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.
The Japanese intended the attack as a preventive action to keep the United States Pacific Fleet from interfering with its planned military actions in Southeast Asia against overseas territories of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the United States.
As the men dozed, they were woken to the sound of air hammers in the distance, trying to cut thru the hull to reach trapped sailors. The men began tapping out SOS code to alert the rescuers. Soon the hammering was much closer.
“In one remarkable act of bravery, Doris `Dorie' Miller, a steward aboard the USS West Virginia, manned a machine gun and successfully shot down multiple Japanese aircraft despite not having been trained to use the weapon.
The ship sank so quickly, hundreds of USS Oklahoma sailors were trapped in spaces below decks. Rescuers worked through Dec. 8, 1941, to free U.S. Navy sailors trapped in the hull of the battleship. Thirty-two men were rescued this way, but more than 400 others died during the attack on Pearl Harbor.
U.S. Navy battleship construction began with the keel laying of the Maine in 1888 and ended with the suspension of the incomplete Kentucky (BB-66) in 1947. During this almost six-decade-long era, 59 battleships of 23 different basic designs (or "classes") were completed for the Navy.
Maryland was struck by two armor-piercing bombs which detonated low on her hull. The Japanese erroneously announced that Maryland had been sunk, but on 30 December, the damaged ship entered Puget Sound Navy Yard for repairs just behind Tennessee.
Today, USS Utah remains at the bottom of Pearl Harbor, a memorial to those lost in the surprise attack. USS Utah (BB-31) was the sixth dreadnought battleship commissioned by the U.S. Navy. Like the preceding Delaware-class, Utah and her sister Florida carried ten 12” gun in five twin, center-line turrets.
In August and September 1945, she covered the occupation of Japan, then departed for the United States. Following transport service in late 1945, she was inactivated. USS Colorado was decommissioned in January 1947. After more than twelve years in "mothballs", she was sold for scrapping in July 1959.
7, 1941, a bomb detonated a powder magazine in the Arizona and the battleship exploded violently and sank, with the loss of 1,177 officers and crewmen. The wreck still rests at the bottom of the harbor and is now part of the USS Arizona Memorial.
When was the USS Oklahoma built?
USS Nevada (BB-36), eldest (by a few months) of the battleships in Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, was hit by one torpedo during the last part of the Japanese torpedo planes' attack. This opened a large hole in the ship's port side below her two forward turrets.
