The work of the salvage unit also saved countless lives through their detailed and meticulous notes on where the protection systems of destroyers, cruisers and battleships had failed and how this could be avoided in future designs as well as their huge amount of work calculating exactly how to safely seal off parts of a ship to secure against flooding which all fed into the rapidly growing body of knowledge that was the UC Navy's damage control training efforts which would in turn see many ships return to Pearl Harbor battered, yes, heavily burnt and listing, certainly, large parts missing and having gone their own way into the middle of the pacific ocean, absolutely. They also managed to give a final resting place to most of those who were missing in action in the aftermath of the 7th of December attacks whether that be recovered to graves or forever aboard their ships as with the Arizona and the Utah. Alongside fellow pearl harbor survivors Maryland, Tennessee, California and Pennsylvania with the USS Mississippi tagging along for the ride, vital space had been reclaimed at Pearl Harbor which would see an influx of new ships. West Virginia herself was later to wreak her revenge on the Japanese navy at the battle of Surigao Strait. This is the story of those six.The Salvage of Pearl Harbor Pt 3 - The First and the Last So, what overall did they accomplish? In short, a huge amount ships thought completely unsalvageable like West Nevada would go on Atlantic convoy duty before bombarding German positions off Utah beach as the D-Day Normandy landings began. They would re-enter to the war to wreak a terrible revenge – making their presence felt during the reconquest of the Aleutian Islands and the Philippines, and the great battles of Leyte Gulf, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Six of the eight battleships would thus return to service, with improved protection against bombs and torpedoes and being fitted with the latest anti-aircraft and gunnery systems. The capsized Oklahoma, whilst eventually parbuckled and raised, was found to be too badly damaged to be fully rebuilt. USS Nevada was lifted off the bottom in February 1942, California in March 1942 and West Virginia in June 1942. Main battery guns and ordnance were recovered from the wrecked Arizona, which would then be left to rest on the bottom of the harbour for eternity – as a memorial to the events of that fateful December day. Of the eight battleships attacked, all but Arizona were raised, temporarily patched-up and sent back to naval yards on the west coast of America for final repair and modernisation. Very quickly the lightly damaged battleships Pennsylvania, Maryland and Tennessee had been repaired in naval yards and put back into service to protect the west coast of the USA. Within a week of the Japanese attack, a great salvage organisation had been formed. Hundreds of US aircraft had been damaged or destroyed, whilst 2,403 Americans had been killed. The other four battleships present were more lightly damaged, with the crippled Nevada, the only battleship to get underway during the attack, being successfully beached.īy the time the assault was over, eight battleships, three light cruisers, three destroyers, a training ship and other smaller vessels had been sunk or damaged. USS California was hit by a pair of torpedoes and a bomb, flooding slowly, she too settled on the bottom. USS West Virginia, meanwhile, was hit by at least seven torpedoes and several bombs, and engulfed in flames she settled onto the bottom on an even keel. On USS Oklahoma, 429 men were killed – many trapped inside as the great battleship capsized after aerial torpedo strikes. The battleship USS Arizona exploded from a bomb hit at the forward magazine killing 1,177 officers and men. It was a date that President Roosevelt declared “will live in infamy”.ĭuring the strike, Japanese planes attacked the seven US battleships lined up in Battleship Row – and the flag battleship USS Pennsylvania, in drydock for overhaul. Early on Sunday, 7 December 1941, Japanese carrier-borne aircraft launched a surprise attack against the US Pacific Fleet based at Pearl Harbor.
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