Loss of the USS Arizona - Examining the Evidence

[Music] hello everyone and welcome to this wednesday video kindly sponsored by skillshare you've probably seen or heard of them before but just in case you haven't skillshare is an online learning community which contains a wide variety of skill improving classes that everyone can benefit from if you want to learn a new skill advance an existing one or just see how other people happen to make things work there'll be a video for you for fellow naval enthusiasts such as myself there are topics like illustration photography film and video and many others so whether you want to draw ships photograph ships or make videos about ships there are tips tricks and techniques to discover this month it's been helpful in two major areas some of you will have seen earlier this month i was bored hms victory reenacting the battle of trafalgar and yes trafalgar or nelson part 3 is coming later this year and i realized i had to learn how to put some lighting up because of course the great cabin was not designed for videography given you know it was built in the 18th century so this particular course by geordie van der putch was quite helpful to tell me how to set up my lights and masak sakura batista's course here on sony vegas although it is for pro 15 is also very useful as i use vegas to make these videos and i had to do a lot more fine grain editing on this particular video that you're about to watch than i think in most of my other ones and of course it should be helpful for some of the live footage from victory there are no ads on the site and if you want to go and have a look and see perhaps if there's something you could make use of the first thousand of you that click on the link in the description below will get a one month free trial of skillshare so you can start exploring your creativity today so once again thank you very much to skillshare for sponsoring this video and now on with the show the loss of uss arizona during the japanese attack on pearl harbor on december 7th 1941 is perhaps the most famous and well-known element of that particular incident and is not as is sometimes thought represented by this photograph this is in fact uss shaw exploding in a floating dry dock arizona's explosion however was captured on film albeit that the film itself is somewhat brief and appears to contain at least two gaps in its recording but exactly what happened to arizona has been the subject of some discussion both during and after world war ii now obviously what happened to it in the most general terms the ford magazines exploded is a little bit obvious but how that came about and what other damage the ship might have occurred before that happened is something that to a certain degree is still argued back and forth it's not quite as contentious of topic as the destruction of hms hood but nevertheless i've been asked to look at it so i will now during the decade following her loss the us navy looked at least three times at how this had happened and this plus several damage reports a number of correspondence items and the seven seconds or so of film itself have formed the basis of most historians analysis of what might have actually happened to arizona and that's the roughly similar process to what we'll follow today in the direct aftermath of pearl harbor salvage work on arizona was not considered a priority for fairly obvious reasons as compared to ships like the california the nevada or freeing up ships like the maryland however a little bit of salvage work was done various guns were removed and a significant quantity of ammunition especially 14-inch projectiles were also removed in the opening months of 1942. now it has to be emphasized that nobody at any point had any concept of bringing arizona back into service it was pretty obvious to anybody who was paying the slightest bit of attention by the end of december 7th that arizona was never going to sail again however in the middle of march 1942 there were still two overall options being considered firstly to construct a cofferdam around the vessel in a manner similar to the what had been done for uss west virginia at that point in time what was being planned to be done for uss west virginia and this would allow them to cut up and scrap the forward part of the vessel i.e the bit that had taken the brunt of the explosion but then everything roughly after the bridge which was in slightly better condition could in theory be patched floated and towed away for easier scrapping the other option was to leave the arizona in place salvage what you could for reuse on other ships and otherwise leave her where she lay the latter one obviously being the path that was taken and this was largely due to admiral nimitz concluding that any work to re-float oklahoma utah or arizona would cost a huge amount of money and resources and be of very little benefit to the u.s navy as it turned out obviously neither utah nor arizona would be refloated although eventually oklahoma would be now with that said in a response to the same recommendation in the middle of march the bureau of ships well let's just say they probably contain some of the greatest optimists on the planet at that point because their reply reads as follows in the case of the arizona this bureau feels the final decision as to her disposition should not be made at this time it is felt that actual conditions in the vessel should be explored further the magazine explosion undoubtedly caused great damage but there was only one torpedo hit and there were several bomb hits the magazine explosion made a shambles of the upper works forward of the smoke pipe but the real extent and nature of this damage so far as the structural strength of the ship is concerned is not clear experience has shown that the actual reconditioning of a badly damaged vessel is much easier after she has been docked and the wreckage cleared away than appears even remotely possible when salvage operations are underway now whilst they did go on to acknowledge that it was possible that any thoughts of salvage could be abandoned i think that paragraph makes it clear that somebody who wrote that probably hadn't been to pearl harbor and taken a look at the ship in the first place because as you can see they were kind of a lone voice in the wilderness suggesting that maybe just maybe arizona might not be in such a bad condition and might be able to be reconditioned are you refitted for use again in service you know despite as they acknowledge the forward magazine having exploded now this particular debate did rattle on back and forth throughout 1942 by july everyone on site was saying basically there was no chance of any salvage work of any significant value going on beyond that which had already been done with regards to the gun turrets and by the end of 1942 everyone had accepted that this was pretty much going to be the case there was a fair bit of consideration thereafter to how to therefore scrap the ship in place or possibly by floating out the stern section and arguments of this nature including a bizarre proposal to