Friday, December 7, 2012

Pearl Harbor salvage operations

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the work to re-float and salvage the damaged or sunken ships began.  It was a huge task.


The Navy has a lot of pictures of the effort.  It was unglamorous work, but the sort of thing that won the war.

4 comments:

  1. wolfwalkerDecember 7, 2012 at 9:32 PM

    Superb book about salvaging the sunken battleships, and other duties of a Navy diver: DESCENT INTO DARKNESS by Cmdr Edward Raymer USN (Ret).

    I'm not sure if this is still true, but for a long time Navy divers were the only members of the entire United States Armed Forces who could receive the Medal of Honor for actions not taken in combat. That's how dangerous underwater salvage is.

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  2. libertymanDecember 8, 2012 at 8:07 AM

    Impressive and amazing that they could do this -- I think they repaired most all the ships that were struck. Look at the site, amazing logistics to right a battleship.

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  3. wolfwalkerDecember 8, 2012 at 11:09 AM

    Of eight battleships sunk or damaged, the Navy was able to repair six. Only Arizona and Oklahoma were total losses.

    Oh, and of the six repaired, five -- West Virginia, Maryland, Tennessee, California, and Pennsylvania -- were in Admiral Oldendorf's line of battle in Surigao Strait, October 25th, 1944 -- the very last Battle Line engagement in naval history, and the very last time a fleet succeeded in the classic 'crossing the T' maneuver.

    It is appropriate.

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  4. Old NFODecember 8, 2012 at 12:53 PM

    Concur on Ed Raimer's book... I cannot imagine doing what they did day after day.

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