Resurrection: Salvaging the Battle Fleet at Pearl Harbor [Hardcover]

Daniel Madsen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 30, 2003

The attack on Pearl Harbor is a topic of perennial interest to the American public, and a long line of popular books and movies have focused on the attack or events leading up to it. This work takes an entirely new perspective. Aimed at the general reader with an interest in World War II and the U.S. Navy, the book looks at the massive salvage effort that followed the attack, beginning with the damage control efforts aboard the sinking and damaged ships in the harbour on 7 December 1941 and ending in March 1944 when salvage efforts on the USS Utah were finally abandoned. The author tells the story in a narrative style, moving from activity to activity as the days and months wore on, in what proved to be an incredibly difficult and complex endeavour. But rather than writing a dry operational report, Dan Madsen describes the Navy's dramatic race to clear the harbour and repair as many ships as possible so they could return to the fleet ready for war. Numerous photographs, many never before published in books for the general public, give readers a real appreciation for the momentous task involved, from the raising of the USS Oglala in 1942 and the USS Oklahoma in 1943 to the eventual dismantling of the above-water portions of the USS Arizona. Madsen explains how a salvage organization was first set up, how priorities were scheduled, what specific plans were made and how they worked or, in many cases, did not work. His book is based almost entirely on primary sources, including the records of the fleet salvage unit and the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"[Madsen] has performed a valuable service by adding substantially to the information...on the massive salvage operation." -- The Journal of Military History, July 2004

About the Author

Daniel Madsen is also the author of Forgotten Fleet: The Mothball Navy. He lives in Kenwood, California.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 264 pages
• Publisher: US Naval Institute Press (June 30, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1557504881
• ISBN-13: 978-1557504883
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 7.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #350,295 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Inspiring story of what happened after the bombs fell, December 7, 2003

By 

Andrew S. Rogers (Stamford, Connecticut) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Resurrection: Salvaging the Battle Fleet at Pearl Harbor (Hardcover)

I tried to think of a way to avoid the Paul Harvey-ish cliché of "the rest of the story," but it's hard to do. Nearly all general histories of the Pearl Harbor attack either end with the close of the attack, or move into the (necessarily more important) aspect of America starting to respond to the changed world situation and coming to grips with the onset of war. Epilogues sometimes report that most of the damaged ships actually returned to the battle lines, but in-depth reports of what happened at Pearl Harbor itself following the attack are pretty rare.

Daniel Madsen steps into this void with a book that, to use another cliché, reads like a novel. Where he could easily have gotten bogged down in damage reports or engineering minutia, he instead tells a surprisingly interesting story that turns as much on personalities as on mechanics. Amid the uncertainty of never knowing for sure whether the Japanese would return for a second strike at the fleet, civilian and naval engineers, divers, repair workers, and line officers devised innovative solutions to large and sometimes unprecedented problems. I can't speak too highly of how Madsen succeeds in weaving this into an interesting and well-paced narrative.

Readers familiar with the Pearl Harbor story will appreciate finding out what happened to the ships, and the base as a whole, in the weeks and months following the attack. Although the eyes of the world moved away from Pearl and onto the wider theater of war after the first days of December, 1941, the story of what happened there is still one well worth telling. I commend Daniel Madsen for the fine job he did telling it, and recommend his work to students of the attack and naval history buffs generally.

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Your view of Pearl Harbor is NOT complete unless you have this book!, July 27, 2005

By 

Matthew Tesch (Brisbane, Australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Resurrection: Salvaging the Battle Fleet at Pearl Harbor (Hardcover)

How many of us ~ naval historians or enthusiasts, or those interested in the Second World War at sea ~ have wondered what happened to the remains of the American battle line in Pearl Harbor after the second wave of Japanese attackers had departed?

For so long have publications glossed over the aftermath with bromides like 'the twilight of the gods [the battleships]' or 'the ascendancy of the aircraft carrier was now established.' At most, we have been used to recounting abbreviated lists of which ships were returned to service in the aftermath of that "infamous" attack. And there is always the spectral image of the burning ARIZONA's for'ard fighting top ... and her poignant memorial today.