refloat part or all of the ship and use it as a torpedo test rig continued through 1943 until eventually towards the latter part 43 everything was stopped and arizona was left in near enough the state that she is seen in today but conversations about what exactly to do with the wreck were running somewhat separately to the analysis of what how the ship had actually ended up as that wreck the first attempt at working all this out was submitted in january 1942 not quite two months after arizona had been destroyed and was written by commander alfred homan amongst other reports he wrote a pair of short notes to the bureau of ships talking about the damage sustained by arizona and what he'd been able to work out from survivors accounts was going on on the arizona in the minutes leading up to her destruction now as a note before i read the document obviously we know now that all of the bombers that were in the first wave were carrying 1760-pound bombs adapted from 16-inch armor-piercing shells obviously on january the 28th 1942 they didn't know that so when they described the various bomb weights bear in mind that that's their best estimation and what we're actually talking about are the adapted 16-inch ap shells the document reads as follows the uss arizona insofar as can be determined sustained eight bomb hits and one torpedo hit which completely destroyed the ship forward of frame 88 by fire and explosion of forward magazines the fire being finally extinguished after burning two days it is believed that considerable equipment after frame 90 can eventually be salvaged detailed information as required by reference c is as follows general all battle damage the uss arizona was moored at birth fox 7 pearl harbor in seven and a half fathoms of water when the attack took place at 7 55 december 7th 1941 the draft before the attack was approximately as follows forward 32 feet 6 inches and aft 33 feet bomb hits one one 500 pound bomb hit the faceplate of number four turret on the starboard side glanced off and passed through the deck at frame 123 starboard side of the quarter deck between the captain's hatch and the number four turret and exploded in the captain's pantry destroying the captain's pantry and the admiral's pantry a small fire started which apparently burned itself out in a short time two one 500 pound bomb hit the ship at frame 85 port gallery deck width hole in the deck is about 24 inches in diameter depth of penetration is not known three one five hundred pound or thousand pound bomb hit at frame 96 port side of the quarter deck in mb stowage depth penetration is not known width hole in deck is approximately 24 inches four one bomb approximately one thousand pounds hit on the boat deck just forward of stack frame 67 width hole on boat deck is approximately four feet depth of penetration is not known five one heavy bomb approximately one thousand or two thousand pound went down the stack extent of damage is not known six one bomb hit size of bomb not known on boat deck at frame 66 port side by number four anti-aircraft gun ammunition hoist extent of damage done by this bomb is not known seven one heavy bomb hit estimated over one thousand pound armor-piercing bomb hit foxel by number two turret which it is believed penetrated to the black powder magazines setting off the smokeless powder magazines adjacent and causing the explosion which destroyed the ship forward from the report of the commanding officer of the uss vestal which was moored alongside the arizona to port bow to stern the arizona apparently sustained a torpedo hit about frame 35 port side damage caused by this torpedo hit cannot be determined as the ship in this area has been completely destroyed the outboard fuel oil tanks were filled to 95 capacity in the area of the possible torpedo hit the ship at the start of the attack was in material condition x-ray with usual watertight doors closed below the third deck except airports above the water line were open material condition zed had been partially set during the action before the ship was destroyed the after magazines were voluntarily flooded during the attack so there are four key bits of information from this report apart from the fact obviously that they didn't know about the 1760 pound bombs and were attributing it to 500 000 pound or occasionally 2 000 pound bombs firstly arizona had actually sustained quite a number of bomber hits which is important to any analysis of what might have happened to arizona had she not taken that magazine hit but while some of that deeper damage couldn't be quantified because of the subsequent larger explosion disrupting any effort to reach that area or indeed probably destroying parts of that area by itself it has to be said that until that bomb hit to the magazines arizona doesn't appear to have sustained any damage that would render her incapable of being refitted certainly she wasn't in anywhere near as bad a shape as something like west virginia and the second item to note is that at the time they thought that a bomb had gone down the stack and we'll see why they thought that a little bit later on thirdly they thought that she had been torpedoed at least once due to the report of uss vestal although as we'll see later subsequent examination proved that this wasn't the case and finally we have the first estimate as to why the magazine exploded specifically that this bomb penetrates the black powder magazine which sets off the smokeless powder magazine which is the main magazine if you like which then causes the overall explosion now the reason that the arizona was carrying black powder as well as smokeless powder at the time was because when it came to the charges that propelled her shells downrange at least for the 14 inch guns back when she'd been built she used smokeless powder as the main charge but this is somewhat difficult to persuade to explode and so black powder is used as a detonator or initiator or whatever you want to call it but basically to set off the main charge now in later warships and if any of you go on a museum ship tour of a north carolina south dakota or iowa class battleship you'll notice that the detonator charge the primer charge if you like is integrated into the main charge itself but in all the ships this wasn't always the case there were plans to change their charges over to this but originally the black powder charge was separate to the main charges and because the black powder was a lot more sensitive it was stored in a separate area of the magazines but as i said more on that later the other report we alluded to from january 28 1942 was regarding the damage control so that reads as follows information regarding the conditions during and after the air attacks of december 7th 1941 required by letter paragraphs in reference a a circular letter providing information to many recipients is submitted as follows one the only information available concerning the material condition at the time of the attack is taken from the statements of the few survivors that were aboard during the raid exploratory work has to date been limited