History of Hawaii
Pearl Harbor was surprisingly attacked on December 7, 1941 by the Imperial Japanese Navy, killing 2,403 people and sinking the main American battleship fleet. Fortuitously, the four Pacific aircraft carriers were not in port and escaped damage. Hawaii was put under martial law until 1945. Unlike the West Coast of the United States in which 100,000 ethnic Japanese citizens were interned, the Japanese American population in Hawaii completely avoided such similar fate, though hundreds of pro-Japan leaders were arrested. Pearl Harbor was the U.S.' main forward base for the Pacific War. The Japanese tried to invade in summer 1942 but were defeated at the Battle of Midway. Hundreds of thousands of American soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen passed through on their way to the fighting.
Robert Uhlmann
While across the island in Pearl Harbor the Pacific Fleet fought for survival, Fleet Air Detachment, Naval Air Station, Kaneohe, waged its own battle against the Japanese attackers with only rifles and machine guns. A short time later, a second wave of enemy planes flew over, bombing vulnerable hangars and planes, and destroying the hangar where many members of Patrol Squadron 12 were obtaining replenishment ammunition for machine guns. Additional strafing attacks followed; and, before the morning was over, eight patrol bomber seaplanes were destroyed, and all 35 planes which had been on the ground when the attack began were out of commission. Air station personnel shot down two Japanese planes and scored hits on the fuel tanks of seven others, but the material and human costs were high. Among the dead at the end of the battle was Ensign Uhlmann who had joined with VP-12 in the courageous attempt to repulse the enemy.