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Attack on pearl harbour On 1 December 1941, Japan's militarist government decided to attack the United States and seize the American Philippines and resource-rich British and Dutch colonial possessions in South-East Asia. To distract the American government while it secretly positioned a powerful aircraft carrier strike force for a surprise attack on the United States Pacific Fleet at its Pearl Harbor base in Hawaii, the Japanese government had ordered its envoys in Washington to engage the Americans in intensive diplomatic negotiations. World War II came to America's Hawaiian Islands shortly before 8 a.m on 7 December 1941. It was a quiet Sunday morning. America was not yet at war, and most civilian residents of Hawaii were preparing for church or other peaceful Sunday pursuits. Battleships of the United States Pacific Fleet burn in Pearl Harbor after the Japanese launched their devastating surprise attack on Sunday, 7 December 1941. At the United States Navy base at Pearl Harbor peacetime Sunday routine prevailed, and the normal bustle of a huge naval base was absent when the first wave of Japanese carrier-launched aircraft launched a devastating attack on the battleships of the United States Pacific Fleet. There ha