to the main and second deck's aft and does not include the more vital parts of the ship some conclusions can be drawn from the known habits and practices of the crew two all x doors and fittings with few exceptions were closed at this early hour 07 55 on a sunday morning many wide doors and fittings were also still closed from the previous night many of the engineering spaces those not actually in use were in condition zed and locked this included the shaft alleys engine rooms fire rooms but not the dynamos evaporators and ice machines d part 1 this attack was so sudden that little time was allowed for setting condition set before the ford magazines exploded and completely demolished the whole ship forward of frame 88. d part 2 from statements of survivors it is believed that material condition zed was nearly set in turrets three and four but not completely set there were no survivors from turrets one and two but there is no reason to believe that they were not also in condition zed or very nearly so d part three there is good reason to believe that the boiler division and b part of the ship below the third deck was probably in condition zed shortly after the attack began and probably before the one bomb was observed going down the stack d part 4 from experiencing setting conditions ed statements of the survivors and exploratory work so far it is fairly certain that condition zed was not completely set on the third deck and probably most of the third deck armoured hatches were still open this can be further amplified as salvage work progresses the total destruction of the forward part of the ship will make it difficult to get positive information concerning this part of the ship e shortly after the attack began probably 15 minutes the forward magazines exploded and all further efforts to close up the ship were fruitless f complete destruction with no survivors from many positions of the ship make it difficult to determine the effectiveness of the watertight compartmentation the ship settled for several days and escaping air was observed in many areas which might indicate that some spaces were slow in flooding statements of survivors would however indicate that the flooding was general after the magazine explosion water filled turret 4 at a very rapid rate and this would not have been the case if zed were completely set some doors aft could have been ruptured by a bomb which hit turret 4 on the side plate but there is no positive evidence as yet g no information available h many fires were started by the bomb hits and the whole forward part of the ship was set ablaze after the magazine explosion the decks burned readily and lots of floating oil increased the fire i the wind in carried the smoke forward of a in a black cloud obscuring everything forward fumes and yellow smoke issued from some for some time from the bomb holes jkl and m an early bomb hit down the stack disrupted the main fire main and bilge pumps and there was no water with which to fight the fires co2 was used on the quarter deck to stem small fires but the general conflagration forward was completely out of hand there was no opportunity to observe the effectiveness of the firefighting equipment n the early destruction of the engineering spaces took all power light and telephone services from the ship oh flashlights were used effectively in the turrets but the supply was not adequate to meet the emergency and p many men were badly burned even to death by the blast from the magazines flash proof clothes might have minimized these losses so we can see here that a few things are attributed to this supposed bomb down stack which as we'll see later on didn't actually happen but overall they don't contribute materially to how the ship was lost to be honest by the time the magazine sets off as it notes in another section everything in the engineering spaces was dead and broken anyway so firefighting equipment wouldn't have been of any use whatever the case now as far as those x y and z terms that are contained in this report for obviously for those of you in who are either in the u.s navy or have been in the u.s navy you'll know exactly what they mean for those of you who might not um condition x is the way the ship is set up when the ship is not in any danger of attack or any natural hazards uh there are various doors within a ship and they should be marked with an x y or zed so during condition x ie normal procedure in peace time doors with an x should remain closed but doors with a y or z can be open condition y is set when the ship is either at sea entering or leaving a port or important could potentially get underway so it's an additional level so at that point all doors with an x or a white should remain closed when not in use and then condition zed involves closing all the doors marked x y or zed and condition z is specified as what you need to set during general quarters when you have ship-wide casualties when entering or leaving a port during wartime or anytime the ship is in danger against fire flooding or other damage so effectively what the report is saying is that in terms of its ability to resist incoming damage the arizona was most of the way to being fully ready for receiving that damage i almost at condition said but not quite she was part way between y and z at the time of the detonation and based on the reports from everywhere else in the ship where there were survivors there's no particular reason to assume that the forward portion of the ship would have been any further advanced in that process so they would have had some condition z doors shut but perhaps not all so that's what the us navy thought at the beginning of 1942 one of the things that we mentioned is that black powder magazine and you know some people have said oh well actually no arizona would have been using the newer design charges where the black powder bags are part of the charge rather than separate and so this destination the black powder magazines couldn't have happened but this is flatly contradicted by the us navy's own investigations in 1943 because following the initial analysis which we've just looked at in 1942 a much deeper analysis was undertaken in 1943 at least in terms of evaluating what exactly had been on the ship and therefore what might have happened the request for this analysis was made in early summer and the report was delivered in october 1943 submitted by one captain r.w payne now the first three sections of the report detail the efforts made by divers and where they went and what conditions they faced and so forth and whilst interesting reading they are not relevant particularly to what we're looking at which is the damage and the cause of the loss so we're going to pick up this particular narrative at section 4 part a due to the structural damage and debris in the forward part of the ship it has been impractical to determine the path of entry of the bomb that is reported in reference b to have struck the ship near turret 2. it appears probable due to the greater structural damage forward of turret one especially on the port side that the