Pearl Harbor Trivia Questions

[CameraQuest]

December 7 2016 is the 75th Anniversary of the 1941 attack.


What was the last US ship present during the Pearl Harbor attack to fight in combat?

What was the last US ship present during the Pearl Harbor attack to be on active duty?

What was the last US ship present during the Pearl Harbor attack to be sunk in combat?

Did the main 14" guns of the USS Arizona ever fire during WWII?

Where are 40-50 of the Japanese attack planes today?

Where can you see what is left of one of the Japanese attack planes today?

Where can you see what is believed to be the only intact airplane which flew during the Pearl Harbor attack?

Which US battleships present during the Peal Harbor attack sank at sea?

Of the twelve 14" main guns on the USS Arizona during the attack, where are they today?

Where is the flagship of the US Pacific fleet (present at the Pearl Harbor attack) today?

Where are the last surviving Japanese midget submarines from the attack above water?

How was that midget submarine used after December 7th?

Some believe a Japanese midget submarine successfully torpedoed which US battleship?

Atop a mountain in Oahu are what relics of which US battleship present during the attack?

Which US ship present at the famous Battle of Manila Bay in 1898 was also present at the Pearl Harbor attack?

Which US Navy ship present during the attack is practically never listed as being present?

Sailors were trapped in sealed compartments within the USS Oklahoma and USS West Virginia, without power, without food, in the cold, in the dark.
How long is it estimated they survived before dying of starvation? Many could have been saved - why weren't they saved?

 

[oftheherd]

I'm guessing the Nevada would have been the last to fight, but it could have been the West Virginia. And that if you are talking about battleships. Of other ships present, I don't think I ever heard.

I would guess the Arizona is the last on active duty since it has never been decommissioned.

I don't think the Arizona could have fired its main guns. there would have been no target for them as they were for use against ships, not aircraft which is what was attacking. Besides it was taken out too soon as I recall.

Interesting questions. I will have to look them up. I wish I could recall more, but I was only about 4 months old when Pearl Harbor was hit and the USA entered WWII. 😛

 

[Ronald M]

Interesting trivia.

I believe there is a midget sub on display somewhere. The one sunk by USS Ward has been found. Recovered ?? One midget used in the attack as found grounded in the west loch.

I would imagine they were not saved because rescue crews were overwhelmed and not all could be located..

From pictures, the Arizona has no 14"guns. I suspect salvaged for other use.

 

[jonmanjiro]

Where is the last surviving Japanese midget submarine above water?

Australian War Memorial in Canberra?

https://www.awm.gov.au/encyclopedia/midgetsub/
https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/P01377.001

How was that midget submarine used after December 7th?

Used in the attack on Sydney Harbour on May 31st 1942?

 

[dave lackey]

Wow, Pearl Harbor was well before my time but my family was certainly impacted by it.

Since I don't know a lot of details about this tragic event, I can only offer a good article on how the world changed:

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_58462170e4b055b313990dad

 

[02Pilot]

I went to Pearl for the 50th anniversary. Hard to believe it has been 25 years since then.

I also flew the plane pictured below from Dillingham up on the North Shore down the valley along the same route the Japanese took in 1941. It was an incredible experience.

 

[Bill Clark]

On our way to Viet Nam, our ship spent a day or so docked at Pearl Harbor. Our captain liked papaya and loaded up our ship with frozen papaya. I made some photos (slides), from our entrance into Pearl and exit as well as a taking a few hours going around the island in a van a few of us had rented.

After I received my Honorable Discharge from active duty, I stayed in the reserves. I was single and our center here in Minneapolis, met one weekend a month. Drinking money! A couple of old salts I got to know were stationed at Pearl when the Japanese attacked on December 7, 1941. Each year I was obligated to take two weeks to serve. Once I was on a WWII ship and we went from San Francisco to Vancouver BC and back. During our return to San Francisco we towed a WWII sub.