But how were the wrecks and hulks dealt with, appraised and evaluated after the fires had begun to die down? What had to be done ~ in the face of the demands and priorities occasioned by the setbacks and defeats which marked the opening months of the Pacific War ~ to begin to even return some of the ships to the oil-smeared surface of Pearl? What were the salvage techniques ~ some old and tried, some forced by circumstance to be innovatively and riskily new ~ employed to roll wrecks upright, stop them from sinking and fouling fairways or berths, and, ultimately, drag them delicately into one of the few available drydocks?

Daniel Madsen rectifies all that, in this thoroughly-researched and well-illustrated (photographs and diagrams) work. In a tale well-told over eight chapters, and beginning 'the morning after' on December 8, 1941, Madsen takes us through everything: logistics, personalities, technicalities.

The demands on the various USN commands, scrambling to play 'catch-up' in the face of both the triumphant Japanese AND the new confrontations of a true 'two-ocean war', paint a comprehensive picture of the materiel and personnel challenges facing both those on the ground at Pearl and the mainland administration.

The people and personalities come to life in a narrative which, despite its frequent references to the daily, weekly and monthly meetings and memoranda which accompanied the work at Pearl, never bogs down in dry discourse. It makes for quite extraordinary reading to see just what miracles were worked with a largely displaced and semi-skilled (in salvage terms at least) population of sailors and yard workers, under the direction of some truly inspired engineering leadership.
The personnel merry-go-round which must have taxed the admin. skills in that pre-electronic era is remarkable: the former captain of the NEVADA going to sea again in command of the cruiser ASTORIA, accompanying the YORKTOWN to her fateful destiny at Midway; several hundred of the YORKTOWN's survivors returning to help re-crew the raised WEST VIRGINIA!

Special mention must be made of the photographs, many of which have never been seen before in print, and all of them of excellent quality and reproduction. From closeups of battle damage to many views of the cofferdam structures built to help 'unwater' wrecks, this book is worth buying for the visual content alone.
Additional reference value comes from the numerous profile and plan view drawings extracted from the various ships' 'battle damage reports'. I have never seen the results of the Japanese attack portrayed so clearly and graphically. And, it should be said, Madsen's editorial and design team deserve a special mention for the placement of the images, closely corresponding to their related text throughout this book's pages.

One thing the reader may find lifts an eyebrow ~ and this is based probably on our 'populist' and (until now) 'minimalist' view of the attack's results ~ is the focus on certain ships from a salvage viewpoint. This is far from being a criticism too, just a real eye-opener. I knew the NEVADA was beached as a precaution against blocking the fairway, but was dumbfounded to find out just how much damage she had in fact sustained (as were the investigators and salvage masters at the time).
The detailed accounts of the recovery of the CALIFORNIA, the capsized minelayer OGLALA at Ten Ten Dock, and the wrecked destroyers CASSIN and DOWNES in drydock ahead of the PENNSYLVANIA, are engrossing reading indeed. But for me, the highlight would be the tale of the "WeeVee" ~ the WEST VIRGINIA ~ last rememembered awash and burning with boats scurrying to and fro looking for survivors.

Last of the major combatants to be floated and drydocked, the WeeVee's saga is a fitting testament to the bravery and resourcefulness of everyone from the divers and carpenters to the base cooks and laundrymen.
Our attention has now been drawn to the unremarked but surprisingly hideous dangers of gaseous decomposition over many months in sunken compartments ~ in everything from meat freezers to the flammability of trapped fuel and vapours. I for one cannot grasp the internal, often crazily-tilted, underwater horrors which must have faced those men, but the story of the fatal effects of a release of trapped hydrogen sulphide concentrations aboard the NEVADA was compelling reading.

It is staggering to realise that all of the work which needed to be done, and was going to be able to be done, in the face of the unfolding war, was effectively complete by the third quarter of 1942, less than seven or eight months after the attack!
Madsen concludes with a breathtaking read ~ and images ~ of the 're-rolling' and recovery of the wreck of the OKLAHOMA, an incredible feat of engineering which, by then, had learned much from the often trial-and-error efforts of the early days.

My only quibble with this work ~ and it is indeed a minor one ~ is that I would have liked to see some sense of a 'timeline' against which I could develop and maintain an overview of the often-conflicting demands and progress on the efforts on the various ships dotted around (and under) the waters of the harbour. The author does a generally decent job in this regard but there is, of necessity, some disjointedness in the interweaving of the many strands. As I say, minor point only.

