USS Oklahoma: Victim of Pearl Harbor

[@joecombs7468]

I heard a man, who was a diver on the salvage crew, talk about working on the Oklahoma. He said there were men trapped inside (in the chain locker I think he said) they could hear those men tapping on the hull. But they knew they couldn't reach them in time. He said the tapping stopped a couple days before Christmas. He finished with, "Sometimes it's not what you did that haunts you, but what you couldn't do." Fifty years later, and the tears were streaming down his face.

[@matthewrobinson4323]

This video brought a twinge of tears to my eyes. One of my profs at San Diego Bible College, Frank Thompson was a Pearl Harbor survivor of the Oklahoma. Frank Thompson was more than merely a prof: he was a friend and mentor to me. We were both USN veterans, but of different generations: he fought in World War 2, and I fought in Vietnam. We were both Christians, both members of Otay Baptist Church, both with virtually identical personalities and senses of humor. Frank told me, that morning, December 7, 1941, which was before he was a Christian, he was in his rack, hung over from the previous night's liberty ashore in Honolulu. He slept through reveille (no mean feat), he slept through reveille reports, he slept through sweepers, he slept through breakfast for the crew, he slept through quarters, he slept through first call to colors, and he would've slept through colors, except instead of colors, they sounded the General Quarters alarm! He tried to sleep even through that, pulling is sheet up over his head, and muttering, "This is another one of their tricks!" Then the first of nine Japanese torpedoes hit, and within a few minutes, 429 of his shipmates had been ushered into Eternity, along with their ship!

[@renatocamurca2713]

Every sailor who has salt water in his veins knows that every ship has a soul. Some ships refuse undergo to the humiliating oxy-acetylene cutting process. They prefer to rest forever at the bottom of the sea.

[@300guy]

Texas was a couple of generations older, also had triple expansion engines and served throughout the war and up to today as a Museum. They would have kept Oklahoma for the duration

[@jollyjohnthepirate3168]

Texas was part of the 2 ship New York class. The Nevadas were the very next set of battleships maintaining the same armament as the proceeding class but carried the 10 guns in only 4 turrets.

[@lvlndco]

Yep, with the shortage of capital ships Oklahoma would have been kept on and used like Texas was.

[@m.streicher8286]

I love when ships refuse to be scrapped in their final days.

[@WardenWolf]

I knew someone who was on the Oklahoma at Pearl Harbor. Poor guy got blown off 3 ships over the course of the war (Oklahoma, Helena, and a small transport ship) before being medically discharged with combat fatigue.

[@xray86delta]

An anchor from the USS Oklahoma sits in downtown Oklahoma City, Oklahoma to this day.

[@brucewelty7684]

There is some argument about the nomenclature of the turrets. Triple turret or three gun turret. One means all guns fire more or less at once and the other means each can fire independently and at different ranges.

[@alephalon7849]

Poor Oklahoma had it worse than Arizona or Utah in some ways. She wasn't impossible to raise and fix, but the beating she did get would have needed a long and costly repair (practically a rebuild) that could probably pay for the better part of an Essex class carrier. And the USN would have picked the new fleet carrier over a refloated old battleship known for having vibration issues. Then she sank in a storm while a tow. Just bad luck.

[@WardenWolf]

She pretty much was impossible to fix. Her hull was in FAR worse shape than any of the other battleships sunk at Pearl Harbor, and her superstructure was crushed. There really wasn't much left of her reusable other than her gun turrets. Her hull was absolutely trashed.

[@mongolordofdarkness]

The damage she suffered was actually less than some of the other ships. She suffered much more damage when they tried to roll it back over. At one point instead of rolling, it slipped across the bottom of the harbor. If counter flooding would have taken place like on other battleships, she would have been able to be fixed.

[@buick1955]

She needs to be found at her final resting place .

[@markwhitney555]

The Navy kept Arkansas in service so I think Oklahoma would have been retained if she wasn't lost.

[@WardenWolf]

Agreed. Guns are guns. Even obsolete 12" guns are going to mess something up if they hit. If they'd built more Alaskas, it's likely Arkansas would have been put out to pasture sooner, though. The Alaskas' 12" guns substantially outperformed Arkansas's and their armor was largely comparable, with a speed of 33 knots.