My wife and I took a tour of Pearl Harbor, a couple of years ago. We spent time at the tourist spots, the Arizona monument and the battleship Missouri. On the Missouri I started talking to gent, maybe security, once he found out I served, he gave my wife and I the nickel tour of the ship.

When the Japanese signed the documents of surrender on the Missouri, McArthur came late to the meeting to keep the Japanese waiting.

Info. on the Battleship Missouri:

http://www.navy.mil/navydata/nav_legacy.asp?id=131


On tour I was told that there is enough oil storage capacity at Oahu underground to run every car in the States for about 90 days. Maybe that's if everyone drove a hybred!

Info on Hawaiian Papayas:

http://www.hawaiipapaya.com

If you travel to Hawaii, try to make room in your schedule to take a tour of Pearl Harbor.

 

[oftheherd]

At 02Pilot - Is that a T-6 Texan?

Thanks for the two links Bill Clark. I see I was wrong about the Arizona never being decommissioned. Also, from Text from The Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships published by the Naval Historical Center at http://www.navy.mil/navydata/nav_legacy.asp?id=114. It also mentions her big guns being removed to be used as shore guns, but doesn't say where they are now.

Placed "in ordinary" at Pearl Harbor on 29 December 1941, Arizona was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 1 December 1942. Her wreck was cut down so that very little of the superstructure lay above water; her after main battery turrets and guns were removed to be emplaced as coast defense guns.

I would have sworn I heard it hadn't been decommissioned.

 

[02Pilot]

At 02Pilot - Is that a T-6 Texan?

Yes, though it carries the paint scheme of a Navy SNJ.

 

[CameraQuest]

What was the last US ship present during the Pearl Harbor attack to fight in combat?

What was the last US ship present during the Pearl Harbor attack to be on active duty?

What was the last US ship present during the Pearl Harbor attack to be sunk in combat?

These 3 questions are about the same ship, the light cruiser USS Phoenix. It survived WWII to be sold to the Argentine Navy. Renamed the General Belgrano, It was sunk during the Battle of the Falklands in 1982 by the British nuclear powered submarine Conquerer in a very unfair contest. True, they were at war, but the old Phoenix really could not have harmed the British forces. It is the only enemy warship to date sunk by a nuclear powered submarine during wartime. Let us hope that distinction is always kept by the Phoenix.

Did the main 14" guns of the USS Arizona ever fire during WWII?

The three 14" guns in Turret number 1 are still aboard the Arizona. The other 9 guns were salvaged and reused. Two gun turrets were ridiculously installed atop a Oahu mountain as useless shore defenses, only to be scrapped after the war. The bases of the turrets and most likely the same bases which were once the Arizona are still there. 3 guns were remounted on other US battleships using the same gun type. Some of those 3 (maybe all 3?) were installed on Pearl Harbor survivor USS Nevada (sister ship of the USS Oklahoma) and saw service at Normandy, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. They soldiered on to survive TWO nuclear bomb test explosions and now rest on the wreck of the Nevada after it was sunk off Pearl Harbor.

Where are 40-50 of the Japanese attack planes today?

After the attack the Japanese were very concerned about counter attacks, quickly leaving the area. Attack planes which were too damaged to be quickly repaired were dumped overboard to speed up flight operations should US attack planes appear. Today, thousands of feet down in an oxygenless environment, those planes are probably very restorable if only they could be found and brought to the surface - priceless relics of the attack.

Where can you see what is left of one of the Japanese attack planes today?

Where can you see what is believed to be the only intact airplane which flew during the Pearl Harbor attack?

The Air Museum on Ford Island in Pearl Harbor has the remains of one Japanese plane which crash landed, as well as a flight trainer which was overtaken during the attack by waves of Japanese planes.

Which US battleships present during the Peal Harbor attack sank at sea?

Where is the flagship of the US Pacific fleet (present at the Pearl Harbor attack) today?