bomb may have penetrated on the port side of turret one b it is believed from conversations with personnel that were attached to the ship at the time and the contents of the forward magazines prior to the attack on december 7th 1941 that they contained as follows one 308 14-inch shells in each turret numbers one and two on turret shell decks and in handling rooms on the first platform two 616 cans of smokeless powder for each turret numbers one and two distributed in six accommodating magazines a424m a420m a414m a413m a421m and a423m on the first platform three 25 25 pound cans and 150 number three charges of black powder between numbers one and two turrets in the black powder magazine a415m on the first platform 3500 cans of 5 inch 51 caliber smokeless powder in the 5 inch powder magazines forward powder about equally distributed between the magazines on the first and second platforms a43m a431m and a324m five approximately three hundred thousand rounds of 50 caliber anti-aircraft ammunition in forward 50 caliber magazine a408 m six approximately three thousand five hundred five-inch fifty-one caliber projectiles in ammunition passages and midships b504m and b505m on the third deck seven small arms ammunition approximately one hundred thousand rounds of thirty caliber five thousand rounds of forty five caliber and one thousand service primers in a four one seven m on the first platform eight seventy five fourteen inch primers in each turret numbers one and two in the gun chamber and 9 50 electrical detonators in trunk a511-2-t on the third deck so briefly interrupting here what captain payne had done is he talked to the survivors he'd looked at what the manifests for the ship said in the immediate run up to december 7th and he had deduced that in fact the magazine a 415m did contain quite a significant quantity of black powder just the 25 pound cans present amounted to about a third of a tonne of gunpowder and to say nothing of the 150 odd number three charges resuming the report section c it appears that the explosion in the forward magazines was vented through the sides of the ship from about frame 10 to about frame 70 and went upward through the decks forward of turret number one due to the general extent of interior damage between frames 10 and 70 it is difficult to determine the exact magazines in which high order detonation took place although the most severe damage is between frames 10 and 33 d the following remnants of ammunition were found on or in the vicinity of the ship depart 1 unburned 14-inch powder grains were found on the quarter deck of the uss tennessee moored at birth f6 ford of uss arizona a distance of approximately 400 feet on ford island approximately 500 feet from the shoreline or total distance of approximately 900 feet from the ship over the unburned portions of the arizona and in the mud and wreckage in and around the ship d part 2 a 14 inch powder can was found in the bottom of the conning tower tube above the hatch opening d part 3 exploded 5 inch 51 caliber powder cans were found along the beach on ford island a distance of 350 to 400 feet on top of the forward key f7s to which the ship was moored and in the mud around the sides of the ship and d part 4 unexploded 5-inch 51 caliber projectiles were found in the mud over the starboard side opposite frames 54 and 2 to 65 and in the aft portion of compartments b504m and b505m e no intact ammunition has been recovered from the forward part of the ship part 5. as requested in paragraph 1e of reference a enclosures one two and three are forwarded to indicate the major damage resulting from the bomb hits and the subsequent explosion of the forward magazines the following supplementary information relative to the damage is furnished from divers reports proceeding generally from the aft forward a except for the interior damage indicated on enclosure 2 the ship after frame 78 is essentially intact b no evidence of torpedo hits has been found although the condition of the flat of the bottom forward in board of the areas searched as described in paragraph 2a is not known the bottom structure in the forward part of the ship is not accessible from inside and is embedded in the mud outside see the armor belt and blister are essentially in place except for the damage indicated on enclosure 2. d in connection with the interior diving listed in paragraph 2b above because of the wreckage the divers were not able to penetrate further forward than frame 76 on the main and second decks and not forward of bulkhead 78 below the third deck however on the third deck in ammunition passageways a504m and a505m access was possible as far forward as frame 66. in these spaces the second deck sloped down sloped down forward and the third deck was split and blown upward generally no access could be gained to the fireman's passage c501 on the third deck e beginning at about frame 62 port and starboard the sides of the ship from the top of the armor to the upper deck began to bulge outward and proceeding forward this bulging and tearing away from the internal structure is increased so that between frames 50 and 10 the sides were blown outward almost to a horizontal position with portions of the upper and main decks attached in some areas between frames 34 and 10. f the decks have collapsed and slope downward from about frame 70 forward to about frame 34. between frames 45 and 34 the upper deck is about three feet below the top of the armor on the starboard side and approximately at the top of the armor on the port side g dive is located but due to wreckage below what unable to enter the hatch at frame 41 on the starboard side of the upper deck they were able to reach the second deck through the corresponding hatch on the port side but could not leave the immediate vicinity on either the main or second deck due to wreckage and floating lumbar h the uptake armor conning tower and armor tube and turrets number one and number two have dropped from their normal positions as indicated on enclosure two i the uptake armor grating in the main deck was examined as far as the wreckage of the upticks would permit and is believed to be intact jay the wreckage below the hatch in the bottom of the conningtown armor tube prevented the diver from leaving the immediate vicinity access to the hatch was gained down the inside of the tube after removal of the conning tower okay no damage was found in the gun chamber and gun pit in turret 2 where they when they were unwatered by pumping in connection with the removal of the guns slides and related equipment l the upper deck between frames 10 and 34 including wildcats and shafts was rolled forward and otherwise blown out as indicated on enclosure too portions of the main and second decks from about frames 10 to 20 were blown forward with the upper deck otherwise due to the poor underwater visibility it has not been practical to identify the various structural members what appears to be a portion of the second deck plating is about eight foot below the top of the armor on the starboard side and on the port side the general level of the