Shipboard ammunition considerations in Pearl Harbor Salvage operations
Friday, January 2nd, 2009 From
>Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 23:07:00 -0500
>From: Brooks A Rowlett
>Organization: None whatsoever
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>To: Mahan Naval History Mailing List
>CC: Mike Potter
>Subject: Shipboard ammunition considerations in Pearl Harbor Salvage >operations
>Precendence: bulk
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>
>Mike Potter asked a week or so ago, how the considerations of live
>ammunition in the vessels salvaged at Pearl Harbor impacted the
>salvage operations. I mentined the two books that should have answers
>but could not at the time locate my copies. I have now done so.
>
>DESCENT INTO DARKNESS, Commander Edward C Raymer, USN (Ret.)
>Presidio Press, 1996, ISBN 0-89141-589-0. Raymer was a Senior Petty
>Officer at the time of Pearl, and a diving team leader. He describes
>in vivid detail much of the work on the battleships and the UTAH at
>Pearl Harbor. On OKLAHOMA specifically, he mentions that the 5 inch
>ammunition was removed from the magazines before she was raised, but
>the 14 inch was left aboard as ballast during the righting operation.
>
>On a more general basis, PEARL HARBOR: WHY>FINAL APPRAISAL, Vie Amdiral Homer N Wallin, USN (Ret.), Naval History
>Division, US Government Printing Office, 1968 has several mentions of
>ammuniton considerations in salvage operations. Perhaps most
>interesting is that there was a considerable shortage of AA capability
>inthe first month or two after the attack. Therefore, after the initial
>life-saving efforts and attemtps to preserve flotation of cruppled
>vessels such s CALIFORNIA and RALEIGH, the next priority was removal of
>AA guns and ammunition from ships which were obvioulsy not going
>anywhere for a while; reconditioning the guns and ammo, and
>installing it in shore ppositions around the harbor! Presumably this
>included .50 caliber machin guns, any 1.1 inch that may have been
>availabel, perhaps all the way up to 3 and 5 inch guns.
>
>For actual salvage operations, in upright raised vessels such as
>CALIFORNIA, diving operations during the preparations for raising
>woudl set up cofferdams around magazines or otherwise make them
>watertight, so that the ammunition could be extracted via the turret
>paths (turrets were partly disassemled, with guns removed) in the
>general process of lightening the ship prior to raising.
>
>The only specific reports of precautions against explosion seems to
>have been against toxic or explosive gases from decomposition of bodies
>and other organic material aboard ship such as food; and from volatiles
>aboard such as gasoline for aircraft or mineral spirits and the like.
>
>Reading between the lines, and based on some of my other reading of US
>ordnance manuals form the 1940’2 and 1950’s, I have the impression that
>two factors minimized concerns about ammunition in salvage: 1, the fact
>that most of the ammuniton was submerged, especially the propellant; and
>2. a feeling of confidence in the insensitivity of US ammunition fuzes.
>I don’t have a clue as to whether BB main battery ammo was stored with
>fuzes in place, but if not, shell filling explosive is indeed very
>insensitive, and moreover if there was no plug where fuzes would go,
>then water would have penetrated to the explosive anyway.
>
>In summary, concern about ammunition explosions during salvage
>operations does not seem to have required an >extra>precaustions during Pearl Harbor salvage operations. On the other hand,
>there is no clear indication in these 2 books as to just what measures
>”ordinary” precautions might entail.
>
>-Brooks A Rowlett