As dawn arose at 7:50 a.m. on Sunday, December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor was to most Americans nothing more than an obscure harbor in the middle of the vast Pacific, something familiar only by word-of-mouth, or post card or a newsreel declaring the Pearl of the Ocean as a tropical paradise.
Within the next five minutes, everything changed.
To the residents of Oahu, December 7, 1941 has promised to be a Sunday of leisure. At 7:55 a.m., the shipyards’ day shift was already at the jobs and the many of graveyard shift crew were in lines at bus stops awaiting transportation home. Sailors assigned to ships in Pearl Harbor were at worship or having breakfast.
The quiet of this Sunday was shattered, however, by the sound of low-flying planes and the subsequent explosions of their bombs and torpedoes. These explosions brought home the stark reality that the U.S. Pacific Fleet, Pearl Harbor and the United States were under attack.
In the shipyard, crane operator George Walters recognized that the battleship USS Pennsylvania was vulnerable to attack as she sat virtually defenseless in Dry Dock 1. Using the only weapon he had, George used his crane to maneuver alongside the dry dock, shielding the battleship from attacking aircraft.
Other ships were not as lucky. The battleship USS Arizona exploded after being hit by bomb that ignited the ship’s magazine. Another battleship, USS Oklahoma, capsized following numerous torpedo hits. Some 2,117 Navy men and Marines were killed during the attack, more than half entombed inside the USS Arizona.
In less than two hours, a vital part of the Pacific Fleet was rendered impotent. The bulk of U.S. military might in the mid-Pacific lay in shambles. 18 vessels were sunk or damaged. The battleship USS Nevada was the only one to get underway. Damaged and afire, she was grounded at the harbor entrance near Hospital Point rather than risk being sunk in the channel.
Heroic rescues were made throughout the attack by Navy officers, Sailors and Pearl Harbor civilian workers. Thirty-two sailors trapped in the capsized Oklahoma were rescued by Shipyard workers who made a hole in the hull of the ship with pneumatic chipping guns.
In the months that followed, the Pacific Fleet rose from the ashes of December 7th. The rebuilding of the Fleet was the beginning of the shipyard’s motto that we still use today – “We keep them fit to fight!”
| Date Taken: | 12.03.2021 |
| Date Posted: | 12.03.2021 18:57 |
| Story ID: | 410444 |
| Location: | PEARL HARBOR, HAWAII, US |
| Hometown: | PEARL HARBOR, HAWAII, US |
| Web Views: | 106 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, “A day that will live in infamy”, by Amanda Cartagena-Urena, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
