The attack on Pearl Harbor was one of the most devastating events that took place in United States history. It took place on December 7, 1941. Japan had wanted and planned a surprise stealth attack, which did succeed. A man named Isoroku Yamamoto (an Admiral) had came up with the idea to get revenge on the United States and attack the U.S. Fleet. Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo had led the attack force and its creation on America. The Japanese attacking force had weaponry that included six heavy air crafts which had an accompany of 24 vessels, 3 "backup" submarines just in case one of the ships from the fleet had gotten away. Japan had a fleet of 9 destroyers, 2 battleships, 2 heavy cruisers and 1 light cruiser. Once the fleet was completely prepared, they set out towards the United States of America. They did their journey in a very stealthy and sneaky way, taking other routes than the regular shipping lanes and areas. On the morning of December 7th, the six carriers from Japan released 181 planes including torpedo bomber planes, fighters, horizontal bombers, and dive bombers. Although the planes were heading towards a southern direction to stay off of the United States' radar, some parts of the Navy had comprehended that this specific Sunday morning had something different about it. Then, also on this unique Sunday morning, the United States Navy vessels found a foreign unidentified submarine in the water, so they attacked, destroyed and sunk the submarine. Then, at around 7 in the morning, the first attack wave started on its way (the group of 181 attack planes) towards Pearl Harbor. It was spotted on a radio station at the Navy base in Opana but the officers did not think that it was important that it needed to be closely looked at so it was just passed as the group of American planes that were scheduled to land. With complete surprise, Japan hit Oahu, a Hawaiian island, at around 8 AM; they hit the military stations and ships at the same time at which they attacked Pearl Harbor's U.S. docked fleet. Ford Island and Kaneohe Bay, Wheeler and Hickam, and the Marine airfield at Ewa and the Army Air Corps fields of Bellows were Navy air bases that were bombed also; this was so none of the American air crafts could leave the base. Even though there were 90 ships docked at the harbor, there were 8 primary targets that Japan wanted to take out; the USS Pennsylvania, the USS Virginia, the USS Nevada, the USS Maryland, the USS Arizona, the USS West Virginia, the USS Tennessee, and the USS Oklahoma were the targeted ships. Once the attack of the ships was completed, it was close to 10 AM, only 2 hours after the beginning and start of the attack. In only about 2 hours, America had received severe mass destruction; they had lost 188 air crafts and 159 more were damaged, 2,403 Americans had been killed including 68 civilians, and 1,178 military and civilians wounded. Compared to the United States, Japan had small losses; they had only lost 29 planes. Not all of Japan's goals had been completed because Japan had also wanted to damage the US aircraft carriers but they had already left base luckily. The attack on Pearl Harbor though was a very short event, it caused lots of mass destruction.