US Naval Ships that were at Pearl Harbor

[RCS]

These US Navy ships were all at Pear l Harbor on Dec 7, 1941, these are not all of them, but just a few that I was able to collect years ago.

These ships all had the postal equipment and had the ships name in the cancellation plus the date. Only the very small ships such as PT Boats did not have their cancellations. US submarines and even had their cancellation

[Bob Womack]

Nice collection!!!

Where do you reckon the cancellation stamp for the Arizona ended up? Did Hoga YT-146 have a stamp? She's the last ship afloat from Pearl Harbor.



My son was the Director of Drydocks and Environmental at Norfolk Naval Shipyard and traveled to Pearl often to consult. One time they had just gone through a big overhaul on Drydock One where Pennsylvania, Cassin and Downes were during the attack.


I asked him to grab me something from the drydock that was there during the attack out of the trash. He brought me a check valve handle that hangs in my garage.

Bob

[RCS]

Years ago I was able to get a Model 1903 stock (single stock bolt) from the CMP north store.
This stock was painted white (many coats of paint). As I took my time and very carefully removed the coats of white paint, I found AT 21 inletted into the butt stock. My friend, Tom in NJ, told me that is the navy designator or code for the USS Bagaluce. This was an ocean going tug boat from 1919 to 1944. The USS Bagaluce also had cancellations/post marks too. It is interesting that Model 1903 rifles were issued to this fleet tug.

Now there are no reported cancellations for the USS Hoga.

[Sapper740]

The Sotoyomo YT-9 launched in 1903 was the oldest ship in Pearl Harbor and was sunk in the same drydock as USS Shaw. She was later raised and saw service throughout the Pacific until she was stricken and scuttled near Leyte in 1946.

[Bob Womack]

Years ago I was able to get a Attachment 137829Attachment 137830Attachment 137831Attachment 137832Attachment 137833 Model 1903 stock (single stock bolt) from the CMP north store.
This stock was painted white (many coats of paint). As I took my time and very carefully removed the coats of white paint, I found AT 21 inletted into the butt stock. My friend, Tom in NJ, told me that is the navy designator or code for the USS Bagaluce. This was an ocean going tug boat from 1919 to 1944. The USS Bagaluce also had cancellations/post marks too. It is interesting that Model 1903 rifles were issued to this fleet tug.
Now there are no reported cancellations for the USS Hoga.

I'm remembering all the shots from the Pearl Harbor raid with sailors doing anti-aircraft duty with 1903s. I'm not sure the Navy had made the transition to the M1 Garand by Pearl. In 1944, my father shot first in his class on the Garand at Naval Induction Station Great Lakes, so the transition had made it to the induction stations by then. I still remember small arms inventories from large ships that had 1903s in their armory far into 1943. I think, I think, the armory inventory of USS Wisconsin, parked down the road from me, which was completed in 1944, listed 1903s when I visited last. Could be wrong on that one.

Bob

[RCS]

Alot of pre WW2 USN Model 1903 stocks had the ships name or hull number cut or stamped into the stock,

My photos show some of these stocks which came from Rock Island salvage or CMP sales

[Riter]

Wonderful cachets. Love the one with the Great White Fleet battleship, USS Connecticutt.

[RCS]

This is one of my favored cancellations, the USS Zircon.

In 1929, F.j. Fisher of Detroit (Fisher auto body) built a private yacht called the Nakhoda. In
Dec 1940, Fisher donated his yacht to the US Navy where it was renamed the Zircon. It
was refitted with two three inch cannons and six thirty cal Browning m/g's. plus two depth charge throwers.

The USS Zircon patrolled the east coast during WW2 and sold in 1947, it was bought and restored

[Bob Womack]

i compiled this report for another forum:

As of 1944 there were still many wrecks in Pearl. I've read accounts of many Navy ships coming in to Pearl in that time period. They'd put their youngest ratings on deck at attention as they came in to expose them to the carnage. They said there wouldn't be a dry eye on deck, including those of the officers and captain.

After capsizing in the raid, Oklahoma was righted in 1943.

She went to Drydock 2 to be assessed and then, when judged hopeless, went back as a hulk to Battleship Row. She was sold for scrap in 1947. During her time in drydock, arriving ships had to turn their crew on deck back and forth from port to starboard to render honors to all the wrecks they were surrounded by. Interestingly, in 2015, the final 420 unidentified remains recovered from the Oklahoma were exhumed from the Pacific Bowl cemetery for identification. Of them, 369 were identified by DNA and returned to their families for disposition. That's outstanding.

The superstructure of Arizona was still semi-erect on battleship row until 1942, when it was cut off and taken to storage near the harbor where it still rests and is protected with an eye towards use as some sort of memorial.


Destroyers Cassin and Downes and battleship USS Pennsylvania were in Drydock 1 together when the attack began. A shipyard worker moved a large crane back and forth over Pennsylvania as the second wave of air attacks began to make it hard for dive bombers to land anything. He also used his altitude to direct her anti-aircraft guns towards attacking planes. As a result, she only took one bomb. Cassin and Downes weren't as lucky. Bombers landed some shots on and around them and both pierced them and exploded their ordnance. Drydock workers flooded the dock to prevent destruction of the caisson (door) which would cause catastrophic damage to the ships. The water partially floated Cassin and then she capsized against the Downes. Pennsylvania was repaired. The hulks of Cassin and Downes were refloated and towed to the mainland where their guns and engineering plants went into other ships.



The horrible explosion photo that many attribute to the Arizona was actually of destroyer Shaw, hit with a bomb in the bow that detonated her forward magazine while in the floating drydock. It blew off her bow and sunk the drydock.


They picked her clean, applied a rustic, odd-looking temporary bow, and in February of 1942, sailed her back to Mare island Shipyard in California.

She was completely restored, returned to Pearl, and rejoined the fleet in August of that year, going on to earn eleven battle stars.


On the Japanese side, all five of their mini-subs that were dispatched to attack he ships in the harbor were accounted for. No.19 ran out of battery power and was abandoned off Pearl. Her captain set the explosive charges and left the boat, declaring, "We are leaving. Expode gloriously!" She washed up on the beach on the East side of Oahu, undamaged, and was recovered. After spending the war touring the country on a bond drive, she was retired to Chester Nimitz's Museum of the Pacific War in Texas. No. 18 was discovered sunk without her crew in Ke?ehi Lagoon east of Hickam in 1960. She was returned to Japan and is displayed there as a memorial at Etijima Naval Academy. Destroyer Ward hit No.20 in the conning tower with a single shot hours before the attack. Hers was the first U.S. shot of the Pacific war. No-one believed she sunk the ship but she was discovered where she was sunk in 2002. No.22 was discovered sunk a few weeks after the attack and raised. After being examined and a memorial service for the two crew was carried out, she was used as landfill in the emergency construction of a new pier. She was uncovered again in 1952 but buried again.

No.16 is possibly the most intriguing. There is a Japanese aerial photo showing what appears to be a sub broaching the surface after shooting torpedoes during the attack. Propeller wash sprays can be seen on the left of the pic. Her torpedo wakes point to Oklahoma.

A mini sub was discovered in the debris field from junk recovered from the West Lock Disaster of 1944, located three miles south of Pearl. Apparently she got lost and ended up sinking in West Loch. Her remains were identified in that field in 2009.

Bob

[Sapper740]

This is the extent to which the Japanese went to prepare for the Pearl Harbor attack: