At 7:55 a.m. (Pearl Harbor time) on the morning of Sunday, December 7, 1941, the U.S. Navy was without a single oceangoing ship capable of discharging a cargo of big tanks or other heavy equipment onto a beach without the aid of piers or cranes. The events of that moment would change that situation. Amphibious forces in the Pacific would wrest island by island away from the Japanese and in Europe recover Europe from Hitler's grip. Since then amphibious forces have played an important role in U.S. Navy operations.