On December 7, 1941, approximately 360 Japanese planes attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii1. The attack on Pearl Harbor took the U.S. military completely by surprise and angered the country as a whole. The Americans took the attack on Pearl Harbor as a personal blow and changed the minds of all those who still believed in American neutrality during the war. The United States Congress declared war on Japan on December 8, 1941, officially entering the United States into World War II. With the outbreak of the war, many changes occurred in the daily lives of ordinary Americans. There were many shortages of household items, such as flashlights, batteries, waffle irons, plastic toys and tea2. On the East Coast the supply of gasoline was reduced by 20% and rationing of many household and food items was introduced in many homes of American citizens3. One of the largest changes in daily American life during this period was brought about by the draft, which resulted in the loss of approximately 12,209,240 Americans by 1945 who had enlisted in the armed forces4. During World War II, the number of men in the war meant that America desperately needed more workers to produce weapons and supplies for the troops and for service in the Army itself. American women then found themselves thrust into these positions and offered occupations of higher respect, rank, and pay than before. The immense number of women who participated in World War II played a critical role in increasing the freedom of American women in the workplace, in the military, and on the home front. The huge number of women who worked in factories and other workplaces were crucial to the war effort because they produced nearly all of their country's military paper Cited http://www.nationalww2museum.org/learn/education/for -students/ww2-history/ww2-by-the-numbers/us-military.htmlPenny Colman, Rosie the Riveter: Women Working on the Home Front in World War II, (New York, Crown Publishers Inc.) p. 8 http://www.nationalww2museum.org/learn/education/for-students/ww2-history/ww2-by-the-numbers/us-military.html Sherna B. Gluck, Rosie the Riveter Revisited: Women, the War and Social Change, (Boston, Twayne Publishers) p. 137Catherine Gourley, Rosie and Mrs. America, (Minneapolis, Twenty-First Century Books) Patience Coster, A New Deal for Women 1938-1960, (New York, Chelsea House) p. 12Margaret Regis, When Our Mothers Went to War, (Seattle, NavPublishing) p. 70Major General Jeanne M. Holm, In Defense of a Nation: Servicewomen in World War II, (Washington DC, Military Women's Press) p. 9