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On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked the US at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. The attack claimed more than 2,400 American lives and sank multiple navy ships. Firsthand accounts of the Pearl Harbor attack captured the devastation and trauma of the event. But what happened immediately afterward?
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On December 7, 1941, Japanese forces attacked the U.S. at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii
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The attack claimed over 2,400 American lives and sank multiple Navy ships
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But what happened immediately afterward? Well, today we're going to take a look at what happened immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor
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The attack on Pearl Harbor changed day-to-day life in Hawaii for years afterward
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Within hours, the Army declared martial law throughout the territory, and at 6 p.m. that evening, a strict curfew went into effect
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The Army even ordered all public places closed, including bars. But that was just the beginning
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The Army actually went as far as to temporarily prohibit the sale of alcohol throughout the entire state
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Schools were closed, and all food sales were suspended so the military could inventory the island's food stocks
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Gasoline rations went into effect almost immediately. And while that state of martial law was a response to the attack, it would remain in effect in Hawaii until 1944
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The first report about the Pearl Harbor attack reached the mainland around 2 p.m. Eastern time on December 7, 1941
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Short and to the point, it read, Air Raid, Pearl Harbor, this is no drill
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President Roosevelt was one of the first to learn of the attack from Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox
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In fact, it all happened so fast, the attack was actually still in progress
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as Roosevelt began to weigh his next move. He called Press Secretary Steve Early and ordered him to release a statement to the media
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which still hadn't learned of the bombings. Early put together a three-way call with the major news services
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and their first bulletin went out at 2.22 p.m. It read, Flash, Washington. The White House announces Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor
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Once the news was out, it spread like wildfire. Radio networks across the country even cut into their broadcasts to report on the emerging situation
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As the attack continued, a reporter with NBC's Honolulu affiliate climbed onto the roof of the Honolulu Advertiser Building
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Carrying a microphone and a telephone, the reporter phoned in the first eyewitness account of the attack
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The battle had been raging for three hours at that point, and the reporter told viewers
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many of whom were initially skeptical that the US would really be attacked that This first eyewitness account was quickly followed by reports of Japanese airstrikes in Thailand and the Philippines
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The Japanese were also sending soldiers into Hong Kong to seize the British colony
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It was a massive, coordinated effort, and it seemed to be working. Working in concert with the military
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FBI agents quickly descended on Hawaii to round up suspicious persons. and round them up they did. Within 40 hours of the attack, more than 2,000 people were detained
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And with the state under martial law, these people had no right to habeas corpus or a trial by jury
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One suspect was 13-year-old Walter Oka, a Japanese-American accused of tracking military
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ships in the days before the attack. FBI agents descended on Oka's home, but once they realized
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he was just a child, they dropped the investigation and hopefully felt pretty embarrassed about the
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whole thing. All the images of the Pearl Harbor bombing were immediately censored
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Military personnel seized both still and motion pictures of the attack, and by noon, the Army had blocked the transmission of any unauthorized information about the raid
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As reports of the attack on Pearl Harbor began to fill the radio
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listeners across the country panicked. Among the genuine information was plenty of misinformation
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and the false reports only fueled the chaos. CBS News incorrectly reported that Japanese paratroopers
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had been spotted in Honolulu and had been sighted off Harbor Point
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The same station reported a handful of civilian casualties in Honolulu and dive bombers attacking the city from a Japanese aircraft carrier
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They also claimed that aerial dogfights were raging in the skies over Honolulu
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None of it was true, but at the moment, the general public had no way of knowing that
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and the misinformation fueled anxiety about the extent of the attack. As everyone's fear-based reactions kicked in
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Japanese-Americans quickly fell under blanket suspicion. This made things extra complicated, since in Hawaii at the time
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37% of all residents were of Japanese heritage. These people were heavily scrutinized
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and even President Roosevelt promoted the idea of removing all Japanese people from the island of Oahu
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However, the military realized such a roundup would be impractical and would affect the labor division
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on the island. Later in 1942, Roosevelt would force 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent living on the mainland
