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Today is the anniversary of the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, which brought the United States into World War II. The meticulously planned and devastatingly successful operation was launched from six aircraft carriers and their escorts, which had managed to penetrate to within 200 miles of Oahu without being discovered. Of the eight American battleships in port that day, four were sunk or destroyed, and nine other warships were sunk or severely damaged. Over 2,400 U.S. servicemen lost their lives, including 2.000 sailors, most of whom perished on the USS Arizona (BB-39). The only bright...

Hundreds of strangers paid tribute at a Kentucky funeral home to a “humble” survivor of World War II’s Normandy Invasion whose caregiver had worried that no one would come to his funeral. Vet Warren McDonough was 91 when he died Saturday. He never married and his only known survivor was a nephew in Florida. The big crowd who attended his wake Thursday night at Ratterman’s Funeral Home in St. Matthews showed up in response to a call from Lena Lyons, who runs a boarding home where McDonough spent his final days. Lyons told WHAS-TV McDonough deserved to be remembered because...

The Ardennes Offensive (16 December 1944 25 January 1945) was a major German offensive launched towards the end of World War II through the forested Ardennes Mountains region of Belgium (and more specifically of Wallonia: hence its French name, Bataille des Ardennes), France and Luxembourg on the Western Front. The offensive was called Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein (translated as Operation The Guard on the Rhine or Operation "Watch on the Rhine") by the German armed forces (Wehrmacht). This German offensive was officially named the Ardennes-Alsace campaign[5] by the U.S. Army,[6] but it is known to the general public simply as...

A special holiday musical presentation from Union Station in Washington, DC celebrating the service and sacrifices of our nation's World War II veterans and commemorating the 70th anniversary of the end of the war.

Patton 360 - Battle of the Bulge by History Channel

Generals At War: Episode 06 The Battle of the Bulge The Greatest battle America ever fought was against Hitler's Army when it staged one of the last offensives of the war in Belgium against American troops who were alone and unprepared for the Nazi onslaught. Despite overwhelming odds American troops defeated the German Blitz preventing history from repeating itself as it did when Hitler first invaded Belgium in the begining of the war.

It sounds like a familiar story: on a bright Sunday in December, nearly 70 years ago, Japanese planes blazed out of the sky to strafe and bomb an American warship while it lay at anchor. The surprise attack caught the crew off-guard, and despite valiant action, the ship was critically damaged, had to be abandoned, and soon sank. If you said December 7th, 1941, Pearl Harbor, you’d be wrong. The date was December 12, 1937, and the place was the Yangtze River in war-torn China. The vessel? The gunboat USS Panay. It was a sudden and deliberate attack that might...

Norman Alley's Bombing of USS Panay Special Issue 1937 Newsreel (1) Reel 1 - "Nanking" (2) Reel 2 - "Uncensored!!! Unedited!!! The U.S.S. Panay Bombing in its entirey - exactly as photographed!" (this newsreel special is 22 minutes long, with music and narration)

SUNDAY IN HELL: PEARL HARBOR MINUTE BY MINUTE [....] The Sinking of the SS Cynthia Olson [....] The day before sending the SOS, the Cynthia Olson, captained by Merchant Marine Master Berthel Carlsen, was 300 miles off San Francisco, under way at 10 knots, when unknown to her crew, the Japanese submarine I-26, submerged at periscope depth and searching for potential targets, spotted and began tracking her. Commander Minoru Yokota, captain of the I-26, had been ordered to accompany I-10 in reconnoitering the Aleutians, then after 5 December, to deploy to a point between San Francisco and Hawaii to report...

America Declares War on Japan - President Roosevelt Speech [Full Resolution]. On December 8, 1941, President Roosevelt declares war on Japan, the day after Japan bombed Pearl Harbour. Roosevelt gives a speech at a joint session of congress.

The History Channel presents Pearl Harbor. The Definitive documentary of the day that will forever live in infamy.

Cynthia Simison has written a first rate story of Pearl Harbor, gathering information from two 93 yr old survivors of the Japanese attack. CiR has reprinted a portion of Ms Simison’s article and included a link to the remainder. Read and remember the events of this deadly day in America’s history as related by men who lived it. There can be no better lesson in the importance of anticipating the villainy of our enemies rather than reacting to it. “Remember Pearl Harbor. Keep America alert.” For a generation of Americans, they were words by which they, and their children, lived....

What if FDR's speech after Pearl Harbor was given using Obama's attitude?

The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941 (December 8 in Japan). The attack led to the United States' entry into World War II.

In honor of the Pearl Harbor anniversary, we look at some interesting facts related to the “date which will live in infamy”. Hosted by Benari Poulten, a Master Sergeant in the U.S. Army Reserve and veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.

Pearl Harbor, Arizona Memorial

The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941 (December 8 in Japan). The attack led to the United States' entry into World War II. The attack was intended as a preventive action in order to keep the U.S. Pacific Fleet from interfering with military actions the Empire of Japan was planning in Southeast Asia against overseas territories of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the United States. There were simultaneous Japanese attacks on the U.S.-held...

World War II did not neatly end with Japan's surrender on September 2, 1945. At its height the Japanese Empire was more than 20 million square miles of land and sea. Soldiers in isolated regions fought on for years after the surrender some unaware the war had ended, other refusing to believe. Some hide in the jungles alone, others fought in groups and continued to make attacks and conduct guerilla warfare. These men were called Japanese Holdouts, or Stragglers and their stories are some of the most fascinating human interest stories of the 20th Century. Do you have a holdout...

The folks who run the Yorktown say a lot of kids love the ship, but no kid has ever fallen for a sailor who served on the vessel like these two boys have fallen for Mr. Harding. Which is why, for this trip, the Yorktown made special arrangements for a surprise visitor: Mr. Harding. The boys ran to embrace him; hugging an old salt never felt so sweet. It was hard to tell who enjoyed it more, or who needed it more. Over the years Mr. Harding says he'd kept most of his war stories to himself. "I guess I...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- After 58 years of marriage, Lyle Bouck and his wife, Lucy, are still helping each other down the front walk. "I didn't think we'd live that long," laughs Lucy. At one point, Lyle didn't even think he'd make it to the altar. Sixty years ago, Bouck was a young, whip-smart lieutenant, commanding a U.S. Army intelligence and reconnaissance platoon made up of 18 elite soldiers -- the eyes and ears of a fragmented Allied force pushing through Belgium toward the German border. By mid-December 1944, they had just about reached the border. But there was a huge...