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    Day of Infamy: The Story of the Attack on Pearl Harbor
    Day of Infamy: The Story of the Attack on Pearl Harbor
    Day of Infamy: The Story of the Attack on Pearl Harbor
    Ebook101 pages51 minutes

    Day of Infamy: The Story of the Attack on Pearl Harbor

    By Steven Otfinoski

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    About this ebook

    The quiet Sunday morning was shattered as Japanese warplanes screamed toward the U.S. Navy's Pacific Fleet without warning. The attack sent shockwaves around the globe, pushing the United States to enter World War II. Through powerful narrative storytelling, follow the tales of people who experienced the tragedy firsthand. Meets Common Core standards for narrative nonfiction and exploring multiple accounts of an event.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCapstone Young Readers
    Release dateAug 1, 2015
    ISBN9781491478981
    Day of Infamy: The Story of the Attack on Pearl Harbor
    Author

    Steven Otfinoski

    Steven Otfinoski has written more than 150 books for young readers. Three of his nonfiction books have been chosen Books for the Teen Age by the New York Public Library. Steve is also a playwright and has his own theater company that brings one-person plays about American history to schools. Steve lives in Connecticut with his wife, who is a teacher. They have two children, two dogs, and a cat.

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      Book preview

      Day of Infamy - Steven Otfinoski

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      Cover

      Title Page

      Foreword

      1: SURPRISE LOST

      2: WE’RE UNDER ATTACK

      3: THE SHIP WAS A MASS OF FLAMES

      4: NO DRILL

      5: WE’RE ALL IN THE SAME BOAT NOW

      6: I COUNT FOUR BATTLESHIPS DEFINITELY SUNK…

      7: …A DATE WHICH WILL LIVE IN INFAMY

      8: THEY WERE ALL ASLEEP!

      9: DADDY WAS KILLED AT HICKAM

      10: …WE WILL GAIN THE INEVITABLE TRIUMPH—SO HELP US GOD

      Epilogue

      Timeline

      Glossary

      Critical Thinking Using The Common Core

      Internet Sites

      Further Reading

      Selected Bibliography

      Index

      About the Author

      Copyright

      Back Cover

      FOREWORD

      December 7, 1941, began like any other Sunday morning on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. Civilians and American military families quietly went about their business. Some slept late while others got ready for church. Much of the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Fleet floated gently in the blue-green waters at Pearl Harbor on Oahu’s southern coast. The fleet, along with hundreds of military airplanes on surrounding airfields, was relatively undefended. World War II raged in Europe but the United States had not joined that fight. Relations between the United States and Japan had become worse in recent years, and some thought the two countries might be heading toward war. But with 4,000 miles between Japan and the Hawaiian islands, no one worried about a Japanese attack. They should have.

      Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, commander in chief of the Imperial Japanese Combined Fleet, had led the effort to devise a simple, bold plan nearly a year before. Japanese warplanes would make a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor and destroy the U.S. fleet. This would give Japan at least six months to execute its master plan to take over a large part of Asia—from China to the islands of the South Pacific—without American interference. Japan’s leaders had dreamed of building a colonial empire since at least 1931, when they seized Manchuria in northeastern China. Now, as Japanese forces approached American shores, that dream seemed poised to become a reality.

      1

      SURPRISE LOST

      Japanese admiral Isoroku Yamamoto

      Mitsuo Fuchida

      Bomber approaching Oahu, December 7, 1941, 7:40 a.m.

      Commander Mitsuo Fuchida of the Japanese Imperial Navy grimaced as he gazed down from his cockpit at the cover of clouds below. He had left the flagship aircraft carrier Akagi an hour and forty minutes earlier to lead 189 pilots and their planes to their designated targets. They would be approaching their goal soon, but the weather seemed to be working against them.

      As the planes approached Oahu, Fuchida grew more tense. Would they be able to see their targets with the clouds so thick? Desperate for information, he flicked on the plane’s radio and through the static heard music coming from a local Honolulu radio station. Suddenly the music ended and an announcer came on with the weather forecast: partly cloudy … mostly over the mountains … ceiling 3,500 feet … visibility good.

      Visibility good. That was promising. Then, all at once, Fuchida saw through his binoculars a long white line of breaking surf … directly beneath my plane. It was the northern shore of Oahu. And there it was—the blue waters of Pearl Harbor with its battleships neatly lined up like sitting ducks. He counted them. Six…seven…eight. But where were the aircraft carriers? They must be out on maneuvers on the open sea. He was disappointed but there was no time to worry about it now.

      As he prepared to fire the signal gun for the attack, Fuchida had a critical decision to make. There were two scenarios for the attack—Surprise or Surprise Lost. For Surprise Fuchida would fire one time, indicating the Americans were unaware of the impending invasion and not prepared. The torpedo planes would go in first, followed by the horizontal bombers, and finally the dive bombers. If, however, the Americans already realized they were under attack, Fuchida would fire his gun twice for Surprise Lost. Then the dive bombers and fighters would immediately fire on the island’s airfields and antiaircraft ground defenses to halt any resistance. After that, the torpedo planes would come in to attack the ships.

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