Pearl Harbor resurrection: the warships that rose to fight again (+video)
The attack on Pearl Harbor 71 years ago left a tangled mess of burning and shattered warships. But in 'one of history's greatest salvage jobs,' many of the sunken ships rose to fight the Axis.
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Two men lost their lives after breathing poisonous gases that had accumulated in the ship’s interior. Eventually she was refloated and shipped to Bremerton, Wash., for repairs. She rejoined the active fleet in late 1942.
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Washington Editor
Peter Grier is The Christian Science Monitor's Washington editor. In this capacity, he helps direct coverage for the paper on most news events in the nation's capital.
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The USS California was even more damaged than her sister the Nevada. She had been holed by two torpedoes and a bomb and was fully submerged to the main deck level. Salvage teams built a wooden cofferdam on her superstructure, above the waterline, to aid in recovery and pumping efforts. Divers closed manhole covers and doors. After refloating and an extensive rebuild at the Puget Sound Navy Yard, the ship returned to the combat fleet in early 1944.
The USS West Virginia was the most severely damaged battleship that lived to fight another day. Her port side had been ripped up by eight Japanese torpedoes, according to the official Navy account, and her rudder had been ripped off by another.
The ship’s contents, from 800,000 gallons of fuel oil to projectiles for her guns, had to be removed before the ship could be patched and refloated. Work continued at Pearl Harbor until April, 1943. Extensively refitted at the Puget Sound Navy Yard, the West Virginia returned to service in July 1944 “and took an active part in the Pacific War’s final year,” according to the Navy.
The target ship USS Utah, and the battleships USS Arizona and Oklahoma, were the only ships the Japanese left beyond repair. The Utah remains on the Pearl Harbor floor along with the Arizona. The Oklahoma was raised after a massive effort but proved to be too damaged to return to service. [Editor's note: The original version of this story mischaracterized the Oklahoma's status.]
The effort to reclaim the fleet was, as the Naval History and Heritage Command says, “One of history’s greatest salvage jobs.” Divers spent over 20,000 hours underwater. Even in dry areas workers often had to wear gas masks to protect against the risk of toxic fumes.
The US Navy’s ability to limit the material damage of the Pearl Harbor attack was one of the reasons why Japanese military leaders later came to understand that on that fateful December day they had won a battle, but lost the war.
But in the end, time accomplished what they could not. All the recovered ships were eventually sold for scrap, or blown apart in target or atomic weapon tests, or otherwise decommissioned. (The USS Arizona is no longer a commissioned warship, but retains the right to fly the US flag as if she were on active duty.)
However, of the 101 US fighting ships present in Hawaiian waters on Dec. 7, 1941, one lives on. It is not a battleship, or a cruiser, or even a destroyer. It is the US Coast Guard Cutter Taney, which fired at attackers with its anti-aircraft guns from its Honolulu Harbor pier.
Today USCGC Taney is a museum ship located in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. It is the last warship survivor of one of the nation’s darkest days still afloat.
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