I was surprised to learn that the North Carolina Navy utilized galleys during the American Revolution, to help patrol/guard the Outer Banks. From what I have read the ships never saw action. I am aware that galleys were used in the Baltic and the Mediterranean in the 17th and 18th centuries (and small craft were used on Lake Champlain), but I was not aware that galleys were used in the sounds and passages surrounding the Outer Banks, which were directly connected to the Atlantic, a body of water not usually associated with galleys. Are there any other unusual or surprising locations were galleys were used?

Hi Drach, what was the purpose of the Lattice/Cage mast of the US Navy battleships? Why not use the tripod mast like many other navies? Did weight play anything into this design over other masts?

Sorrry if this has been asked, how useful would Arizona be if she survived the attack?

How did the various pre-dreadnoughts/dreadnoughts that self-exploded do so? Why did Mutsu and friends just explode?

Hi dachinfel what do you think would happen if the yamato the bismark and Iowa were to all fight each other not realistic but fun to imagine

I always wanted to go visit it but I can't afford a Hawaiian vacation. My uncle went to Hawaii and I asked him later if he visited and he said no. I asked why the hell wouldn't you visit the most important place in Hawaii. He didn't really have an answer, he just don't care about history. This was confirmed after he went to Rome but didn't go to any of the historically important places. I kind of just shake my head and wonder why people would rather visit tourist trap type stuff instead of visit actually important places. I guess most people don't care about our history and we history lovers are a different breed.

Elvis learned that past efforts to fund a memorial failed because whatever event was involved gave away to many tickets to generate much money. He agreed to give a concert as long as every ticket was paid for, no freebies. That resulted in enough funds to prime the effort to create the current memorial.

When i visited in 2014, fuel was still leaking. Its considered too environmentally dangerous to empty the tanks so they let it very slowly leak out

@@Erik_Ice_Fang They have plans if the tanks do give way. Basically it will be to contain the oil as much as possible.

@@robertandrews6915 My Hawaiian vacation was courtesy of the U S Navy.. I attended a reenlistment ceremony on the memorial. I wasn't the only person with tears in their eyes.

Yes.

What channels are as good as this one?

@@thatdude3938 I believe Military History Visualized also looks at the original source material as a matter of course. I do find it somewhat harder to follow, though, thanks to the narrator's German accent. That could just be a me-thing, though: I speak both English and German, but when I hear one language in the melody of another, I get confused and distracted. So what I'm saying is: content-wise, Military History Visualized (and Military History Not Visualized) is nearly as thorough as Drachinifel (though I prefer Drach's calm methodical approach, making it easier to follow every step of the thought process involved). Form-wise, it's really no contest, as Drach is pleasant to listen to (tales of the horrors of war notwithstanding), whereas MHV and MHNV can be a struggle.

Completely agree

@@thatdude3938 I haven't found one.

I wonder whether he'd rather have died, or really enjoyed life as much as he could despite being in a wheelchair.

@@MrNicoJac I suspect that he preferred being alive in a wheelchair to being DEAD.

@@stevengrotte2987 Not all people would/do

@@MrNicoJac He ended up in wheel chair later in life when he was nearing retirement, he seemed ok with it, but I only spent a short time with him.

@@MartinCHorowitz Ah, good to hear it wasn't straight after the war!

Indeed. I think it's why all warship designers put a priority on armoring critical areas of a ship, such as the magazines above all else. The ship can survive if the upper decks are damaged, but if the engine, fuel, or magazines are hit, the ship is doomed

I think it's so fitting how the 'Mighty Mo' USS Missouri is anchored by her as if on watch. The beginning and end of the war all right there, as well as the end of battleships in regards to modern naval warfare. I still think regardless of their usefulness they make a statement about the nation able to produce and keep such beasts operational. It's rather sad to me seeing them made floating museums and probably never going out to sea again.

@@tomservo5347 at least the Missouri served into the 90’s

@@johnwanderin3872 so USS New Jersey saw at least 1 more war then her

@@tomservo5347 imagine how crazy big if Yamato (大和) was in a museum.

Hey Dave! Are you still stuck in the elevator with a fuckin Martian?

Big Jim McLain (1952) includes a scene of John Wayne’s Character’s visit to the sunk Arizona (before the present Memorial).

Might not sound like much, but I am proud of you.

Men, seeking to reach out and grasp the past, only quicken its erasure from memory.

I just went today it’s pretty humbling being there.

