December 7th, 1941.....least we forget....

Reposted with permission from Cyberbilly

I rerun this post every year on December 7th, when we should pause and take a moment to remember those who gave their lives in the defense of freedom while serving aboard the USS West Virginia which went down atPearl Harbor.

There have been three US Navy ships to bear the name West Virginia. The first USS West Virginia ACR-5 was a Pennsylvania-class Armored Cruiserwhich was launched in 1903. This ship was later renamed the USS Huntington to free up the name West Virginia for the new Colorado-class ship. The third USS West Virginia (SSBN-736) is an Ohio-class ballistic missle submarine currently in service with the US Navy.

The second and probably best known USS West Virginia was the Super-Dreadnought (Colorado Class) Battleship BB-48. Her keel was laid at the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock company in Norfolk,Virginia on 12 April 12 1920. She was christened on 19 November 1921,and commissioned on 1 December 1923. This ship was built at a cost of$11.5 million.

On the morning of 7 December 1941, the USS West Virginia was moored on the outboard side of the USS Tennessee along Battleship Row at the U.S.Naval Base at Pearl Harbor when combined elements of the Imperial Japanese Navy and Air Force launched a surprise attack. The USS WestVirginia was one several US Battleships to be heavily damaged in the attack.

She took two bomb hits; one to her superstructure and a second bomb further aft. The second bomb was a dud, but caused collateral damage to one of the ship's Vought OS2U Kingfisher Seaplanes; this caused gasoline spills to start a fire on her rear deck. But the worst damage came from aircraft-launched 18-inch torpedoes

Initial reports indicated 5 torpedo hits, but subsequent investigations showed that a total of 7 torpedoes had hit the USS West Virginia on her port side. It was only through the prompt action by Lieutenant ClaudeV. Ricketts, the assistant fire control officer who had some knowledge of damage control techniques, that saved the ship from the fate that befell USS Oklahoma (BB-37) moored ahead. By deliberately flooding certain compartments, Lt. Ricketts was able to allow the West Virginiato stay "balanced" and settle at the bottom of the harbor on an even keel. The USS Oklahoma also took torpedo hits that flooded the ship and caused her to capsize and overturn.
The West Virginia's commanding officer, Captain Mervyn S. Bennion, arrived on the bridge early in the battle, only to be struck down by a bomb fragment hurled in his direction when a Japanese 15 inch bomb hit the center gun in the Tennessee's Turret number 2, spraying that ship's superstructure and the West Virginia's with fragments. Bennion, hit in the abdomen, crumpled to the deck, mortally wounded, but clung tenaciously to life until just before the ship was abandoned, and stayed involved in the conduct of the ship's defenses up to the last moment of his life. Captain Bennion was posthumously awarded the Navy Medal of Honor.

Seaman First Class Dorie Miller, a cook (who was also the ship's heavyweight boxing champion) manned an antiaircraft battery when the regular gunner became wounded. Despite having no previous experience using such a weapon, Miller shot down at least one Japanese airplane,for which he was awarded a Navy Cross. On 24 November 1943, Miller was serving on the escort carrier USS Liscome Bay (CVE-56) when it was hit by a single Japanese torpedo. The torpedo set off an explosion in the ship's store of aircraft munitions and she sank within minutes. Miller was one of 646 sailors who went down with her. On 30 June 1973, the Knox-class frigate USS Miller (FF-1091) was christened and named in Dorie Miller's honor.

The West Virginia, though battered, but not beaten, would live to fight another day. She was eventually patched and refloated on 17 May 1942, then towed to a drydock at Pearl. During the ensuing repairs, the bodies of 70 sailors were recovered from an airtight compartment below deck. A wall calendar in the compartment showed dates crossed off up until 23 December, leaving one to conclude that at least one of those sailors survived for 16 days before dying of suffocation.

In the summer of 1942, the USS West Virginia was able to cruise under her own power to the Puget Sound Naval Shipyards at Bremerton,Washington for full repairs and rebuilding. The tall lattice style Fire Control Towers were removed, and the ship was outfitted with a new lower-profile superstructure. Turret guns and anti-aircraft batteries were upgraded, and her hull was repainted with a "sea cammoflage" paint scheme of various shades of blue, white and gray, instead of the standard one-color battleship Haze Gray. This gave the West Virginia a completely new appearance from the one that sank at Pearl Harbor. Like the Phoenix, she had risen from the Ashes. And she was a leaner, meaner fighting machine.

The USS West Virginia was put back into service in July of 1944, and in October of that year, saw action in the battle of Leyte Gulf, the last major ship-to-ship sea battle of the War in the Pacific. On 25 October, she helped sink the Japanese Battleship Yamashiro, thus avenging her crippling at Pearl Harbor. In February of 1945, she dutifully performed shore bombardment chores during the invasion of Iwo Jima and witnessed the Marines raising the flag on Mount Suribachi. Late in March, the USS West Virginia was the victim of a Kamakaze attack. Four sailors died in the attack, but fortunately, the plane's bomb did not explode. She was repaired by Ship's Force and pressed on.

In early April of 1945, the Japanese attempted to strike at the American fleet in a last gasp offensive formed around the super-battleship Yamato. On the night of 7 April and into the morning of 8 April, the West Virginia steamed north and south in the waters west of Okinawa ready to intercept and engage the Japanese surface force headed her way. The next morning the Commander of Task Force 68 reported that most of the ships in that enemy force had been sunk including the Yamato, whose last sortie had been made with only enough fuel to get to Okinawa but not to return. Thus, the Japanese Navy's largest kamikaze perished many miles short of her objective.

On 10 August 1945, the West Virginia picked up a garbled report on radio that the Japanese government had agreed to surrender. The American ships soon commenced celebrating; the indiscriminate use of antiaircraft fire and pyrotechnics (not only from the naval vessels in the bay but from Marines and Army troops ashore) endangered friendly planes. Such celebrations, however, proved premature. On 12 August, the West Virginia sailors felt a heavy underwater explosion. Later, the battleship intercepted a radio dispatch from the USS Pennsylvania reporting that she had been torpedoed. West Virginia sent over a whaleboat on 13 August with pumps for the damaged Pennsylvania.

In early September, the USS West Virginia steamed into Tokyo Bay and was present on 20 September 1945, when the Japanese signed the formal surrender on board the USS Missouri, thus ending the War in the Pacific. This gave the West Virginia the unique distinction of being the only US warship to be present at both the beginning (PearlHarbor) and end (Tokyo Bay) of World War II.

In 1947, the "Wee Vee", as her crew called her, was decommissioned and placed in reserve. She never again saw action. In 1959, she was struck from the Navy's list and sold for scrap to the Union Minerals and Alloys Corp. of New York City in August of that year.

But some artifacts of the West Virginia live on. Her bell resides in the West Virginia State Museum in Charleston. Her mast, along with the bell of the USS West Virginia ACR-5, are on display in front of Oglebay Hall on the campus of West Virginia University.

Thus ended the story of one of the greatest battleships ever to sail for the United States' Navy. Even though she sat out through much of the War, the USS West Virginia never the less managed to earn five battlestars in service of her country.

-Cyberbilly