wagner died when she was two-days-old, and her father, Albert Wagner, had taken her ashes on the ship with the intention of scattering them at sea. However, the ship was attacked before he had the chance, and her ashes remain in Wagner’s locker to this day. In 2003, a funeral service was held at the site of Utah in her honor.

Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.
- Japanese Tourists Visit Pearl Harbor on an Annual Basis
- Most of the Sunken Battleships Were Salvaged
- The Japanese Attempted to Attack Pearl Harbor Again on March 4, 1942

Survivors of the USS Arizona have the option of being buried with their fellow soldiers aboard the sunken ship. If they choose that option, a diver takes an urn containing their ashes down to the ship, where it is then placed under the gun turret. Over 30 survivors have been taken down since the possibility was opened in 1982. However, they’re not the only ones with this option. Those who served on the Arizona before Pearl Harbor may have their ashes scattered on the water’s surface, and those who survived the other ships may be scattered at the site where their ship was located.