The United States remembered the 80th anniversary of the Japanese attack on the naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, this Tuesday (7).
The December 7, 1941 attack shook a country that had been so focused on World War II in Europe that it lost track of the threat posed by Japan, according to historians.
The action killed 2,390 Americans, and the US declared war on Japan the next day.
On a rainy Tuesday morning, a ceremony was held at Pearl Harbor in honor of the 58 troops who died aboard the warship USS Utah, the first vessel to be hit.
“On the morning of December 7, 1941, in the first few minutes of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Utah was hit by two torpedoes that caused severe flooding,” said Jason Adams, commander of the US Navy.
“Chief Tomich stayed in the engine room, keeping the boilers as stable as possible so the sailors could get off the ship. Utah went down, killing 58 men in 12 minutes,” said Adams in reference to Peter Tomich, one of the dead.
US Navy personnel, veterans, friends, and family members stood listening to the names of the dead being read aloud, each accompanied by the tolling of a bell.
Then US President Franklin D. Roosevelt made history by describing the bombing as “a date that will live in infamy.”
The US defeated Japan in 1945, days after atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed hundreds of thousands of civilians.
Reference: CNN Brasil
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