Vast Selection of Royalty Free Images and Historical Information

Title: USS West Virginia, Pearl Harbor, December, 1941

Description: A U.S. Navy launch moves into flaming waters to rescue survivors of the burning and sinking battleship USS West Virginia (BB-48), moored outboard of the battleship USS Tennessee (BB-43), whose mast is shown behind that of the West Virginia; waves of Japanese dive bombers and torpedo planes in the second Japanese air attack that day struck the West Virginia shortly before 0800 with five torpedoes on its port side and two bombs fore and aft, collapsing the deck to sea level, with forty feet of water beneath her keel; examinations and analysis by the U.S. Naval Institute and other sources stated, as late as 1999, that the ship had been hit by six or seven torpedoes, one possibly from a Japanese midget submarine that had penetrated the harbor; of a crew of 1,541, 130 were killed and fifty-two wounded during the Pearl Harbor attack; the skipper of the West Virginia, Captain Mervyn Sharp Bennion, was mortally wounded by shrapnel on the bridge during the attack, which struck him in the abdomen, but he continued to direct the actions on his ship, being posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor; the destroyer USS Bennion (DD-662), launched on July 4, 1943 and christened by his widow, was named after this brave naval officer; many other officers and men on the West Virginia committed acts of heroism - Lieutenant Commander J. S. Harper worked tirelessly to conduct counter-flooding that prevented the ship form capsizing; Lieutenant Commander T. T. Beattie, ship's navigator, who took the captain to a first-aid station and returned to direct fire-fighting crews; Lieutenant W. White, who was ashore at the time of the attack and returned to the ship to fight its raging fires; Lieutenant C. V. Ricketts, senior gunnery officer, who, when not directing the firing of his battery, fought the fires around his turret; Ensign H. W. Sears, who was ashore at the time of the attack, but who got aboard the light cruiser USS Phoenix (CL-46), and, when that ship came alongside the stricken West Virginia, dove into the water and swam to his ship, where he fought fires and aided wounded men; Lieutenant F. H. White, who hauled wounded men through burning oil and water to the quarterdeck, saving many lives, and who was assisted in this work by the towering Doris "Dorie" Miller, a black mess attendant (later promoted to Cook, Third Class), who went to the bridge, where he helped Lieutenant Commander Beattie carry Captain Bennion to safety, then ran to an unmanned .50-caliber machine gun post, firing that gun for fifteen minutes, shooting down at least one enemy plane and for which he would be awarded the Navy Cross; Miller was killed on board the USS Liscome Bay (CVE-56) on November 24, 1943, while the carrier was cruising near Butaritari, after the Japanese submarine I-175, struck the Liscome Bay with a torpedo, which detonated the aircraft bomb magazine, blowing up the ship, with a loss of 646, and 272 crew members surviving; the USS Miller (FF-1091), a Knox-class frigate, commissioned on June 30, 1973, was named after the heroic Doris Miller; The West Virginia was repaired and saw action in the Pacific, receiving five battle stars;

Location: Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii

Date: December 7, 1941

Category: World War II

Keywords: air attacks, aircraft, airplanes, bombs, destroyers, dive bombers, explosions, guns, Japan, Japanese attack, machine guns, Second World War, ship magazines, ships, torpedoes, U.S. Naval bases, U.S. Navy, U.S. warships, vessels, war casualties, World War II, WWII