After the war, the USS Nevada and USS Pennsylvania both survived nuclear bomb tests and were sunk off Pearl Harbor. The USS Pennsylvania was the US flagship of the Pacific Fleet at the time of the attack.

Where are the last surviving Japanese midget submarines from the attack above water?

How was that midget submarine used after December 7th?

Some believe a Japanese midget submarine successfully torpedoed which US battleship?

The midget found on the beach was used for display during WWII to help sell US war bonds. Today it is strangely located at the Nimitz Museum in Texas rather than at Pearl Harbor. Another midget was found in Pearl Harbor during the 1960's and was sent back to Japan as a memorial.

Many believe the last midget found with empty torpedo tubes successfully attacked either the USS West Virginia and or USS Oklahoma.

Which US ship present at the famous Battle of Manila Bay in 1898 was also present at the Pearl Harbor attack?

Which US Navy ship present during the attack is practically never listed as being present?

These questions are about the same ship, the USS Baltimore. Decommissioned at the time of the attack, it is mostly left off the harbor maps. It was one the closest ships to the USS Arizona.

Sailors were trapped in sealed compartments within the USS Oklahoma and USS West Virginia, without power, without food, in the cold, in the dark.
How long is it estimated they survived before dying of starvation? Many could have been saved - why weren't they saved?

Hundreds of sailors (400+ ?) were trapped alive in the sunken USS Oklahoma, USS West Virginia, and USS Utah. Less than 100 were rescued by cutting thru the ship hulls. Many were not successfully located. However many were, but were not rescued due to fear of explosions from the rescue attempts. It is estimated that some stayed alive up to three weeks after the attack, in the cold, in the dark, dying of starvation.

 

[Beemermark]

Thank you for the post, and remembrance of that day. My favorite Uncle (well everybody's favorite uncle) served 30 years in the Navy. He was very short on WWII stories except to say how long (years in the South Pacific) he was at sea and never saw women or booze (and it was very hard to imagine him sober). Doing the family history thing a few years ago I found out he was at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7th. He never even hinted that he was there.

 

[CameraQuest]

Thank you for the post, and remembrance of that day. My favorite Uncle (well everybody's favorite uncle) served 30 years in the Navy. He was very short on WWII stories except to say how long (years in the South Pacific) he was at sea and never saw women or booze (and it was very hard to imagine him sober). Doing the family history thing a few years ago I found out he was at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7th. He never even hinted that he was there.

Its my understanding WWII US service records are retrievable online.
Many war veterans of all wars were unable and / or refused to share their war experiences with family.

 

[charjohncarter]

My friend just got back from Pearl Harbor, he was at the 75th. He went with a friend of ours that was on the California: December 7, 1941. Johnny (our friend) still remembers every moment.

 

[Sarcophilus Harrisii]

Where can you see what is believed to be the only intact airplane which flew during the Pearl Harbor attack?
One of the half a dozen or so unarmed B-17s that arrived in the middle of the Japanese attack later went down during the war in PNG. It was documented as found in a book about Pacific aircraft wrecks in the early 1980s. I recall a great photo of a Bell 47 landing on its wing because it was the only viable place to touch down. It was in great shape and nearly complete. The crew all survived the forced landing though they had what must have been a hell of a trip through snake infested swamps and the New Guinea jungle to safety.

I'm sure the aircraft was retrieved a few years ago and undergoing restoration. I wouldn't be in the least surprised if it flies again. Better information should Google up easily enough.
Cheers
Brett

 

[Sarcophilus Harrisii]

This is the book that documented the B-17 in the swamp when published in the 1970s (it was first spotted by a RAAF helicopter crew in 1972 according to one source). At the time, it was claimed the plane was one of those that arrived during the Pearl Harbor attack. I still have an old issue of Wings magazine (somewhere) from 1980, I think, with a review of the book in which this is stated. Other sources say the plane, now known as the Swamp Ghost, landed in Hawaii a couple of weeks after 7th December 1941. Interesting story either way.
Cheers,
Brett