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The Billy Glenn Rushing Post No. 90 will deploy American and POW (prisoner of war) flags on the south side of the railroad tracks this Fri., Dec. 6, to commemorate the events that occurred on Dec. 7, 1941, at Pearl Harbor.

On December 7, 1941, Japanese planes attacked the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Territory, killing more than 2,300 Americans, according to the Library of Congress’s website. The U.S.S. Arizona was destroyed and the U.S.S. Oklahoma capsized. A total of 12 ships sank or were beached in the attack and nine additional vessels were damaged. More than 160 aircraft were destroyed and more than 150 others damaged.

A hurried dispatch from the ranking United States naval officer in Pearl Harbor, Admiral Husband Edward Kimmel, commander in chief of the United States Pacific Fleet, to all major navy commands and fleet units provided the first official word of the attack at the ill-prepared Pearl Harbor base. The dispatch said: AIR RAID ON PEARL HARBOR X THIS IS NOT DRILL.

The following day, in an address to a joint session of Congress, President Franklin Roosevelt called December 7, 1941 “a date which will live in infamy.” Congress then declared War on Japan, abandoning the nation’s isolationism policy and ushering the United States into World War II. Within days, Japan’s allies, Germany and Italy, declared war on the United States, and the country began a rapid transition to a wartime economy by building up armaments in support of military campaigns in the Pacific, North Africa, and Europe, according to the Library of Congress.