December 7, 1941 - Pearl Harbor Damage Assessment

On the afternoon of December 7, 1941, President Roosevelt was in his Oval Study in the White House having lunch with his close friend and aide Harry L. Hopkins. The lunch was interrupted at 1:40 p.m. by a telephone call from Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox who told him that the Navy Department had received a radio report from Honolulu stating that Pearl Harbor was under attack and that the military command had emphasized that this was "no drill." This Memorandum (presumably prepared by the Navy Department) was one of the first written damage assessments presented to the President that afternoon. In his own hand, Roosevelt has indicated the date and time he received it. (President’s Official File 4675: World War II, 1941; Box 1).