[@petestorz172]

Had WW2 not happened or happened much, much, much later, the USN probably would have replaced Arkansas, New York, and Texas before looking at replacing Oklahoma and Nevada. My alt-history silliness/speculation is that Oklahoma would have been replaced by a late SoDak or an early Iowa, with Nevada being replaced after Oklahoma. The Nevadas were really long-in-the-tooth by 1941, and not in very good condition.

[@saffronskies333]

This was my father's ship.

[@ian5.011]

Was any other battleship listed for decommissioning ? I’d like to see a video on “what if Pearl Harbor “ didn’t happen

[@michaelmontgomery2535]

Oklahoma was raised before the end of the war and sank during a storm after tow lines parted

[@skyneahistory2306]

Since it seems to need to be said, now: Arkansas, New York and Texas. These three are all older than Oklahoma. However, all three were not (so far as I've read, at any rate) scheduled to be decommissioned in 1942. New York, in particular, was coming off a refit at the time Pearl Harbor was attacked. This is something to keep in mind, because even with rising tensions (it was pretty apparent war was coming sooner or later) the Navy was *still* wanting to decommission Oklahoma in 1942. That's why I say it is entirely possible that, even without taking damage (and almost certainly if she *did* take any substantial pounding) the Navy would still go through with taking Oklahoma out of service, the moment they have enough ships to do so. It's also certainly possible she gets stuck on second-line duty akin to Arkansas, but that's obviously something we'll never know. The older BBs were basically reserve ships for the Atlantic, anyway, so that's the absolute best-case scenario you're looking at here.

[@MartinCHorowitz]

Undamaged Oklahoma would have been useful as a convoy escort and the Mediterranean campaign (With a likely AA upgrade). If nothing else she would have been kept as a training ship.

[@BobSmith-dk8nw]

Yes - we simply cannot know - if there was any other possibility, however slim, of them changing their minds had she been less damaged than she was. However, I would say ... that what they might have done with her - would have been determined by how _much_ damage she had taken. If she were undamaged - I simply do not see them going ahead with her decommissioning in the light of all the other battleships we had just lost. THAT simply would NOT have happened. Had the _Oklahoma_ and the _Maryland_ swapped berths - so that it was _Maryland_ that was hit with 9 torpedoes and _Oklahoma_ that was lightly damaged by bombs - I do believe she would have been repaired. I can't say about _Maryland_ if she had taken the same damage _Oklahoma_ had taken. They actually did attempt to salvage _Utah_ but all they accomplished was moving her enough to clear her berth. That done - they gave up and she's still there. .

[@kiphenry4684]

I also disagree with the producer’s conclusions. If the USN was determined to retire BB37 in 1942, why go to the time, expense and dry dock space to replace her broken shaft a few months before? Had Okie been anyplace else (inboard of Maryland, next to Nevada, drydocked, etc.), the USN would’ve kept her in service because they were going to need every deck they could get their hands on to fight a two-ocean war.

[@jollyjohnthepirate3168]

Many of the old and slow battleships were originally supposed to be decommissioned and scrapped as new fast battleships came into service. But world events intervened. World War 2 ment that all ships in service remained in service.

[@markleuck]

Don't agree with your end conclusion the US needed all the major ships they could get which is why they kept the even older USS Texas going through WW2, Oklahoma would have done convoy work or some other task and at least give the Japanese another ship to worry about

[@hotrdchvy350]

You missed that shes the only battleship to ram a freight train

[@model-man7802]

West Virginia narrowly avoided being scrapped.

[@cjford2217]

I believe Oklahoma could have been useful, if only as a stationary gun platform. I'm sure they salvaged a great deal of equipment from her for use on other ships (as with Arizona) but it still seems a tremendous waste. But this is the same military that scrapped Enterprise.... so I guess it doesn't have to make sense.

[@oldgysgt]

I don't have a crystal ball, but I don't see the US Navy decommissioning any viable Battleship during WWII. If the Oklahoma had not capsized, I think she would have been refloated, patched up, and sent to the US West Coast for refitting. After that she could have been used as a training ship, or for the usual shore bombardment duties. If she had survived the war, the Oklahoma would probably have ended up as part of the ghost fleet at Bikini Atoll.

