Pearl Harbor

What Really Happened?

De: Gary J. Rose

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

On the morning of December 7, 1941, seventeen-year-old Lani Kealoha expects an ordinary Sunday in Honolulu. Instead, Japanese aircraft roar over Oʻahu, bombs strike Pearl Harbor, and the island is plunged into war.

As a Junior Red Cross volunteer, Lani is drawn into the overwhelming medical response, helping nurses and doctors care for burned sailors, wounded civilians, and frightened families. Nearby, eighteen-year-old Tommy Mercer carries messages through Fort Shafter and witnesses the confusion surrounding warnings that were seen—but not understood in time.

Meanwhile, Japanese planners overcome the very obstacles Americans believed protected Pearl Harbor. They modify torpedoes for shallow water, convert naval shells into armor-piercing bombs, send midget submarines toward the harbor, and launch hundreds of aircraft from six carriers hidden in the northern Pacific.

But the attack is not the complete victory it first appears to be.

The American aircraft carriers are absent. The fuel tanks, submarine base, dry docks, and repair facilities survive. Most damaged ships will eventually return to service. And while Japan wins a devastating tactical victory, it also awakens an enemy prepared for a long war.

Blending fast-paced historical fiction with carefully researched facts, Pearl Harbor: What Really Happened? examines the attack from both the Japanese and American perspectives while separating documented history from myth.

An engaging I Witness History (Short) for young readers, families, teachers, and anyone who wants to understand how Pearl Harbor happened—and what Japan failed to destroy.