The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise, preemptive military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, just before 08:00, on Sunday morning, December 7, 1941. The attack led to the United States' formal entry into World War II the next day; the Japanese military leadership referred to the attack as the Hawaii Operation and Operation AI, as Operation Z during its planning. Japan intended the attack as a preventive action to keep the United States Pacific Fleet from interfering with its planned military actions in Southeast Asia against overseas territories of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, the United States. Over the course of seven hours there were coordinated Japanese attacks on the U. S.-held Philippines and Wake Island and on the British Empire in Malaya and Hong Kong. The attack commenced at 7:48 a.m. Hawaiian Time; the base was attacked by 353 Imperial Japanese aircraft in two waves, launched from six aircraft carriers.

All eight U. S. Navy battleships were damaged, with four sunk. All but USS Arizona were raised, six were returned to service and went on to fight in the war; the Japanese sank or damaged three cruisers, three destroyers, an anti-aircraft training ship, one minelayer. 188 U. S. aircraft were destroyed. Important base installations such as the power station, dry dock, shipyard and fuel and torpedo storage facilities, as well as the submarine piers and headquarters building were not attacked. Japanese losses were light: 29 aircraft and five midget submarines lost, 64 servicemen killed. One Japanese sailor, Kazuo Sakamaki, was captured. Japan announced a declaration of war on the United States that day, but the declaration was not delivered until the following day; the following day, December 8, Congress declared war on Japan. On December 11, Germany and Italy each declared war on the U. S. which responded with a declaration of war against Germany and Italy. There were numerous historical precedents for the unannounced military action by Japan, but the lack of any formal warning while peace negotiations were still ongoing, led President Franklin D. Roosevelt to proclaim December 7, 1941, "a date which will live in infamy".

Because the attack happened without a declaration of war and without explicit warning, the attack on Pearl Harbor was judged in the Tokyo Trials to be a war crime. War between Japan and the United States had been a possibility that each nation had been aware of, planned for, since the 1920s; the relationship between the two countries was cordial enough. Tensions did not grow until Japan's invasion of Manchuria in 1931. Over the next decade, Japan expanded into China, leading to the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937. Japan spent considerable effort trying to isolate China, endeavored to secure enough independent resources to attain victory on the mainland; the "Southern Operation" was designed to assist these efforts. Starting in December 1937, events such as the Japanese attack on USS Panay, the Allison incident, the Nanking Massacre swung Western public opinion against Japan. Fearing Japanese expansion, the United States, United Kingdom, France assisted China with its loans for war supply contracts.

In 1940, Japan invaded French Indochina, attempting to stymie the flow of supplies reaching China. The United States halted shipments of airplanes, machine tools, aviation gasoline to Japan, which the latter perceived as an unfriendly act; the United States did not stop oil exports, however because of the prevailing sentiment in Washington: given Japanese dependence on American oil, such an action was to be considered an extreme provocation. In mid-1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the Pacific Fleet from San Diego to Hawaii, he ordered a military buildup in the Philippines, taking both actions in the hope of discouraging Japanese aggression in the Far East. Because the Japanese high command was certain any attack on the United Kingdom's Southeast Asian colonies, including Singapore, would bring the U. S. into the war, a devastating preventive strike appeared to be the only way to prevent American naval interference. An invasion of the Philippines was considered necessary by Japanese war planners.

The U. S. War Plan Orange had envisioned defending the Philippines with an elite force of 40,000 men. By 1941, U. S. planners expected to abandon the Philippines at the outbreak of war. Late that year, Admiral Thomas C. Hart, commander of the Asiatic Fleet, was given orders to that effect; the U. S. ceased oil exports to Japan in July 1941, following the seizure of French Indochina after the Fall of France, in part because of new American restrictions on domestic oil consumption. Because of this decision, Japan proceeded with plans to take the oil-rich Dutch East Indies. On August 17, Roosevelt warned Japan that America was prepared to take opposing steps if "neighboring countries" were attacked; the Japanese were faced with a dichotomy—either withdraw from China and lose face, or seize new sources of raw materials in the resource-rich European colonies of Southeast Asia. Japan and the U. S. engaged in negotiations during 1941. In the course of these negotiations, Japan offered to withdraw from most of China and Indochina after making peace with the Nat

The Peugeot Type 63 is an early motor car designed by Armand Peugeot and produced by the French auto-maker Peugeot at their Audincourt plant in 1904. 136 were produced, divided between shorter wheelbase Type 63As and longer wheelbase Type 63Bs. The car was seen by some as a belated replacement for the company’s Type 36, intended as a mid-range car, but with more interior space than most competitor vehicles. With a wheel-base 2,100 mm on the Type 63A and 2,400 mm on the Type 63B, the Type 63 was longer; the Type 63 was propelled using a parallel twin cylinder 1,078 cc four stroke engine, mounted ahead of the driver. A maximum of 7 hp of power was delivered to the rear wheels by means of a rotating drive-shaft. Body types offered included an open carriage Tonneau format body, what would subsequently become known as a Torpedo body and a Coupé-Limousine which at that time was a body style resembling a small closed carriage but with an engine instead of horses. Wolfgang Schmarbeck: Alle Peugeot Automobile 1890-1990.

Motorbuch-Verlag. Stuttgart 1990. ISBN 3-613-01351-7

Bapton is a hamlet in Wiltshire, part of the civil parish of Stockton forming part of Fisherton Delamere. It is south of the River Wylye, about 9 miles southeast of Warminster. Bapton, consisting of 1,174 acres all owned as a single estate, was part of Fisherton Delamere from the earliest times until that parish was extinguished in 1934, when Bapton was transferred to Stockton; the estate was owned by Sir Cecil Chubb, the last private owner of Stonehenge, from 1927 until his death. In 1939 his heirs sold the property to Alfred Douglas-Hamilton, 13th Duke of Hamilton, who died in 1940. Media related to Bapton at Wikimedia Commons