The Salvage of Pearl Harbor

[Wishful]

On the 79th anniversary of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor by the Empire of Japan I thought I would post a video of what the aftermath was like for the US Navy personnel who would salvage the ships, repair them to the extent that they could sail to the West Coast of the US to be completely put back into the fight. I've posted part 1 of the 3 part series; safe to say if you're interested in how all the ships damaged turned out, you can watch the other parts. I found it very interesting as I assumed that if you're like me & heard that the ships just settled on the shallow bottom of the harbor, were then refloated & put back into service. It took a little more work than that...more deaths, more injured, more lessons learned that saved thousands of lives in the next 4 years.
Some highlights:

• Japanese unexploded torpedoes & bombs were defused & studied; the newest technology was recovered.
• Lessons learned from refloating ships were immediately implemented fleet-wide which in the future, prevented many ships from sinking.
• Each sunken ship presented its own unique set of challenges, from the damaged sustained to the harbor bed it settled on, etc.
• The worst job wasn't body recovery, it was cleaning out the meat & the other food lockers.
• All engineering was done w/o a calculator, laptop,...slide rule & brains were the rule.
• Salvaging experiences from the WWI sinking of Germany's Grand Imperial Fleet scuttled in Scapa Flow after Versailles was invaluable.
• USS Shaw...a bow?? who needs one of those!!
• As we remember all those who lost their lives on that day, please think of all all the others who risked & sometimes lost their lives in the recovery of the honored dead & the ships which made took the fight to an extremely determined enemy.
• Bottom line...They anted up..

 

[NJROTC-CC]

My uncle Eugene served on the USS Pennsylvania later in the war after she was salvaged following Pearl Harbor. He came on board in the Philippines and stayed with the ship until she met her fate following Operation Crossroads at Bikini atoll, which my uncle observed. I would have liked to have asked him more about that while he was with us.

 

[raimius]

Drachinifel does great work. I also highly recommend his videos on the battle of Samar, jutland, and the sinking of the Bismarck.