[@mikepekarek5895]

Keeping Oklahoma was entirely dependent on how the war progressed. If battles around Guadalcanal, Coral Sea, and Midway hadn't gone as well as they did, Oklahoma would almost certainly have been restored to a fighting unit. Even with bad engines, old battleships with new fire control could be very effective, as Surigao Strait demonstrated, even comparing a few different iterations of fire control. As it happened, by 1944 she would still have been useful but was at least a year away from rebuild completion and likely more, possibly even missing the invasion of the Japanese home islands. By the time she would have been available, her services might not have been needed. Juice not worth the squeeze. If something nasty had developed with the USSR before 1950, she might have been resurrected, but possibly not. The Soviet Navy was never much good except for submarines, and effective Soviet subs were still more than a decade in the future.

[@andyb1368]

Good video but the speculation that had Oklahoma survived Pearl Harbor unscathed she would still not have been used by the navy due to her triple-expansion steam engines seems unfounded. Oklahoma would be no worse than New York or Texas in that respect, and the navy found plenty for them to do.

[@klipsfilmsmelbourne]

wreck of oklahoma everything is all removed after salvage since nevada wreck was found everything on the were still there even though she was a target ship

[@Twitchguy]

I think they would’ve kept her in service through at least 1942 & then making her convoy escort or training until the losses of Pearl Harbor and probably through the end of the war or maybe even loaned her to Soviet Union but after war no doubt they scrap her or might have used in operation crossroads bomb tests like they did with Nevada But only if she was barely if at all damaged at Pearl. The damage she did take though, navy made a wise call. They could’ve repaired 3 damaged battleships for the same amount of repairs Oklahoma needed. Not practical at any point really but especially not during a war when every piece of material has 10 people wanting/needing it

[@TankBucz]

Proszę o polskie napisy

[@Ibuki01]

Still wondering if any of Okie's old crew were on the tugs taking her for scrapping...

[@nicktynan1355]

@ibuki01 Possibly, possibly not. Both tugs were civilian vessels(one of which, the SS Hercules, is preserved at the SF Maritime Museum).

[@Ibuki01]

@@nicktynan1355 If nothing else; Neptune, Ares, or whatever Saint watches over ships has mercy for certain ships. Oklahoma, Sao Paolo, and Warspite were all. oddly, lost; at least temporarily; in storms.

[@nicktynan1355]

@@Ibuki01 Both tugs were DEFINITELY being watched over during the tow attempt. Supposedly when the Hercules and the(don't quote me on this) Monarch both noticed they were going backwards, they spooled out/cut their tow lines. The Monarch separated first, afterwards seeing the Hercules speed by her in reverse. The Hercules "lost" her line just in time to avoid joining the USS Oklahoma, which assisted by Mother Nature, chose her own fate. Just looking at the fairly diminutive size of the SS Hercules, hard to believe she was an ocean going vessel at all.

[@bobwitkowski6410]

The Oklahoma in a way said, screw you I am not going to ne cut up I would rather sink instead.

[@ericmichaud1273]

I think there were a couple reasons Oklahoma was chosen to be decommissioned before some older ships. Oklahoma was meant to be a “standard type” battleship. Meaning she was meant to operate alongside very similar ships with an expectation of the same quality. However, due to the triple expansion engines Oklahoma was by far the least capable of any of the standard types. She was more of a hinderance than anything, and could easily be replaced by the 11 other standard type battleships. While New York and Texas had the same engines, they were not standard types, they were a pair, and they were operating in an entirely different theater. They were also operating with Arkansas, which even that ship was powered by turbines. On top of this they were all powered by coal, which while outdated, was certainly less expensive to maintain and fuel than the oil powered Oklahoma. Transferring Oklahoma to the Atlantic pre-war wouldn’t make much practical sense, given both the expense of the journey and the difference of fuel.

[@markleuck]

They all were converted to oil between the wars

[@ericmichaud1273]

@@markleuck Interesting, I wasn’t aware of that. In any case, I’m guessing they just wanted to get rid of Oklahoma because of the expense of relocation to the Atlantic. I’m assuming that the 3 older battleships were able to keep up a more consistent performance than Oklahoma was.

[@model-man7802]

They wanted to scrap New York before the war but when tensions began building they decided not to.