Well Yankee could be seen as having baggage

Actually, if you think about it, when it comes to setting General Quarters (Battle Stations) aboard a US Navy Ship, ALL of the fittings, doors and hatches have a different sounding name than the NATO alphabet which helps eliminate confusion. (The only common name/term is X-Ray which is always closed unless it needs to be temporarily opened.) Circle William (air vents), Dog Zebra (for darken ship) .vs. Whiskey and Delta + Zulu (I've never have heard of anything that had a DZ, except for the Dog Zebra aboard a ship! Also, since you Dog a Hatch or Door close, the use of Dog kinda makes sense) as well as Yankee (.vs. Yoke).

@@janwitts2688 only if you are a racist.

@@LSOP- Your comment makes no sense. Yankee as having baggage is that it would have meant the US, so another term was used.

@@timengineman2nd714 Drop zones in airborne operations can be called DZ, but I haven't heard of them called delta Zulu.

So he completed his initial service commitment in 1941? By 1988 that guy must’ve been almost 70

@@randbarrett8706 yup, interesting old Guy and only used Amsoil in his Buick Station Wagon. I'll never forget that.

Most of the battleships that sank were refloated and repaired.

@@lovelessissimo Yeah most of them were refloated by like late 1943 mid 1944, of course there were a few like the Arizona that were too heavily damaged to be refloated or just not worth refloating with the amount of damage taken.

@@dragonace119 there were just two ships left at the bottom of Pearl. The Arizona and the Utah. Arizona was the only combat vessel. Utah was a demilitarized target ship.

It's because of the shallow water that rather than study the damage, they could be recovered. There was a very motivating sense of vengeance when it came to the task of refloating and redeploying the ships that sank. Everyone on board those refloated ships took it very much to heart what that ship went through.

Well in fairness, these obsolete ships armour was obliterated by up to date weapons, that these WW1 relics simply couldn't survive. It's akin to doing car crash tests on vehicles 25yrs, old and expecting them to survive todays standards, and bemoaning their failure........ Good luck This is why Arizona isn't still floating. Those refloated were promptly scrapped at end of WW2. Obsolete

Not a military base, but at one point after 2000 my father was working in some "temporary" buildings on a US government site (not classified, but not important to this story...). Those "temporary" buildings had been built in the 1950s or 1960s.

I find that those buildings are still standing amazing. My father (prior to retirement) managed the dismantling/demolition of decommissioned chemical plants; those plants often would only last 25 to 30 years before being cycled out. But that the Navy Yard can keep building in use for 90 years is impressive.

Lived down there 74-76, My uncle was a CPO stationed there..the place never changes.

Some of the same lazy yard birds hanging around, too.

@@absalomdraconis In college in the 1990s, there were still “temporary” Quonset huts in use clustered around the math department building. They’d been erected there in about 1944.

Was that the one where they sent a remote vehicle in to the aft portion of the ship and found that uniform still hanging in the closet?

@@danieltaylor5231 That is creepy..... 🥺

The video was enhanced and placed in HD. You can see powder flying out and exploding which are the flashes at the bow of the ship.

The single color frame that Drach showed is the sole surviving bit of the original color film. All the existing footage of the explosion comes from b&w copies made from the original film.

The original film was color, but has since been lost. A high def version has been released. You can actually see burning powder bags flying, and a meter high wave washing ashore

That’s the result of TONS of powder exploding. The result of course CATASTROPHIC! Men were quite literally VAPORIZED! 😳😞🇺🇸⚓️

Scary too

There have been other documentaries that have noted the forward mast lifting and then if you was carefully you can see it crashing back down.

You mean that channel that basically has no shows about history? The UFO channel? Swamp people? Ancient Aliens? …. I am SO glad I don’t have cable TV.

Only if he sends ship security through the halls to round up those who have desecrated that channel and hauls them to trials charged with heretical malfeasance.

The executive in charge of programming at the History Channel. "History? We ain't got no history. We don't have to show you no stinkin' history!"

@CipiRipi00 I will fetch the chum....

I will say this their KZfaq channel is nice with all the old documentaries but yeah the actual tv channel is a different story.

Cassin Young III was 3rd generation Navy/Naval Academy. He was an A6 pilot and we were in a new hire class together at United Airlines in 1992. He’s since retired.

Nov 13 1942 for clarification

Danger was not stranger to the Vestal. Worked long and hard under dangerous conditions to keep the battle fleet in action.

That was footage from the Solace. They enhanced it and put it in HD.

@@michaelpiatkowskijr1045 who is they?

@lawrence Deneault would really cool to see that video. Know where I can find it?

For me the explosion of HMS Barham really put the scale of a magazine explosion into perspective. In the original 1941 video you can see people standing on the hull of the ship before the detonation. Video: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/j8qifLaT3N_Dqn0.html (taken from British Pathe channel)

@@lazyman7505 until it was told that was the Barham, I thought it was an island that exploded. It was only a few frames before the explosion.

