Sunday Morning

Sunday Morning. USS Arizona Memorial. December 7, 1941, at Pearl Harbor began routinely. Sailors and marines turned out for church services, morning colors, and chow. They looked forward to off-duty time for recreation, letter-writing, or sleep. It was Sunday in the peacetime Navy., The Navy was preparing for war at sea, but not for a massive air attack. , Unknown to the Americans, more than 350 Japanese planes were headed this way from aircraft carriers north of the island, while Japanese midget submarines probed harbor defenses. At 7:55 a.m., the first wave of enemy planes appeared overhead, just as American sailors and marines assembled on the vessels to raise the “Stars and Stripes.”, (Inscription under the photo in the lower center) , Sailors enjoy leisure moments below decks in these pre-war photos taken aboard the USS Arizona. Compartments such as these became tombs when the battleship exploded and sank here., (Inscription beside the photo on the right) , Top: Sailors give the deck of battleship USS Nevada a clean sweep-down fore and aft---part of the morning routine., Left: Sunday morning in port afforded sailors and marines more time in their bunks, and some were still sleeping when the first bombs exploded. This photo shows the seven Patten brothers aboard the battleship USS Nevada about September 1941. All seven survived the attack.