wreckage is considerably lower at the center line at the forward edge of number one barbette the level of the wreckage is about 28 feet below the top of the barbette the worm and wheel assemblies for the starboard and center windlasses were found still bolted to a portion of the third deck and the port assembly was missing now apart from the rather dry description of the horrific damage in the ford part of the arizona there are three main takeaways from this one there was no evidence of a torpedo hit in fact it appears that was probably a near miss from a bomb dropped at the same time or near enough at the same time as the one that actually destroyed the arizona and it just landed so close to the arizona that people in the vessel thought it was a torpedo striking the ship secondly the grating bearing in mind that before they thought bomb had gone down the funnel was examined and found to be intact so there was no bomb down the funnel and into the engine spaces and third generally speaking there appears to be somewhat more damage the port side of the ship than the starboard which indicates that perhaps the explosion was more intense on that side and therefore potentially started on that side another interesting note although not primary one is the nature of the unexploded ordnance discovered the fact that a fair number of unexploded five-inch projectiles and powder cans were found was a fairly clear indication that whilst some of that might have exploded it probably wasn't the five-inch magazines which were the origin point of the big explosion and secondly the various bits of unburnt 14-inch smokeless powder being found gave a potential hint that maybe the 14-inch smokeless magazine hadn't been again the primary initiator which did tend to square somewhat with the previous report which pointed to the 15-inch black powder magazines as the primary culprits although at the same time the extreme volatility of black powder as compared to the smokeless powder would mean that even if the smokeless powder magazines had gone up first there probably wouldn't be any traces of the black powder magazine contents locatable anyway now that brings us up to late 1944 when commander e.c holtsworth submits the analysis of loss of arizona on the 31st of october during this report he makes reference to a film the film of arizona being destroyed now the film as you'll find on the us national archives is playing above you at the moment albeit in slow motion now the one thing you'll realize is vestal is on the outside of arizona and therefore this is being taken from the ford island side of arizona although not necessarily on ford island itself which means the alignment is completely wrong for whatever reason when this was digitized it was digitized horizontally flipped and so in this video i've flipped this particular bit of film to show the correct orientation and this is what we'll be using to refer to from now on now one note they make reference in this report and in a subsequent one we're going to read to various frames of footage now i'm going to try and match as best i can but obviously they had access to the individual celluloid frames so they can make very precise estimates whereas with digital i can only advance step by step and hope that i've got approximately the right frame so if there are any minor errors they are entirely my own now in this report sections one and two are basically scene setting telling the reader where arizona was and that it was partly between condition y and condition z but we're going to skip those again for obvious reasons so starting at part three it says the attack started at 07 55 with dive bombers over the naval aid air station on ford island at this time the measures referred to in paragraph two were started this is going from condition-wide condition said almost simultaneously a torpedo attack on battleship row occurred the commanding officer of vestal in reference e stated at about 0-8-20 a torpedo was seen to pass a stern of the vessel and this torpedo apparently hit the arizona whose bow extended almost 100 feet beyond the stern of vestal he further states the arizona received a bomb hit forward almost simultaneously and the arizona's forward magazine exploded reference b lists eight bomb hits on the vessel one of which apparently was large enough the armor-piercing type reference b being the 1942 analysis this one was reported by reference b to have hit the foxel by number two turret in any event the magazine explosion destroyed the ship almost completely forward of the four must structure part four reference a found evidence of only five bomb hits all of which were aft of the former structure at the same time the ship was so seriously broken up forward of the foremast structure that evidence of a heavy bomb hit in the vicinity of turret 2 would be certain to have been completely obliterated on the other hand the armor belt was substantially intact and pearl harbor found absolutely no evidence of a torpedo hit in or just below the armor it can therefore be accepted as a fact that a torpedo did not hit arizona times in all the references of the various sequences of events check reasonably well that is within four or five minutes it appears that arizona escaped torpedo damage during the initial torpedo attack which occurred at about 0-800 it will be recalled that nevada was hit by a torpedo between 800 and 0810 and that west virginia was torpedoed at about the same time following this attack the dive bombing attack on the battleship started it's actually kate's level bombing but never mind this was about 0815 to o820 all the references agree that the bombs which struck arizona fell between 0815 and 0820 for example it appears that west virginia was struck by bombs at about this time as was tennessee it appears that the dive bombing continued from about 0810 to 830 in this phase of the attack reference f of which a 3 inch by 5 inch movie strip is available comprises about 400 pictures taken at the rate of 24 per second the location of the camera in these pictures apparently was a point on the northwest shore of cow cat i think sorry where a supply base was under construction at the time the precise location cannot be determined but the general location can be spotted on a map of pearl harbor which is also available the first 45 of these pictures show the arizona and vestal and include the valve nevada and the stern of west virginia there seems to be no damage to arizona in these pictures but evidence of the fire on vestal's foxel she was struck by a bomb apparently prior to i820 is faintly visible west virginia's main mast is also in these pictures and shows a definite list indicating that west virginia had already been torpedoed prior to the pictures this is consistent with the times reported picture 46 definitely shows an explosion on the bow of arizona it is estimated the picture 46 was taken within .5 seconds of the detonation as the pictures proceed the fire gets worse finally engulfing the entire ship forward of the main mast this series continues until picture 208 between pictures 46 