THATS SO COOL please give my tanks and respects to your dad for working In the navy (am I correct?) And I can't believe you still have a promotion letter personally wrote by MR. Nimitz

Glad it was a dud!!! Also glad it missed its intended target, as my father was aboard California at the time!!

@@wheels-n-tires1846 Wow- Who knows? Maybe they knew each other, 80 years ago! Dad also sailed on the NEOSHO...the fleet oiler that was berthed near CALIFORNIA. He either came to Pearl Harbor aboard her...or sailed off to elsewhere after the attack...I forget that detail. But the NEOSHO was later sunk sometime in conjunction with the Midway action. Sure wish I'd asked Dad more about all of this when he was still with us.

@@tbamagic Neosho was sunk in the Battle of the Coral Sea, when a Japanese air strike thought that she and the DD Sims were a carrier and a cruiser.

@@stuartwald2395 Thank You- Yes, that was it. Later, Dad served on a wooden 175' subchaser in the south Pacific as the ship's "doctor" although he was a Chief Pharmacist's Mate (small ship!). He also mentioned a stint on one of those vessels that launched scads of rockets during pre-invasion shoreline softening (or "landscaping" as Drach says!)

Nein

Sacrilege. That said, I wouldn't be against them rebuilding both Arizona and Yamato, with Arizona hanging out in orbit to protect Earth while Yamato does her thing. Say she's too small and can't carry enough food or something. Might be fun.

@@Ralph-yn3gr this is my head cannon. Pretty much all US “Standards” are used to hold the line while Yamato runs off to go do it’s thing. In my mind it makes sense as they would be more used for line battle due to the 4 turrets. I also have the head cannon that the other nations do the same thing with their interwar ship designs, and a massive parade is held upon the return.

Lets be honest if the US ever retrofis a space Battelship it woud be USS Iowa

Sounds more goofy than Azure Lane. 🙄

I remember reading something a while back that said that one of the torpedoes that struck Oklahoma entered a hole made by a previous torpedo, failed to detonate, and was found next to one one the magazines.

IIRC, I think at least 1 other BB took a direct hit from one of those bombs but it was a dud. I think it was California but don't quote me on that.

Nevada took a bomb hit towards the bow turrets. One problem with the bomb, it was a 500 lb bomb they were going to use on secondary targets in the second wave. It caused fires near the magazine which was flooded. A mistake was made and the rear magazine was flooded. If the Nevada had gotten to sea, she couldn't have fought much without her main battery.

I forgot about the Tennessee being hit in the bow by a dud. Being ships with the all or nothing armor, it's possible there wasn't enough armor to break the timing fuse.

There's certainly a photo of such a bomb found unexploded deep within West Virginia, showing the two base fuses the Japanese employed (unsuccessfully in this case) to ensure detonation. Also, one penetrated into turret three of Tennessee but detonated only low order.

If you haven’t read “Descent into Darkness”, I highly recommend it. Your SIL’s father may have been named by the author during his account of the Pearl Harbor recovery effort.

“I don’t know who in the hell would want to be a Navy diver.”

that had to be rough. It’d take a lot of 🥃 to forget those sights. 😢

@@joshnelson4532 navy divers want.

interesting

A commendation and reprimand is exactly what should happen in that situation, no? Plenty of instances of this happen, as these things are generally discharge worthy or worse actions, which can save many lives at the time they do them, but otherwise could put many lives at risk. Generally these decisions can and should only be made by officers at the least, who are also reprimanded. The benefit of being in the right is you do not lose your position, and generally it is ignored by the navy from then on. I know it seems counter intuitive, but if you get a lot of individuals applying too much thought outside of their job role they can cause a lot of damage. At least, that is how it is generally viewed in the US navy... Thinking about it I don't really remember any of these stories in the royal navy... perhaps the crews on RN ships are quicker to say that the officer advised them in one of their drills and it was really his forethought into his role that allowed the action to be undertaken and that it was an implied order, I wouldn't be surprised. That or it didn't happen and RN ships just sunk. I have no idea. Perhaps someone else has some stories to share.

Sometimes there is not time to locate an authorized officer. Sometimes common sense initiative is necessary. Any official that demands civil order processes in an emergency deserves a reprimand himself. He is a liability.

You could say the opposite problem sank the japanese navy, not enough free thinkers, too much doctrine and dogma. It’s a balancing act in my opinion and the dude who flooded the magazine made the right call that day.

@@francoistombe Agree. And disagree. Unfortunately there is no such thing as “common sense”. Rules and regulations have evolved over time to handle expected scenarios. To ignore them because “I know better” is invalid. There would have been no commendation if the sailor’s decision was destructive. How often does that happen???