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to live in internment camps during World War II Out of fear Japanese people living on the islands hid anything that linked them to Japan Members of the Nakasone household for example
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made sure they didn't have any images of the Japanese emperor. Jane Kurahara, who was a child living in Honolulu at the time
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later recalled that she wasn't supposed to speak Japanese anymore, saying it was almost like a sin
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In San Francisco, Upton Close, an NBC radio personality, phoned the Japanese consulate to find out more about the attack
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On the phone, the consul general's secretary, Kazuyoshi Inagaki, said the attack was a complete
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surprise to the consulate. On the air, Close himself speculated that the claim could be true
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He reasoned that it was easily possible that the bombing was a coup engineered by a small
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portion of the Japanese navy that had gone fanatic. He even asserted that it might be possible for the
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Japanese government to repudiate the action and repair the injury to America. However, inside the
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consulate, panicking Japanese officials were burning sensitive documents. The blaze grew out
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of control and the fire department was called to put out the fire. Americans on the west coast
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the closest part of the mainland U.S. to Japan, worried about additional attacks. On the afternoon
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of the bombing, San Francisco's NBC station reported that there was no indication whatsoever
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that any sabotage had taken place or that any Japanese spies or saboteurs were at work
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Not taking any chances, in Los Angeles, the county sheriff rushed to Little Tokyo to take
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charge of the district. According to reports, the sheriff gathered up a number of volunteers
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and set up a watching post to keep an eye on the Japanese. But they didn't see anything that
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required any kind of action. In fact, people on both sides of the fence remained calm and decent
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Not surprising when you remember they were also all Americans. Meanwhile, back in Hawaii, the military wasn't taking any risks. Worried that Japanese Americans
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could be loyal to Japan after the attack, the military ordered all Japanese residents to turn
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over banned items. This included radios and binoculars that might be used to signal Japanese
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forces as well as any firearms. Japanese-Americans were suddenly enemies in their own country
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and with martial law declared they had no right to defend themselves in court
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As night fell on the West Coast, the states of Washington, Oregon, and California, concerned about being attacked
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observed a blackout. Residents were asked to turn off all their lights once it was dark so that enemy aircraft couldn identify cities Civilian radio stations also went off the air since aircraft could also locate cities using radio waves
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When darkness fell in Seattle, radio station KIRO announced that every light of any kind in the area must be out by 11 o'clock
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Residents were informed that to test their blackout, they would have plenty of time between the hours of 7 and 11
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This time was to be used, among other things, to get heavy black paper and heavy drapes to seal windows
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No headlights were to be used on automobiles, and no lights whatsoever were to be showing anywhere on the Pacific coast until 30 minutes after daylight
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In Seattle, people took the blackout very seriously. In fact, when it went into effect, a mob targeted businesses that did not turn out their lights, leading to a riot
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It began at 4th Avenue and Pike Street downtown. The lighted letters of the Foreman and Clark store shone even during the blackout
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A crowd gathered, throwing rocks at the lights. Over the course of an hour, rioters smashed most of the 12-letter sign, then moved on to other lights
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Teenager Ethel Chelsvig soon became the leader of the mob. She shouted, break them, turn them out, and asked the crowd if they would really just stand by and do nothing while the lights threatened the very life of the city
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Chelsvig was detained, and when questioned by the police, she told them, this is war
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One light in the city might betray us. She was eventually fined $25 for disorderly conduct
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Newsrooms quickly prepared their headline stories on the Pearl Harbor attack. Typographers searched for their largest typefaces
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Around the country, the headlines read, War, and readers snatched up the papers the morning after the attack
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The San Francisco Chronicle concluded, If war had to come, it is perhaps well that it came this way
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wanton, unwarned, in fraud and under a flag of truce. And in the Los Angeles Times, an editorial read
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Japan has asked for it. It was the act of a mad dog, a gangster's parody of every principle of international honor
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On the morning of December 8th, 1941, less than 24 hours after the attack
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President Roosevelt gave a speech to a joint session of Congress. The speech went down in history for Roosevelt's assertion that December 7th
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would be a day that would live in infamy. He asked Congress for a declaration of war against Japan
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and they gave him one that very day. Three days later, Japan's allies, Germany and Italy
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declared war on the U.S. The rest, as they say, is history
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