United States Pacific Fleet in the context of Naval Air Station North Island

The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Empire of Japan on the United States Pacific Fleet at its naval base at Pearl Harbor on Oahu, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941. At the time, the U.S. was a neutral country in World War II. The air raid on Pearl Harbor, which was launched from aircraft carriers, resulted in the U.S. declaring war on Japan the next day. The Japanese military leadership referred to the attack as the Hawaii Operation and Operation AI, and as Operation Z during its planning.

The attack on Pearl Harbor was preceded by months of negotiations between the U.S. and Japan over the future of the Pacific. Japanese demands included that the U.S. end its sanctions against Japan, cease aiding China in the Second Sino-Japanese War, and allow Japan to access the resources of the Dutch East Indies. Japan sent out its naval attack group on November 26, 1941, just prior to receiving the Hull note, which stated the U.S. desire that Japan withdraw from China and French Indochina. Isoroku Yamamoto, commander of the Japanese Combined Fleet, planned the attack as a pre-emptive strike on the Pacific Fleet, based at Pearl Harbor since 1940 in order to prevent it from interfering with Japan's planned actions in Southeast Asia. Yamamoto hoped that the strike would enable Japan to make quick territorial gains and negotiate peace. In addition to Pearl Harbor, over seven hours Japan launched coordinated attacks on the U.S.-held Philippines, Guam, and Wake Island; and on the British Empire in Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong.

USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) is the fifth Nimitz-class aircraft carrier in the United States Navy. She is the third Navy ship to have been named after the former President Abraham Lincoln. Her home port is NAS North Island, San Diego, California; she is a member of the United States Pacific Fleet. She is administratively responsible to Commander, Naval Air Forces Pacific, and operationally serves as the flagship of Carrier Strike Group 3 and host to Carrier Air Wing Nine. She was returned to the fleet on 12 May 2017, marking the successful completion of her Refueling and Complex Overhaul (RCOH) carried out at Newport News Shipyard. In August 2024, USS Abraham Lincoln and her strike group deployed to the Middle East as part of the U.S. response to the escalation of tensions between Iran and Israel.

Honolulu (/ˌhɒnəˈluːluː/ HON-ə-LOO-loo; Hawaiian: [honoˈlulu]) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, located in the Pacific Ocean. It is the county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island of Oʻahu. The population of Honolulu was 350,964 at the 2020 census, while the Urban Honolulu metropolitan area has an estimated 1 million residents and is the 56th-largest metropolitan area in the nation.

The area's geography and Honolulu Harbor has long made it desirable as a port, accounting for the city’s growth and importance in the Hawaiian archipelago and the broader Pacific region. In 1845, Honolulu became the capital of the independent Hawaiian Kingdom, a role it maintained as Hawaii became a U.S. territory and at last a U.S. State. The city gained worldwide recognition following the Empire of Japan's attack on nearby Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, which prompted the entry of the U.S. into World War II; the harbor remains a major U.S. Navy base, hosting the United States Pacific Fleet, the world's largest naval command.

Naval Station Pearl Harbor is a United States naval base on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. In 2010, as part of the recommendations of the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) commission, the naval station was consolidated with the United States Air Force's Hickam Air Force Base to form Joint Base Pearl Harbor–Hickam. Since 1940, Pearl Harbor has been the headquarters of the United States Pacific Fleet.

Pearl Harbor is a lagoon harbor on the island of Oʻahu, Hawaii, United States, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the naval fleet of the United States before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the Reciprocity Treaty of 1875. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands are now a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the United States Pacific Fleet. The U.S. government first obtained exclusive use of the inlet and the right to maintain a repair and coaling station for ships here in 1887. The surprise attack on the harbor by the Imperial Japanese Navy on December 7, 1941, led the United States to declare war on the Empire of Japan, marking the United States' entry into World War II.

USS Iowa (BB-61) is a retired battleship, the lead ship of her class, and the fourth in the United States Navy to be named after the state of Iowa. Owing to the cancellation of the Montana-class battleships, Iowa is the last lead ship of any class of United States battleships and was the only ship of her class to serve in the Atlantic Ocean during World War II.

During World War II, she carried President Franklin D. Roosevelt across the Atlantic to Mers El Kébir, Algeria, en route to a conference of vital importance in 1943 in Tehran with Prime Minister Winston Churchill of the United Kingdom and Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union. When transferred to the Pacific Fleet in 1944, Iowa shelled beachheads at Kwajalein and Eniwetok in advance of Allied amphibious landings and screened aircraft carriers operating in the Marshall Islands. She also served as the Third Fleet flagship, flying Admiral William F. Halsey's flag at the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay.

The Battle of Midway was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II that took place on 4–7 June 1942, six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea. The Japanese Combined Fleet under the command of Isoroku Yamamoto suffered a decisive defeat by the U.S. Pacific Fleet near Midway Atoll, about 1,300 mi (1,100 nmi; 2,100 km) northwest of Oahu. Yamamoto had intended to capture Midway and lure out and destroy the U.S. Pacific Fleet, especially the aircraft carriers which had escaped damage at Pearl Harbor.

Before the battle, Japan desired to extend its Pacific defense perimeter, especially after the Doolittle air raid of Tokyo in April 1942, and to clear the seas for attacks on Midway, Fiji, Samoa, and Hawaii. A related Japanese attack on the Aleutian Islands began one day earlier, on 3 June. The Japanese strike force at Midway, known as the Kidō Butai, was commanded by Chuichi Nagumo. Yamamoto's plan for the operation, which depended on precise timing and coordination, was undermined by its wide dispersal of forces, which left the rest of the fleet unable to support the Kidō Butai effectively.

The Nimitz class is a class of ten nuclear-powered aircraft carriers in service with the United States Navy. The lead ship of the class is named after World War II United States Pacific Fleet commander Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, who was the last living U.S. Navy officer to hold the rank. With an overall length of 1,092 ft (333 m) and a full-load displacement of over 100,000 long tons (100,000 t), the Nimitz-class ships were the largest warships built and in service until USS Gerald R. Ford entered the fleet in 2017.

Instead of the gas turbines or diesel–electric systems used for propulsion on many modern warships, the carriers use two A4W pressurized water reactors. The reactors produce steam to drive steam turbines which drive four propeller shafts and can produce a maximum speed of over 30 knots (56 km/h; 35 mph) and a maximum power of around 260,000 shaft horsepower (190 MW). As a result of nuclear power, the ships are capable of operating for over 20 years without refueling and are predicted to have a service life of over 50 years. They are categorized as nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and are numbered with consecutive hull numbers from CVN-68 to CVN-77.

During World War II, at the beginning of the Pacific War in December 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) was the third most powerful navy in the world, and Japan's naval air service was one of the most potent air forces in the world. During the first six months of the war, the IJN enjoyed spectacular success, inflicting heavy defeats on Allied forces while remaining undefeated in battle. The attack on Pearl Harbor crippled the battleship arm of the US Pacific Fleet, while Allied navies were devastated during Japan's conquest of Southeast Asia.

Land-based IJN aircraft were also responsible for the sinkings of HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse, the first time in history that capital ships were sunk by aerial attack while underway. In April 1942, the Indian Ocean raid drove the Royal Navy from South East Asia. After these successes, the Japanese concentrated on the elimination and neutralization of strategic points from which the Allies could launch counteroffensives against Japan's conquests.