Well considering the number of people following the Great Admiral channel, I am impressed by the size of your rum store 😂

The US Navy was "DRY," since at least World War 1 thanks to the Secretary of the Navy at that time Josephus Daniels-----NO BOOZE.

All members of the crew are allowed to placed on the ship after they pass. He could very well be there with his crew mates still serving.

The typical Pearl Harbor commemoration video also usually shows US Navy Dauntless Dive Bombers dropping bombs before the explosion clip. One of my pet peeves. Arizona was hit by a Kate bomber flying in a horizontal formation and the Japanese dive bombers had fixed landing gear. Details that get neglected year after year.

Wasn’t that footage from John Ford’s film “December 7th”?

@@TK42100 It was, but has been reused in many official and otherwise documentaries, apparently by people that did not realize that it was movie footage for entertainment rather than actual original documentation from an unknown source.

@@TK42100 Yes, there are two versions of John Ford's film available. (a short and long version) Ford was commissioned by the Secretary of the Navy and the Secretary of War to create a "motion picture factual presentation of the attack..." His film was released in 1943 and won an academy award for Best Documentary. The explosion clips, there are 3 separate clips in the the sequence, are inverted in the John Ford film, with the explosion and fire going up and to the left. So, this inversion took place before the film was digitized. Ford also uses footage of Dauntless Dive Bombers, 46:34 - 47:08 and 51:24 retouched to look like they have Japanese insignia, as well as a brief clip of a TBD Avenger 55:22 to represent a Japanese torpedo plane. The National Archives KZfaq site carries this video. (Comments are turned off). This really bothers me as do most "History" videos that get details wrong. Makes you wonder what else is out there that is intentionally or unintentionally misrepresenting history.

@@tfwomble As annoying as it is to use American planes as stand-ins, it's also important to remember the US didn't have a whole lot of Japanese naval bombers on hand in 1943 and the general public wouldn't know a Kate from a Buffalo. It's like Exeter(?) pretending to be Graf Spee in movies. It's what they had.

What puzzles me is the fire on the fore deck before the explosion. I'd suggest that maybe the bomb ignited smokeless power in the magazine before the black power magazine exploded.

The Arizona still weeps for her lost even today. Her tears are the drops of fuel oil that come to the surface.

Not to be wet rag but I really do not think that is safe driving.

@@karlhumes6110 ever listen to an audio book or a podcast while driving? Same thing. I'm not watching his vids on the road, I'm listening to them, the visuals are nice when the opportunity is there, but getting info fed to my ears by Drach makes the daily commute feel far less annoying.

Or gathering all 5 infinity stones.

The Bionic Arizona

Oof. Now those foundations are gone. Sorry.

@@ph89787 or 7 dragon balls maybe

@@connorgraham6940 that’s probably what the IJN rationalised every time they ran into Enterprise after they claimed she was sunk.

Hatches were open prior to a pending Admiral's inspection. I think had hatches been at condition three status (which most of the Pacific fleet was at the time) her structural integrity would've had added protection for crew. Hell, the explosion would have been hampered considerably.

@@InfiniteSith136 You'd be surprised how often containing an explosion can make it worse.

Which is one reason why when they moored USS Missouri her forward two turrets are directly set to be suspended over the Arizona, as if she was providing a silent vigil over her fallen sister. Though it's a small leak even to this day, the ship bleeds oil every so often from one of her bunkers. People have come to call these drops of oil "Pearl's Tears". A way of them saying the ship is forever weeping for her fallen sailors and how in their hour of need she failed them. Some of the people who watch over and protect the memorial have come to call the ships anchored in harbor the "Bookends" Meaning the war started with the Arizona and ended with the Missouri.

