As Japanese bombs rained down on Pearl Harbor, Eugene Burns, Associated Press bureau chief in Honolulu, was unable to get out the urgent news of the historic attack that would draw the US into World War II. The military had already taken control of all communication lines.
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A Japanese plane goes into its last dive as it heads toward the ground in flames after being hit by naval anti-aircraft fire during the surprise attack.
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American ships burn during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
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US officers’ wives head to their quarters after investigating the sound of an explosion and seeing smoke in the distance in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The two heard neighbor Mary Naiden, then an Army hostess who took this picture, exclaim, “There are red circles on those planes overhead. They are Japanese!”
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The USS Shaw explodes during the Japanese attack on the US Pacific Fleet at its base in Pearl Harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii.
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Sailors stand among wrecked airplanes at Ford Island Naval Air Station as they watch the explosion of the USS Shaw (background) during the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. More than 2,300 US service members and civilians were killed in the strike.
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Seaman 2nd Class Warren McCutcheon, shown in this 1941 photo, is thought to be the first person to die during the attack on Pearl Harbor. McCutcheon, a 17-year-old sailor aboard the battleship USS Maryland, died instantly when struck in the heart by a Japanese machine gun bullet fired by one of the attacking planes.
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The Nagato was the flagship of the Combined Fleet, flying the flag of Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto. The Nagato sent the signal “Niitakayama nobore 1208” — “Climb Mount Niitaka on 12/08 (Japanese Time)” — that committed the carrier strike force to the attack on Pearl Harbor and Japan to the Pacific War.
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Japanese Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto planned and directed the attack on Pearl Harbor.
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Japanese aviators receive instructions sometime before the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
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Sailors lend aid to the crew on a US warship after it was bombed during the Japanese attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor.
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Thick smoke billows up from stricken American warships (from left, USS West Virginia and USS Tennessee) along Battleship Row during the Japanese attack.
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The battleship USS Arizona burns and sinks after the Japanese attack.
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Wreckage identified by the US Navy as a Japanese torpedo plane is salvaged from the bottom of Pearl Harbor.
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The aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack by the Japanese at Wheeler Field Barracks as sailors pull artillery from the water.
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Wreckage of a Japanese plane shot down during the attack on Pearl Harbor.
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Shocked and angry crowds in Times Square grab New York Enquirer newspapers bearing the headlines on Japan’s attack on the US-held Philippines and Pearl Harbor.
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President Franklin Roosevelt speaks to a joint session of Congress in Washington after the attack.
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A man reads an account of the bombing of Pearl Harbor in the San Francisco Chronicle at the Shasta Dam in California.
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Franklin Roosevelt signs the declaration of war against Japan on Dec. 8, 1941.
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