What happened to the uss Oklahoma in world war 2?

Answer 1

The USS Oklahoma was one of the US battleships in Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked on December 7, 1941. The battleships were moored two by two, one inboard and one outboard, along "battleship row" beside Ford Island in the middle of Pearl Harbor. Oklahoma was one of those moored outboard, that is, with another ship between her and the Island. This left her port side open to the Harbor. It was thought that torpedo bombers could not be used in attacking Pearl Harbor because the water is shallow, no deeper than forty feet. Torpedo bombers were airplanes which dropped a single torpedo. When dropped these usually went down to seventy feet, before rising to run at their pre-set depth. For this reason the US battleships were not surrounded by torpedo nets - heavy steel cable nets suspended from floats, which would catch torpedoes before they could hit the ships. The Japanese practiced dropping their torpedoes from extremely low altitude for most of 1941, and fitted wooden fins to their torpedoes for extra buoyancy, and were able to use torpedo bombers successfully in their attack. The torpedo bombers in fact caused most of the damage to the US battleships. The US battleships which were moored outboard, like the USS Oklahoma, took the brunt of this torpedo attack. Both the USS Oklahoma and the USS West Virginia were hit by five or six torpedoes almost simultaneously, which basically opened up the entire portside of the ships to the sea. On the West Virginia a quick-thinking damage control sailor, with no officer nearby, on his own made the decision to counter-flood the ship, causing it to settle on an even keel when it sank, so it was easy to repair and refloat. No one did this on the Oklahoma and she rolled over from the rapid portside flooding, capsizing and embedding her upper works in the mud of the shallow harbor. Over 400 of Oklahoma's crew were trapped inside her hull when she rolled over. For a week after the attack navy personnel swarmed over her upturned bottom, listening for pounding from trapped crewmen trying desperately to signal for rescue. Once located it took hours to cut through the triple bottom of special treatment steel to reach those inside. Only about 35 were rescued. � + <br>� + <br>� + It took the navy until 1947 to refloat the USS Oklahoma. By that time the war was over and it was thought the era of the battleship was over too. The USS Oklahoma was put under tow, heading for the mainland to be sold for scrap metal and cut up. On the way her temporary repairs failed and she began to flood again, and her towship had to cut her loose to prevent being dragged down with her. So the Oklahoma sank between Hawaii and California, and, with the Arizona, is one of only two warships in the Harbor that morning permanently lost.