How Many People Died in Pearl Harbor?
Lasting less than 2 hours, the assault on Pearl Harbor resulted in the deaths of more than 2,500 people and wounded more than 1,000 more. The losses at Pearl Harbor also included 18 American ships and about 300 airplanes.
The Dec. 7, 1941, attack claimed the lives of nearly every soldier serving on the USS Arizona. The Japanese attacked the Arizona four times, sinking it with 1,177 of its crewmen. Having caught U.S. forces unaware, the Japanese tolled up a loss of only 64 men, five ships and 103 planes. As a results of this deadliest attack on Americans in history, the USS Arizona sits still in the harbor in silent soliloquy to the lives lost. Crew members who escaped the Arizona before its final submersion are allowed to have their ashes interred in the ship’s wreckage upon their deaths.