and 208 the development of a jet of black smoke from arizona's stack can be noted it is this jet of black smoke which apparently gave rise to the rumor that a bomb went down her stack actually pearl harbor could find no damage to the armor gratings although there was bomb damage both forward and port of the uptakes these bombs unquestionably damaged the intakes in the steaming firearm not identified although some evidence indicates that number six was in use the smoke issuing from the stack was quite obviously the result of incomplete combustion rather than an explosion or fire beginning with the pictures in the vicinity of 106 the characteristics and the of the conflagration shown are somewhat similar to those of an oil fire at various places between pictures 46 and 208 minor explosions on the foxel of arizona and possibly on the stern of tennessee can be seen in this connection see pictures 99 and 136. picture 208 definitely shows the magazine explosion in which the dense black smoke of the previous picture changes to white and luminous objects can be seen toward the end of the reel the sagged forward superstructure becomes apparent although the smoke and flame obscure the entire format structure in the series of pictures following 208 picture 208 occurred approximately 7 seconds 24 frames per second after the detonation shown in picture 46. there is no evidence the cameras stopped at any time between pictures 46 and 208 the above evidence leads to the conclusion that there was a bomb detonation on or about the foxel which caused a bad fire involving some manner of oil from tanks forward over midships this fire spread rapidly over large area and increased rapidly in intensity it was followed in seven seconds by a magazine explosion in examining the causes of the magazine explosions characteristics of smokeless powder and black powder were investigated pertinent information from the ordnance safety manual published in first of september 1941 by the ordnance office of the chief of ordinance u.s army are quoted below small amounts of unconfined smokeless powder burn with little smoke or ash and without explosion when confined or in large quantities the rate of burning increases with the temperature and pressure under certain conditions with sufficient initiation smokeless powder has been known to detonate when smokeless powder is stored in magazines and containers or propelling charges there is no evidence to indicate that fires will give rise to any unusual hazard cases in which pressure is great enough to result in structural damage have occurred involve the burning or explosion of smokeless powder under circumstances not ordinarily encountered in the storage of the material and containers there is however incontrovertible evidence that explosions of nitrocellulose powders up to large sizes are capable of being propagated from box to box when they're initiated by the detonation of high explosive charges it can be concluded from the above conditions that smokeless powder is difficult to detonate as a result of fire it is also certain that with sufficient initiation smokeless powder will detonate with respect to the properties of black powder the following pertinent information is quoted from the same manual black powder is regarded as one of the worst known explosive hazards when ignited unconfined it burns with explosive violence and will explode if ignited under even slight confinement it can be ignited easily by very small sparks heat and friction most black powder fires start from sparks and ignition results in an explosion so quickly that no attempt can be made to fight the fire most explosions of black powder originate from sparks and loose black powder is extremely dangerous it can be seen from the above that the ignition of black powder will almost inevitably result in an explosion from reference a the arizona had on board her a full allowance of smokeless powder arranged in three magazines on each side of the vessel between frames 31 and 48 on the first platform these six magazines supply both turrets one and two the black powder magazine is located on the first platform on the center line between frames 37 and 39 it contained 1075 pounds of black powder you'll be realized that the black powder magazine is surrounded by the smokeless powder magazines after the magazine explosion occurred reference a reports that exploded 5-inch 51-caliber powder cans were found along the beach on ford island a distance of 350 to 400 feet from the starboard side of the vessel the 5 inch 51 caliber powder magazines are located on the first platform aft of the 14 inch smokeless powder magazines between frames 50 and 58 port and starboard there is no doubt that the smokeless powder magazines detonated it is not clear however what initiated the smokeless powder detonation a bomb detonation within the smokeless powder magazine presumably could cause a detonation although smokeless powder as such is not an unusually severe hazard the army's experience indicates that it is difficult to detonate smokeless powder as a result of a fire unless confinement temperature pressure and high density of loading are present our own war experience has indicated that an appreciable interval of time longer than seven seconds is required for these factors to build up and create a mass detonation following a fire a fire could reach the magazines through hatches left open on the third deck there are five such hatches in the vicinity of barbets one and two one of which is almost directly above the black powder magazine it is a possibility that one of the modified 16-inch armor-piercing projectiles which the japanese used for bombs might have penetrated the 4-inch sts armored deck and initiated a fire followed by detonation of the smokeless powder magazines this seems rather improbable though considering the small charge of explosive less than 70 pounds of tnt in this type of bomb and the fact pictures 46 through 208 that the initial fire was definitely above the waterline and of a large scale proportion on the other hand the destination of a thousand pounds of black powder could easily initiate a detonation of the 14 inch smokeless powder the black powder could have detonated either as the result of a bomb detonation below the third deck or a fire above the third deck passing down to the black powder magazines through open hatches in the armored deck from the evidence it is believed the latter is more probable in any event the six fourteen inch and two five inch smokeless powder magazines detonated the collapse of the former structure was not due amongst other curious things to the main magazine detonation a bomb which hit and detonated close to the port leg of the tripod at the superstructure deck level severed the port leg and the starboard leg was insufficient to prevent forward collapse turret 1 with its bar bet fell vertically approximately 22 feet and turret two with its barbette fell approximately 23 feet all other structure above the top edge of the side armor between frames 10 and 70 was completely demolished in fact most of it was missing