After Pearl Harbor Rare Photos

This Day in History: December 8, 1941

In the aftermath of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor which lasted less than two hours on December 7, 1941, the early morning assault took an incredible toll: four battleships sunk, 188 aircraft destroyed, 2,403 Americans killed. For its part, Japan lost 64 men and 29 planes.

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After Pearl Harbor Rare Photos from the American Home Front

The rarity stems from most of the photos not being published in LIFE Magazine. Be sure to watch in full screen.

Within days of the attack the eyes of America were, understandably, focused on Pearl Harbor and the Pacific.

Above: A young boy from the Madison Square Boys’ Club in New York carries a bundle of newspapers on Dec. 8, 1941, the day after the attack, including the New York Mirror which bears the headline “Japs Declare War.”

 Life magazine covered the war with more tenacity 

and focus than any other magazine on earth.

World War II lasted four more years, until Germany surrendered in May of 1945 and Japan surrendered in September of that year, in the wake of America’s destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The attack on Pearl Harbor, meanwhile, rather than heralding Japan’s greatest victory, turned out to be an act of belligerent folly that, in elemental ways, guaranteed the Land of the Rising Sun’s eventual defeat.

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