@@waverleyjournalise5757 Just got out of the Navy, as a matter of fact, late last year. In a lot of cases, you'd be right, specially with ships of today. An Arleigh Burke class destroyer, for instance, would come apart worse than normal under condition 3 or 2 readiness in the event of a forward magazine detonation. Don't misunderstand, I was not a hull tech or anything of the like. But I've had my share of studies on the subject, and I can tell you with certainty that modern warships are not constructed to the same tolerances as ships of preceding types. In this case, a super dreadnaught BB. The leading difference namely being how the stanchions, frames and plating arrangements were designed to support more than the ships own tareweight in the form of fully featured superstructure, anchoring and mooring systems, aircraft handling equipment, aircraft catapults, a very heavily armored conning tower, masts, fire control equipment, horizontally armored decking, weapon system retaining supports (primarily main turret barbettes and secondary battery casemates), thousands of tons in ammunition and propellant bags, armor belting, armor plating, boilers, geared turbine engines, auxiliary combat compartments, ready stowage magazines, auxiliary fuel tanks, torpedo blisters, the torpedo protection system as a whole, and void spaces. In the event of condition 2 or 3 readiness, it's a calculated, mathematical certainty that while Arizona would have still foundered, the existing damage would have been considerably reduced, and many lives of those that happened to be below decks in their respective berthings and machinery spaces, would have been saved. On top of that, watertight integrity is improved, and the amount of flooding would be stunted. I believe it goes without saying that these ships, while certainly not indestructible, were leaps and bounds ahead of what we have now in terms of survivability and hull ridgidity. That is, if you're willing to look past certain obsolescences such as hydrodynamic efficiency. Arizona, and her dreadnaught and superdreadnaught sisters, were probably some of the leading ships in the world at the time that could be reduced to a smoldering wreck and remain in one piece. A true marvel of warship design evolution.

@@InfiniteSith136 No combat ready unit would ever pass inspection while no inspection ready unit would survive combat

Japanese and their shimose strike again

The caps are aerodynamic only and actually interfere with armor penetration to a minor degree…

@@allangibson2408 AP caps were not aerodynamic, you are thinking about the balistic cap. The AP cap was by WW2 a hardened steel cap covering the nose of the shell itself. It's primarily use was to protect the shell nose from shock when hitting face hardened armor & break the face layer of the plate.

Good point.

I'm only at 42:58 in the video so far, but is it possible that, being a converted 16" naval shell, the bomb that initiated the magazine detonation was filled with an older type of bursting charge? I'm specifically thinking of "Shimose" explosive. Reports from when this compound was definitely in use - the battle of Tsushima - indicate that it generated an extremely high heat when it detonated. This *might* go towards explaining how the magazine detonation got started. Upon consideration, it seems unlikely, since Shimose was a very early explosive formulation, and would almost certainly have been replaced with newer explosives by the time even older 16" shells were manufactured. The only way I could see a technically obsolete compound like Shimose being used is if the production of so many very large shells put a strain on the Japanese supply chain, and that production of the newer explosive(s) lagged behind shell casing production. In this case some shells *might* have gotten filled with older explosives, since it would likely have been more available. A very long shot, admittedly, but I thought I'd put it out there.

@@christopherreed4723 You raise an interesting point. How likely would it be for the gun captains to turn over new ordinance? Much more likely that old ordinance would be used.