the armor belt remained substantially in place there were short pieces of the shell projecting almost horizontally outward at the top of the armor belt on both sides summarizing there seems to be no doubt that at least one bomb struck and penetrated the foxhole deck in the vicinity of either turret 1 or turret 2. this bomb and possibly others caused an intense fire which shortly covered the entire foxel oil on the surface of the water was ignited approximately seven seconds after the start of this fire and after the initial bomb detonation the main magazines exploded almost completely destroying the ship forward of frame 70. undoubtedly the smokeless powder magazines detonated on mass whether this mass detonation resulted from a bomb detonation either within either the smokeless powder or black powder magazines or whether it was initiated by fire traveling through down through open hatches to the black powder magazine is unknown but the time involved between the first bomb detonation and the detonation of the main magazines approximately seven seconds and the visible intensifier above the water line makes the lattice opposition more reasonable when opportunity permits this case will be discussed with representatives of the bureau of ordnance with that said there are a couple of issues with this report as was pointed out in the article the us navy study of the loss of the battleship arizona by chris wright and bill jurens which was published in warship international volume 39 number three in 2002 they point out that a recent review of paragraph 14 above which is about the collapse of the uh maine mar of the four mars sorry indicates a full explanation for the collapse forward of the foremost and superstructure the armored conning tower and tube together weighed about 400 tons and were rigidly attached to the superstructured decks study of damaged photographs shows that the conning tower dropped vertically after the supporting bulkheads underneath were blown away the weight of the armored conning tower pulled the superstructure down with it with the tripod mast following all the superstructure aft of the tower tipped forward because that structure remained attached at its back end as the forward structure fell downwards in turn the two bridge levels above the conning tower together about 15 feet high collapsed into a space roughly six feet high above the conning tower these two deck levels comprised the admirals bridge and the pilot house the main vertical leg of the ford tripod mast was fully capable of supporting the control tops above this main mast incorporated an internal vertical access trunk as well as cabling runs for the gunfire control systems in the tops and thus also was larger than it needed to be solely for structural support purposes the side legs were added to prevent the main leg from collapsing sideways due to the ship rolling motion or to a lesser extent to prevent it from collapsing forward or off due to pitching loads thus damage to one of the lateral supporting master legs did not cause the foremaster fall forward the mass system remained substantially intact as it felt forward despite the severe whipping motion incurred in the forward tripod mast immediately following the main forward magazine conflagration there is also some contradiction in the report as it attributes some of the fire to oil tanks breached in the ship but also potentially that the bomb doesn't reach the magazines and the fire spreads from above down through hatches now whether those hatches were open or not exactly how far along the ship was to be in conditions and obviously as mentioned earlier we don't know but if the bomb didn't penetrate the armor deck above and started a fire which spread through the hatches then it couldn't have set off the oil which was in tanks which were even further down in the ship conversely if the oil tanks were set on fire that would suggest the bomb had actually gone through pretty much all of the ship and detonated in the oil tanks or close to them so there is a little bit of inconsistency there now the final piece of evidence from the u.s navy's analysis that we're going to look at is a memorandum that was filed in november 1947 by commander menifee i think that's how you pronounce his name anyway and once again there's some scene setting in the initial paragraphs which we're going to skip so we pick up with in the first 45 pictures there is no apparent damage to arizona however there is some evidence that she may have already been hit by bombs just forward of turret one smoke is visible and at the foot of the forward king post on vestal there is some evidence of smoke just off arizona's bow and in line with west virginia is a white wisp on the water which may be sprayed from a bomb near miss west virginia has already taken a considerable port list smoke from the fire on west virginia is very apparent between pictures 45 and 46 there was an indefinite period of time this period of time is indicated by the hand that appears on the right side of picture 46 the disappearance of the obstruction on the left side of the pictures the movement of the piling at the stern of the tug at the foreground relative to vestal and the appearance of smoke from vessel's smokestack tennessee appears in picture 46 for the first time while west virginia is practically obscured by the fire at arizona's bow picture 46 definitely shows an explosion on the bow of arizona the flame appears to be just as high as the mast and very little smoke is associated with the flame in picture 53 black smoke is just starting to rise vertically out of arizona's stack between pictures 53 and 110 the black smoke from the stack rises vertically to a height about three times that of the foremast in about two and a half seconds the effect is believed to be similar to that noted at crossroads the 1946 atomic bomb experiments with chip targets after test a when soot was shaken loose and drawn out of the stacks of dead ships if so it is evidence that picture 46 was taken very soon after the explosion on the bow of arizona and that this explosion was of considerable magnitude the report then goes on to look at various details in specific frames but we pick it up again at paragraph 15. the evidence is not clear as to whether the bomb penetrated the third deck or a fire started by the bomb detonation pass through an open hatch in the third deck into the magazines reference a stated that most of the armored hatches on the main deck were probably open at the time and reference a indicated that fragments of four of five bombs of which definite evidence was found having hit arizona penetrated the third deck the fifth bomb hit the faceplate of turret four which may account for its detonation above the second deck it appears there was an interval of several seconds between the bomb hit and the magazine explosion in the statement of ensenheim reference a noted that the quartermaster had time to report the bomb hit on turret 2 before the magazine explosion the shaking of the ship is definite evidence of a magazine explosion rather than the