pearl harbor :: essays research papers

Naval base and headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, Honolulu county, Confederate Oahu Island, Hawaii, U.S. In U.S. history the name recalls the Japanese surprise air flame on Dec. 7, 1941, that temporarily crippled the U.S. Fleet and resulted in the United States immersion into World War 2. Pearl haven centres on a cloverleaf-shaped, unnaturally improved harbour on the southern coast of Oahu, 6 miles (10 km) western United States of Honolulu. The harbour is virtually surrounded (west to east) by the cities of Ewa, Waipahu, Pearl metropolis, Aiea, and Honolulu. It has 10 public square miles (26 square km) of navigable water and hundreds of anchorages and covers a land area of more(prenominal) than 10,000 acres (4,000 hectares). Its four lochs are formed by the Waipio and Pearl City peninsulas and Ford Island. Pearl Harbor Entrance (channel) connects its virtually landlocked bay with the Pacific Ocean.Pearl Harbor was called Wai Momi ( drop curtain waters) by the Hawaiians b ecause of the pearl oysters that once grew there. In 1840 Lieutenant Charles Wilkes of the U.S. Navy made the first geodesical survey and urged the dredging of the coral-bar entrance to the harbour. About 30 years later, Colonel John McAllister Schofield move on recom mended that the United States secure harbour rights.A subsequent treaty (1887) tending(p) the United States the exclusive use of the harbour as a coaling and freshen up station, but work was not begun until after 1898, when the Spanish-American War indicated its strategic shelter as a Pacific base. A naval station was open up after 1908, and a drydock was completed in 1919.During the Pearl Harbor Attack in 1941 the USS Arizona sank with a loss of more than 1,100 men a white concrete and steel structure now spans the hull of the sunken ship, which was dedicated as a national memorial on May 30, 1962.