Pearl Harbor Search

[HarvardIV]

Let's hope they don't break anything.

Here's the new Navy policy. We're afraid to break it, so just let it rust.

[DaveM2]

Rob

Some sort of survey must have already been carried out, there were several pictures ( including a Corsair) in an old issue of Flypast taken by a company of some sort.

Dave

[TimAPNY]

Rob

Some sort of survey must have already been carried out, there were several pictures ( including a Corsair) in an old issue of Flypast taken by a company of some sort.

Dave

Was that in the harbor or out side of the channel in the "dumping grounds"

That would be a fun time too survey the bottom of the harbor.

[DaveM2]

I will try and find the issue, but a big job as I have several hundred. I don't recall where exactly the search was done but as you say, mostl likely outside the harbour itself. There was a 'hope' that one or two of the wrecks would be raised for display in Hawaii, although condition of the Corsair didn't look very good...warm salt water and all.

Dave

[DaveM2]

OK, found it..
" Efforts were to begin to survey and possibly recover from the Ocean off Oahu a number of aircraft wrecks including a Corsair ( pictured and credited to Erickson Air Crane) SBD, B-24, 2 x Zeros and a Kate. If all goes well the a Zero and Kate in over 100ft of water will be recovered and placed on display at the USS Arizona Memorial. Funding for the massive effort will be funded by Erickson Air Crane and discussions are underway to display several of the currently submerged aircraft in the Hawaiian Islands"
Obviously never happened for one reason or another.

Dave

[Shay]

Ahh...Now there would be some magnificant aircraft worth recovering. Ever since the episode of Magnum P.I. with the P-40 or Zero, pretty sure it was a Zero, I always wondered what remained hidden from the Second World War and more specifically the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Not to Hijack the thread, But has anyone heard any news about the jungle trapped B-18 Bolo?. Supposedly either being recoved or soon to be recovered? Thanks

Shay

[RickH]

I have it on good Navy authority that the Arizona's main guns are laying in the jungle on Navy property but the Navy won't release them to museums because they don't want to have to figure out who may be WORTHY enough to receive them.

[Originalboxcar]

I remember reading either from a post or the actual website of a pearl harbor historian that the entire USS Arizona superstructure still exists. I believe her main guns were used as shore batteries during WWII, but not sure if they exist today.

regards,

t~

[N3Njeff]

I think the guns were on shore batt. in calif.............I have a friend that would know where they are..............as for the superstructure. its up on a hillside overlooking pearl. there was a documentary on the history channel that showed it there.

[Warhawk]

After doing a little looking I found the folling quote from the National Park Services Submerged Resources Center website.

Of all the ships lost or damaged at Pearl Harbor, USS Arizona offered the most pathetic sight. It quickly became clear that the ship could not be salvaged. The Navy decided that the Army would receive gun turrets No. 3 and 4 for use as coastal defense guns. Two sites were selected: one at Mokapu Head (Kanohe) known as Battery Pennsylvainia and the second at an area known today as Electric Hill (HEI generating plant) on the western shore of Oahu, up the slopes of the Wianae Mountains. Only Battery Pennsylvainia was completed. A test firing took place four days before the surrender of Japan.

I did not find any information on the disposition of the three and five inch guns that were removed from the wreck or of the three 14 inch rifles that were removed from turret No. 2. It was thought for many years that all of the Arizona's 14 inch rifles had been removed, however in the mid to late eighties an exterior suvey of the wreck found that turret No. 1's rifles were still in place, hidden by Pearl Harbor's murky waters.