detonation of an armor-piercing bomb from the known characteristics of smokeless and black powder enumerated in paragraph 10 of reference a it is believed that the 1075 pounds of black powder in magazine a415m detonated it is believed that this detonation is shown in picture 46. ensenheim reported that he was able to leave the bridge after the magazine explosion and make his way down to the foremast superstructure to the quarter deck this would have been impossible through the fire shown in picture 208 the smoke that rapidly rose out of the stack beginning at picture 53 is evidence of an explosion of major proportions very shortly after the explosion of the black powder a fire started in one of the smokeless powder magazines evidence of this fire is seen on the forward side of the fire beginning at picture 61. pictures 99 through 1 and 40 indicate further development of this fire by picture 160 the fire appears to have become stabilized and remain so through to picture 207 a period of about 2 seconds after an interval of indefinite length picture 208 shows the smokeless powder fire after it's spread throughout the smokeless powder magazine it is noted that some evidence of a time interval between the bomb detonation and initiation of the magazine explosion there is very definite evidence of a period of over seven seconds between the initiation of the magazine explosion shown in picture 46 and the general conflagration of the smokeless powder shown in picture 208 these time intervals suggest that if an automatic sprinkling magazine sprinkling apparatus had been installed the magazine explosion might have been avoided or after the magazine explosion the spread of the fire to the smokeless powder might have been controlled now this report when it couples with the other reports does contain a few bits of key information firstly it points out that out of the other bomb hits which could be accounted for in the aft part of arizona four out of five of them did manage to penetrate the armored deck the only one that didn't was one that rick shade off a turret face so you know odori lost a bunch of energy and possibly even its armor piercing cap so it would appear that generally speaking the heavy bombs that the japanese were using were capable of going through the armor deck this would tend to rule out the 1944 suggestion that perhaps the bomb detonated above there started a fire and this fire spread down into the magazines because there's no indication that the bomb hit anything like a turret faceplate on the way down and so in common with every other bomb that hit the deck directly it should have gone through which then indicates that this bomb would have fetched up in the magazines so whilst of course it cannot be definitively proven one way or the other thanks to the lack of existence of most of the part of arizona that you need to prove it it would appear that the most plausible scenario for the destruction of the arizona is that a adapted 16-inch arm piercing shell turned into a bomb is dropped it hits the arizona in the vicinity of the forward turrets goes down to the level of the armor deck penetrates that armor deck and fetches up deep in the ship now because it's obviously been dropped at a slight angle not perfectly vertical this allows it to travel a little bit compared to its point of impact and most likely this bomb either fetches up in or very close to the black powder magazine its detonation sets off the just over 1 000 pounds of black powder contained within said magazine and the force of this detonation both starts all these built up in the funnel hence you get the plume of coming out of the funnel of the arizona and also starts a sympathetic detonation of some of the smokeless powder in the rest of the ship's magazines there is a slight delay in all of this occurring and so what you get in the film is you actually see what's effectively two magazine destinations you have the initial surge which is the black powder detonation followed shortly thereafter as the effect spreads by the detonation of smokeless powder this chucks more smokeless bad because it's not complete detonation out and you see some of it exploding on nearby ships some of it landing on other nearby ships and some of it landing on the island etc as described in the previous reports and as the ship is opened up by the explosion what's left of the smokeless powder by this point continues to burn or deflagrate at this point because it's no longer confined and that contributes to an ongoing fairly intense fire that over the course of a few seconds will gradually die down because this is a fairly energetic deflagration and leave you with the more general fires that have left on the ship and as that happens obviously a good chunk of the ship's bow ceases to exist the explosion is somewhat directed by the mostly intact armor deck above it and the weight of the turrets and the barbettes and obviously the fact there's quite a lot of armor there as well which is why the fire ball tends to jet out of the bow of arizona as well as up and around and because of the cessation of existence of a good chunk of the arizona's bow the heavy stuff that's above it the conning tower the superstructure etc collapses down into the void along with the turrets and barbettes and this drags down the fore mast which results in the rather famous pictures that are seen in the immediate aftermath of the sinking of the arizona so that sums up what is the most likely sequence of events for the destruction of uss arizona and how the u.s navy arrived at it as for the big question of whether or not this would have occurred had that black powder magazine not been there i had arizona moved over to the newer types of charges well it's not entirely possible to prove without full-scale experiment on the one hand you wouldn't have the sheer concentration of black powder that you had on arizona on the other hand if the bomb is fetching up in a conventional smokeless powder magazine and each of the charges there has its own integrated black powder primer then it's anyone's guess as to whether you'll get a slow deflagration of some of the charges or whether the force of the bomb would actually set off the primer patches within the smokeless powder charges which would then set off smokeless powdered charges as if they were in a gun barrel which would then set off the magazine anyway you'd get a slightly different explosion a more continuous one rather than a two-stage one that you've got with arizona but whether or not that would destroy the ship whether or not it would occur at all fortunately no one on a us fast battleship has ever been in a position to find out that's it for this video thanks for watching if you have a comment or suggestion for a ship to review let us know in the comments below don't forget to comment on the pinned post for dry dock questions

Channel: Drachinifel

Views: 312,529

Keywords: USS Arizona, Pearl Harbour, wows, world of warships, Pacific Fleet, WW2, USN

Id: 6SDcEPV5gX0

Length: 58min 33sec (3513 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 19 2022