Case 1 provides an overview of the military and naval situation in the days leading up to December 7th. It provides maps, photographs and documents that orient the viewer to the situation as it existed in the days, hours, and moments leading up to the attack. Case 1 reveals the US Navy utterly at peace and unprepared for war. It shows the location of the United States Pacific Fleet at anchor in Pearl Harbor; it traces the routes that the Japanese pilots took on their way to and from Pearl Harbor. Photographs show the devastation close up and as the Japanese fliers saw it. Biographies, oral history interviews, magazine articles, and photographs explore the lives of the young naval officers, who had only graduated from Annapolis in February 1941, in the last days of peace and in the first moments of World War II. Ship histories present the events of the day from the perspective of the naval vessels themselves, a wider view than could be seen by the individual officers. It focuses on the battleships USS West Virginia , USS Oklahoma and the USS Tennessee , the cruiser USS Louisville , the destroyers USS Preble and USS Zane , the minesweeper USS Breese , and the men who served on them. Letters and documents reveal the impact of the attack on the families of the men and their own personal losses of property.
