DOCUMENT: Evidence

Pearl Harbor: Documenting 70 Years Of Infamy

Official records detail the December 7, 1941 attack

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Pearl Harbor Documents

DECEMBER 7--With today marking the 70th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, TSG is reprising a collection of U.S. government records documenting the 1941 attack and its aftermath.

The documents, stored at the National Archives and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, provide a chilling account of  “A date which will live in infamy." The attack left 2400 Americans dead and forced the United States into World War II.

The individual documents are briefly described in the below link lines.

The records include a February 1941 Navy memo about a rumored Pearl Harbor attack, a December 7, 1941 White House memorandum to FDR reporting that, “The Japs attacked Honolulu,” and a draft of the president's remarks to Congress (complete with FDR's handwritten revisions).

Other documents include eyewitness accounts of the Pearl Harbor carnage, as well as Navy "after-action" reports prepared by the commanders of bombed ships. 

THE DOCUMENTS:

Memo notes a "Rumored Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor."

Memorandum for the President

"A date which will live in infamy."

USS Arizona crewman recalls "bodies of the dead."

Sergeant describes carnage on ship's deck

List of "Material Damage" to USS Arizona

After-action report on capsized USS Oklahoma

USS Tennessee's attack chronology

Trapped crewman saved from USS Utah

A note to the USS Helena's crew