​@@christopherreed4723 I found this post that you will undoubtedly find interesting, though long on the converted bombs: Re: Artillery shells dropped by planes Post by nathanokun » Mon Oct 26, 2009 8:53 am The Japanese bomb used at Pearl Harbor (and nowhere else, to my knowledge) was the 775 kg (1709 lb) 41cm (16.1" from the NAGATO and MUTSU guns) Type 99 (Year = 1939) Number 80 (Class Type, not sure of meaning) Mark 5 Bomb (that is, a bomb based on the British Mark 5 APC gun projectile, also used after WWI for Japanese guns, since most of their battleships at the time used British-designed 14" APC shells, and, in the modified form -- new fuze with super-long delay and a break-away windscreen and AP cap tip ("Cap Head") to leave a flat end of half-middle-body-cross-sectional area to prevent ricochet off of the ocean surface and inhibit tumbling underwater -- in the later Mark 6/Type 88 (1928) "diving" APC shell (for below the belt underwater hits), which was replaced in 1931 by the improved Type 91 "diving" AP shell (the latter was capped in the 14" and up sizes, uncapped in the smaller sizes). Unlike the British shells, which changed over to insensitive Shellite filler after Jutland, the Japanese tried to keep the original British Lyddite/Japanese Shimose trinitrophenol filler using all sorts of tricks to try to keep it inert on punching through heavy battleship side armor (this filler was used at their great victory against the Russians in 1904 at Tsushima and it seems that somebody important utterly refused to allow it to be replaced no matter what problems this caused in naval AP ammo). It took until 1931 for innumerable and exhaustive tests to PROVE that this filler could not be put through heavy side armor in a battleship and not explode in or immediately behind the armor plate, eliminating the highly-desired delay-action fuze function. The new Type 91 AP projectile had a more streamlined "Type 2" ballistic form with a tapered base and long conical windscreen (the cap tip and windscreen broke away on water impact or high obliquity impact with anything solid just like the Type 88 design), an even longer fuze delay for a long underwater trajectory to hit targets below their armor belt, and, finally, that "important person" was overruled or retired -- :-> -- and a somewhat less sensitive Trinitroanisol (Type 91 Explosive) filler introduced that could, barely, make it unexploded through such heavy armor with thick cushioning in the shell's internal cavity. Only the few cruisers and other ships that kept the older 20cm (7.9") guns still used the Type 88 shell after the Type 91 came out, suddenly creating a lot of obsolete and useless AP shells. This bomb made use of some of these. The old 41cm APC shell's AP cap, cap head, and windscreen were removed, giving a blunt point (perfect nose matching most Japanese bombs designed for other purposes). The body behind the bourrelet (widest point on the forward end of the shell that touched the gun rifling top surface) was machined down to a tapering cone to reduce the weight from the original APC projectile body weight of about 825 kg (1820 lb) to only 744 kb (1641 lb) -- including filler and fuzes. A roughly 31 kg (68 lb) sheet metal conical tail and fin assembly was screwed to a modified, rather lightweight base plug, which had **two** side-by-side super-long-delay (circa 0.4 second) base fuzes similar to those used in the 41cm Type 91 AP projectile. This special base plug covered the entire rear end of the heavy bomb body and increased the usable explosive cavity filler weight to 30kg (66 lb) of Type 91 Explosive plus a 0.77 kg (1.7 lb) aluminum cavity tip cushion. The original Japanese enlarged British-design 2240-lb 16.1" Mark 5 APC shell body and cavity, if it had used the same filler and cushion (not Shimose, as it actually did), would have only had room for 54.3 lb of explosive plus that same cushion (that is, up to 2.5% explosive filler by weight if no cushion). Thus, the bomb had a significantly larger filler weight, in the gun projectile Semi-Armor-Piercing range, than the original AP gun projectile could have used, even though the cavity was the same size, other than the thin base plug allowing more room for explosive inside (the lower end of the cavity and projectile base were machined to allow the new base plug to be screwed on, but the rest of the cavity does not seem to have been touched). Note that most foreign AP bombs not also made from old gun projectiles (several US AP bombs introduced prior to WWII were also modified old AP shells, some even keeping their AP caps!) had much larger fillers, since no heavy (equal to the projectile diameter in thickness) armor was being hit and the bomb was always going to hit very close to right angles (30 degrees from right angles maximum). A small set of holes were drilled in the tapered part to allow lugs to be fitted to hold the bomb to the attachment device of the airplane (one bomb per plane). The data does not state how the fuzes were armed, since the normal set-back (high acceleration) and spin of a gun projectile in the gun bore were not available. There must have been a pair of wires from the plane to pins in the fuze bottoms that were pulled out when the bomb moved several feet from the plane (clean release) -- I cannot think of any other way to make these hidden base fuzes safely work (no spinning arming propellers could be used here). The bombs hitting armor cleanly could penetrate the relatively thin deck armor of the older US Navy battleships intact and detonate properly after their long delay, as was shown by the destruction of the ARIZONA by one of these bombs. Other hits gave various results. Most hits on gun barrels and so forth caused proper high-order detonations when the bombs were stopped or slowed down by whatever they hit. Two bombs hit the single-thickness 4" Class "B" (homogeneous, ductile) main turret roof armor of TENNESSEE and WEST VIRGINIA from the rear direction in each turret. These turrets had overlapping armor plates designed for support from hits from the front (where an enemy ship shooting at you would be expected to be). From the rear, the overlapping design kept the steeply-falling bombs from being deflected by much, since, as the bombs' noses began to rotate away as they skidded along the solid thick plate and bent that plate down under them, the noses immediately hit the squared-off rear edges of the overhanging plates in front of the plates originally hit. In each case, the rear plate being bent down under the bomb's impact force and the forward plate still being flat, this opened up a narrow "mouth-shaped" opening in the overlapping region between the two plates, tearing the rivets and bolts that held them together. The bomb, still moving at a high speed, though slowed down somewhat by the bending of the rear plate and the tearing out of the attachments to the front plate, was deflected along the easiest path into that mouth, bending the rear plate down even more and the rear edge of the forward plate upward, making the mouth larger. As the heavy nose passed into the turret (intact, I think), the upper (forward) plate's bottom surface deflected the bomb's nose downward at a steep angle again (it "ricocheted" into the turret), twisting the bomb so that the base slammed into the sharp bottom corner of the forward plate's rear edge. Since this is where the machining of the bomb had thinned it down the most, it was weakest here and the bomb's lower body snapped apart and was crushed as it went through the between-plates "mouth" after its nose punched through intact. The bombs' fuzes then went off, but since much of the filler was being scattered about by the broken bodies, the explosions were only low order and major fires occurred in the turrets, but rather little blast. There were no gun shells or propellant charges in the turrets to add to the damage (compared to the more recent USS SALEM and USS IOWA major turret explosions, especially the former), so nothing permanent happened and the turrets were repaired along with the other damage from the battle. (US Navy turret/magazine isolation systems seem to work rather well, so these hits had no chance of doing more than knocking out the turrets hit, even if the mounts had been manned and with ammo ready to fire.) I think that the turret roof armor was upgraded in these old battleships during their repair after these examples. The chance of this kind of hit happening had not be anticipated by the bomb designers (though what could they have done about it?). The fact that this happened TWICE in virtually identical hits is kind of amazing, considering how few bombs were dropped. Note that if the bombs had been slightly to the side or forward or behind the turrets, both of these ships could have ended up like ARIZONA, since these hits were both directly on top of the magazines of these two ships -- only the turrets got in the way, unlike with ARIZONA. A couple of improved versions of this bomb were developed during WWII, one a direct replacement of very similar design and a second one somewhat larger, when aircraft big enough to carry it were available. They were never used, though, and were only stored in Japan. They might have been used if the US invaded Japan, but that never happened. Nathan Okun It is unsourced, but it is a casting off point. They did seem to experiment with explosives but they could not get shimose to work. As I suspected they may have tested many different charges.

