ABSTRACT
In San Francisco, Brigadier General William Ord Ryan of the Fourth Interceptor Command announced that a large number of unidentified aircraft had approached the Golden Gate Monday evening but that they had been turned back. By Tuesday, December 9, 1941, the smoke of battle had cleared and the Japanese Navy broadcasted its claims of victory. It claimed the sinking of two battleships, the 31,800-ton West Virginia and the 28,000-ton Oklahoma. This report was true, as was the report of damage to four other battleships. Japan also claimed the destruction of some 300 US aircraft in Hawaii and the Philippines. The Japanese news agency Domei was quick to claim "magnificent early gains" that would give Japan domination over the Pacific. The response of the American people to the Pearl Harbor attack was best exemplified by the immense wave of recruits that surged into the recruiting stations of all of the services across the whole country.
