The attack left over 2,400 dead, 68 of them civilians. Waves of Japanese carrier based fighters and bombers turned the naval base in Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor into an inferno. Nine ships were sunk and many more severely damaged, crippling the US Pacific fleet. Nearly half the casualties of the day resulted from the sinking of the battleship Arizona, which today still rests on the bottom of the harbor beneath a memorial. --Lane Turner and Lisa Tuite

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  Official US Navy Photo

  Undated: This picture released by the US Navy shows a Japanese mock-up used to plan the attack on Pearl Harbor. Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto, Japanese naval attache in Washington, conceived the plan for the attack on Pearl Harbor in January 1941. The Japanese War College worked out the attack from this model, and in September 1941, Japanese carriers and their planes practiced bombing on an obscure island of Japan. Yamamoto had special fins placed on torpedos for the shallow waters of Pearl Harbor. Dec. 7 was picked for the attack because Yamamoto knew naval commander Admiral Husband E. Kimmel kept his ships in Pearl Harbor on weekends.
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  Associated Press

  Dec. 7, 1941: A still shot from a Japanese newsreel obtained by the US War Department and released to US newsreels on May 4, 1943, through the Office of War Information. Commentary accompanying the Japanese newsreel picture described it as showing a Japanese plane taking off from a carrier to attack Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
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  Official US Navy Photo via Associated Press

  Dec. 7, 1941: The Naval Air Station at Pearl Harbor was littered with the wreckage of crippled planes. An aerial bomb from a Japanese plane had just hit the fuel dump when this picture was taken. In the background, clouds of smoke and flames shot high into the sky.
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  Official US Navy Photo

  Dec. 7, 1941: The USS California sank into Pearl Harbor mud as crew members clambered down the sides of the battered warship to waiting boats. Black, oily smoke concealed nearly half its hulk.
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  Associated Press

  Dec. 7, 1941: This was the scene at Pearl Harbor after the sneak attack on US warships by the Japanese on Dec. 7, 1941. Smoke rolled out of the stricken 31,800 ton USS West Virginia as a small boat went to the rescue of one of the battleship's seamen (in the water). Two other men could be seen on the superstructure (upper left). The mast of the USS Tennessee could be seen beyond the burning West Virginia.
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  Official US Navy Photo via Associated Press

  Dec. 7, 1941: In the foreground of the Pearl Harbor drydock was the wreckage of the US Destroyer Downes (left) and USS Cassin. In the rear, relatively undamaged was the USS Pennsylvania, the 33,100 ton flagship of the Pacific Fleet.
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  Associated Press

  Dec. 7, 1941: Young men rushed to enlist in the US Navy following the news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. This picture from the Federal Office building in San Francisco was repeated everywhere throughout the nation.
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  The Boston Globe

  Dec. 8, 1941: Boston Globe headline from the early morning edition announcing the attack.