@@carbon1255 Wow. I wrote that comment when I was really tired, and was kicking myself for putting a wild hare like that onto the thread. If the information is correct (and the poster you quote certainly writes like he knows what he's talking about), then there was, between the trinitropheol "bomb" filler and the black powder igniters, more than enough of a temperature spike in Arizona's forward magazines to light off the 5" propellant charges at the very least.

Aye, aye, ...along with Material Conditions, "X-ray and Yankee".

I concur.

whats interesting of course is that that was from the first US Navy investigation.

That's myths for you. Doesn't help when you have "documentaries" like what Nova put out that sensationalizes against the advice of their own historical advisors.

What do these people think happened?

I remember taking the Navy's Pearl Harbor tour a few times in 1970-72 as a dependent. About 70% of the sailors narrating the tour gave the (incorrect) info that Arizona was "destroyed by a bomb down her smokestack."

To paraphrase the old saying about lies, a myth can get all the way around the world in the time it takes the truth to put on its pants.

@@ZGryphon Seemingly faster with every single day that passes by.

I felt the same visiting Gettysburg years ago. It was neat being there....but it was just disturbing being in a place where so much death took place. My aunt wanted to visit Andersonville and invited me along. I refused. It's an evil place.

I was there years ago, and as a veteran I took a very dim view of teenagers screwing about on the memorial. There were a couple of them when I was there doing just that, and several of veterans, myself included, let them know in no uncertain terms that if they don't want to be respectful there that they would be spitting out their teeth in the parking lot afterwards. You are respectful on such ground, period.

@@DIVeltro Damn imagine being such a cringe lord you’d make up stories about assaulting kids for being kids. Veterans have the thinnest skin haha.

I think the navy figured it out in 1942. What I found very interesting was that many of the pictures were 'declassified' in 1983. Forty years after!!! Wonder if we are EVER going to see the JFK files? I am thinking NO.

I'll second this, maybe even expand the topic to warship paint schemes through the years?

He's already touched on the topic (indirectly) as the paint schemes had everything to do with (Visual) Range finders and how they worked. Video can be found here: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/mciIrKSrrNqtiGw.html

The U.S confidence intensifies

Got an issue the restaurant at work does not want to give/sell rum!!! Next Wednesday, I come with a Saber and a 24 gun...

It's 5am where I'm at, the best time for naval history.

@@ills6 is there ever really a bad time for it? I hope not 🙂

A niggling point: the title is 'Descent Into The Darkness' . Also, the official history of the salvage efforts was written in a book titled: "Pearl Harbor: Why, How, Fleet Salvage and Final Appraisal", issued in 1968. The author was Homer N Wallin, who was a Captain at the time, serving as Battle Force Engineer with the overall responsibility for fleet repair and alterations. He was assigned to be the Fleet Salvage Officer, and the book is fascinating, with accounts and pictures of the efforts. If you're interested in expanding your knowledge of the salvage efforts, find a copy of this book and dig in.

@@crankyoldguy2He can find that book here: www.history.navy.mil/content/dam/nhhc/research/library/online-reading-room/war-and-conflict/wwii/pearl-harbor/pearlharborwallin/d767_92_w3.pdf

There's a section about that at 50:48ish. "The evidence is not clear as to whether the bomb penetrated the third deck or a fire started by the bomb passed through an open hatch into the forward magazines."

