Attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack commenced at 7:48 a.m. Hawaiian Time (18:18 GMT). The base was attacked by 353 Imperial Japanese aircraft (including fighters, level and dive bombers, and torpedo bombers) in two waves, launched from six aircraft carriers. All eight U.S. Navy battleships were damaged, with four sunk. All but were later raised, and six were returned to service and went on to fight in the war. The Japanese also sank or damaged three cruisers, three destroyers, an anti-aircraft training ship, and one minelayer. 188 U.S. aircraft were destroyed; 2,403 Americans were killed and 1,178 others were wounded. Important base installations such as the power station, dry dock, shipyard, maintenance, and fuel and torpedo storage facilities, as well as the submarine piers and headquarters building (also home of the intelligence section), were not attacked. Japanese losses were light: 29 aircraft and five midget submarines lost, and 64 servicemen killed. One Japanese sailor, Kazuo Sakamaki, was captured.
Japanese submarine I-17
During the attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, "I-17" patrolled north of Oahu. Its mission was to reconnoiter and engage any ships that tried to sortie from Pearl Harbor. "I-17" proceeded to a patrol station off Cape Mendocino following the attack on Pearl Harbor. The 6912-ton General Petroleum tanker "SS Emidio" was sailing in ballast from Seattle, Washington en route to San Pedro, California. "I-17" hit the tanker with five shells in the early afternoon of 20 December 1941. The tanker was within sight of land, and survivors reached the Blunt Reef lightship in lifeboats. The tanker drifted north onto rocks off Crescent City, California where the wreck remained until scrapped in 1959. A scheduled shelling of American coastal cities on Christmas Eve of 1941 was canceled because of the frequency of coastal air and surface patrols.