On this date in 1941, Japanese planes attacked U.S. military installations in and around Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; bringing the United States into World War II. The Library of Congress American Memory site has a wide variety of information on this world-changing event, many of which are included on the Today in History page marking the date.
The Hemmings blog also marks the day with this photo of the last Packard automobile produced before the factory converted to producing engines for the war effort.
Packard introduced its 1942 cars on August 25, 1941, and shut down its automobile production lines at the Detroit East Grand Boulevard plant just a couple months after Pearl Harbor, on February 9, 1942. As indicated by the sign held above the Clipper in the photo, Packard re-tooled to produce 1,350hp 4,000-cu.in. marine V-12 engines destined for PT boats as well as Rolls Royce Merlin aircraft engines for P-40s and P-51s. According to Dammann and Wren in their Crestline book on Packard, toward the end of the war the company was even researching and developing gas turbine engines.
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