@@KarlfMjolnir yes, but it seemed or implied that the "open hatch" was a deck hatch. I was referring to a hatch in the bulked of the magazine which crew members were walking/running through to get to their battle station. If this is true, this means this was a very preventable tragedy. I hope the navy learned from it if they envisioned such a scenario. HOW it was preventable is: why in the world would you have the 14" gun magazine crews manning their battle station while anchored in port with the only threat coming from aircraft.

@@Paul_Maurone It's quite simple. General quarters, ALL HANDS man your battle stations. When you go to GQ, you automatically go to your assigned station no matter what the threat.

These were Americans, not French

that would have been good

Brooklyn Naval Yard must be stopped before it builds a ship that starts an even worse war.

@@Halinspark Considering the Brooklyn Navy Yard launched it's last ship in 1965, and the property was sold to the City of New York in 1966, I don't think you have much--if anything--to be worried about.

The problem there is the turret catapult was on top of turret 3. Unless Arizona still had a midship catapult.

@@mpetersen6 just saying that there was a reason for it to be aboard. Never said there was a logical reason for it to be stored so far from the catapult unless it had too much to be stored in the nearby magazine. According to the inboard profile I'm looking at, it appears that gasoline is stored in the bow. I assume that it's either for planes or small engines such as portable pumps and such.

I wish I could see where the explosion came out turret #1 then #2, that would be fascinating! Unfortunately, I can't see that in the video.

​@@KevinBreak, it would be neat to travel back with a digital camera or 3 to observe.

Dude, you are like those guys who look at a engine block with a grenaded piston and say "Ohh just put a new piston in it and it will be fine, totally salvageable." It's never that simple dude, just cause the hull looks intact to a cursory surface observation does not mean it's internals are even in tact enough to justify salvage. This was a massive precision peice of machinery dude, even a .01 deviation in internal frameworks could lead to massive amounts of cavitation, vibration, hell even violent spontaneous disassembly of the machinery inside. It shows you have never actually delt with high precision machinery and only have a passing knowledge of basic mechanics.

@@archibaldlarid3587 Ive been there. You havent. Shut up.

@@archibaldlarid3587 well said sir. There is no doubt that the professionals on the scene at the time wanted nothing more than to get all the damaged vessels salvaged and back into service. There was enough carnage and news coverage at the time to give people all the motivation that they needed to turn all their efforts towards winning the war. I seriously doubt that making the remains of the ship into a memorial was real high on the priority list at the time. Considering the time, money and effort spent on salvage efforts of other ships at the time suggests that the decision to leave the ship in place was calculated to maximize resources and only then was the decision to make it a memorial made.

There is an excellent book written by one of the Pearl Harbor salvage divers ("Decent Into Darkness") That covers the salvage and recovery work on the Arizona. The divers discovered that the force of the explosion had actually broken her keel, which made any idea of raising her moot. The idea Drach mentions of cutting the aft hull loose and refloating that for scrapping is about the best they could have done, and even that would have been prohibitively expensive. There really never was a practical alternative to leaving her in situ, even if the memorial idea came along later.

@@Fitzwalrus06 Drach mentioned the report from 1943 and that is what I was referencing, clearly. I said that whatever may have been possible or even necessary in 1943 only a year and a half after the attack when we were in desperate need of ships obviously came second to the value added of our boys sailing into Pearl and seeing why they were fighting. Thus it was not really even a question of raising and reusing her or the aft end of her. She held far greater value as a motivator. If you think our govt didnt make those kinds of decisions think again. They do it all the time. Every. Day.

Are the Japanese air dropping WW1 vintage torpedo boats? Haha!

A 250kt bomb would have certainly given pearl harbor a very different outcome

@@daer2121 just 250 tons, but even that would have done some serious landscaping to Hickam Field.

@@DERP_Squad oops, you are correct. Either way, would have made the outcome of Pearl very different

250t is around the weight of a Havock class Torpedo Boat Destroyer. So my guesstimating was fairly close

The latter, as thoroughly investigated POTUS McKinley and the Senate had been duped by the fake news (ship sabotaged by the enemy) into going American Empire mode anyway. The Spanish higher-ups ordered no sabotage when they focused on keeping the remaining Crown Jewels stable. Never forgive McKinley.

@@royasturias1784 If we are going to blame anybody blame William Randolf Hearst. The Maine's forward magazine in all likelihood detonated due to a fire in an adjacent coal bunker. When the wreck was salvaged in the early 20th century in order to clear the harbor one thing found that supposedly supported a mine explosion was there was some hull plating curled inwards. After being raised she was towed out to sea and sunk. The Maine has been found of the north coast of Cuba in about 9000 feet of water iirc.