We owe a debt to both Madsen and the Naval Institute Press for this seminal work which, no less than one of the steel, wood and concrete patches used on the battleships, plugs one of the gaping holes in the history of the Second World War at sea.

In summary? BUY. THIS. BOOK. You will not regret it!

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The fleet that died and rose to fight again, November 1, 2006

By 

Harry Eagar (Maui) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Resurrection: Salvaging the Battle Fleet at Pearl Harbor (Hardcover)

Hundreds, maybe thousands of books tell the story of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the preliminary scheming by Japan, the counteroffensive by the Americans. But until now, only one has told much about the salvage of the sunken warships.
Not nearly as many died raising a fleet from the dead -- fewer than a dozen -- as died on Dec. 7, 1941. Yet the salvors' story has as nearly as much drama and danger as the story of the fighting sailors.
"They were not recognized as heroes," writes Daniel Madsen. "But they should have been."
Much of the work was done underwater, including more than 4,000 dives into the capsized battleship Oklahoma. "Diving in the black, unfamiliar world inside a submerged battleship was extremely hazardous. Lights were of little use in the murky water, and the men had to feel their way carefully through passageways, hatches, machinery and floating debris sometimes many yards from where they entered the ship.
"Face plates could be smashed if the diver collided with a beam or projection. They often had to go up and down ladders, complicating their route back. Pressure differentials caused by pumping or large leaks could suck an unwary diver into a jagged hole. Telephone cables and air hoses were frequently fouled by debris, bulkheads and hatches. Air hoses or diving suits could be punctured by sharp pieces of wreckage.<\q>.<\q>.<\q>. And even if a clear path was maintained for the air hose, there was no guarantee that the pumps and compressors would not break down."
The heat of underwater welding drove dissolved gases out of the water, creating bubbles that exploded from time to time. While not especially dangerous, working with the bubbles must have been stressful.
Unfortunately, not much in the way of first-person accounts was ever collected. Apart from a memoir by an officer who led the work, no one has attempted to retell the story until Madsen in "Resurrection."
The salvage work was divided -- not equally -- between Navy men and civilian contractors.
Since the United States had not anticipated being attacked in Hawaii, no matter what the conspiracy wackos say, the Navy had not much in the way of equipment and supplies on hand.
A specialist salvage school had been created in California before the war, but it had not even begun training the first class. Most of those students learned their trade on the job at Pearl.
"It was a mammoth job, and the speed with which it was carried out spoke well of the training, maturity and flexibility of the officers involved," writes Madsen.
Many of the leaders had advanced degrees in naval architecture or other relevant fields, yet they faced novel problems. Even the salvage of the Imperial German battle fleet from Scapa Flow in 1919, a much bigger job, was simpler.
Curiously, one of the smaller jobs at Pearl Harbor proved to be the most difficult. The capsized minelayer Oglala, an old, fragile ship, was harder to empty of water and refloat than a sturdy battleship, which, once its holes were patched, at least held out water.
Oglala leaked everywhere and was sunk four times -- once by the Japanese and three times by the Americans.
What Americans remember now is the solemn memorial at the Arizona. But Madsen, relying mainly on daily and weekly sit-reps from the salvage organization, shows that that feeling took a long time to develop.
At first, the Arizona was mined for scrap metal, still useful guns and equipment and ammunition. (Madsen does not retell the interesting story of where the Arizona's 14-inch rifles ended up, high on a cliff of windward Oahu, prepared to duel Japanese battleships if they ever returned.)
Only slowly did the realization sink in that Arizona was not merely a battle wreck, but a war grave.
Target ship Utah, on the other side of Ford Island, also was not salvaged and is another, smaller war grave, but tourists don't see that ship's skeleton. (The lines to see the USS Arizona Memorial are long, and include thousands of Japanese.)
Madsen does not attempt to tell the story of the attack, on the grounds that it has been done before. The story of what happened to the rescued battleships has been told before, too, though not nearly so often.
By now, their war service is not so widely known, and it might have been as well to have retold it in an epilogue.
At the Battle of Surigao Strait in 1944, the sunken battleships of Pearl Harbor met the Japanese fleet again, in fair fight. They annihilated a Japanese battle fleet and saved the Leyte invasion force.