At 'Em Arizona Fans!

[Timmy C]

Could also just be the shadows cast by the crew.

[Steve Sobieralski]

Is there evidence that she had the lines running from the foretop to the jackstaff, and the other one to the stern. I've been looking at all the images I can find and can't see them anywhere. Also, if it was there then precisely where did the forward one run from on the foretop?
phil

If you go to http://www.navsource.org you will find a series of photos of Pennsylvania taken at Mare Island in Feb. 1942. They can be difficult to see, but there are definitely lines rigged to both her jack staff and ensign staff from the tops. I assume Arizona would have been similar.

[Tracy White]

US Navy wood decks weren't varnished. There were experiments with wood decks to try out different woods, but only on Colorado and Maryland and the location was either on the boat deck in a limited section or outboard of the case mates. I agree that the wood looks wet. The sky is clearly overcast so it's possible it was raining before the ceremony. Van Valkenburgh took command of Arizona on February 5th, so it's possible that's the date of this video clip is then.

[SeanF]

Tracy -

In the Booklet of General Plans for Oklahoma (on your website), the Superstructure Deck has a note just above the No. 5 5" AA gun that states "Deck Plank 3" Douglass Fir" while on the Main and Upper Decks there are notes stating "Deck Plank 3 1/2" Teak". The Arizona plans, on the other hand, don't say anything about the planking that I've been able to find. But it is enough to make me wonder if the Doug. Fir might have been typical for the NV, PA, and NM-classes when they got their new superstructure decks in their big late '20s/early '30s refits. (I recall reading somewhere that some of the USN treaty cruisers built around the same time got Doug. Fir decks - Depression-era cost saving over the traditional teak, perhaps?)

- Sean F.

[Tracy White]

I don't have the document with me, but one of the ships tested Angelique and the other Mangachapoi. Neither was found to be as suitable as Teak, but one was found to be OK and I think the other had excess cracking or was hard to work (dulled tools much faster) - maybe a combination of both. I haven't seen any discussion at Archives about philosophies for deck planking yet so I'll admit the differences between decks and classes is a mystery to me as well. I have been through decking files in the past, but mainly focused on determining if linoleum was used on external decks.

[Wedgie01]

Hi All,

Building the 1/200 Arizona and am curious to know if the inside of the rectangular main deck hatches were painted white. I plan to model a number of these hatches open using the Eduard PE braces, and just want to get the detail as accurate as possible.

All advice welcome.

[Tracy White]

Yes and no. As far as we know the interior surfaces were painted white (we're finding more evidence of silver in interior compartments but not enough to consistently change common wisdom), however the actual hatches opened to an open space, so the walls of the hatch opening would actually be open air a few inches below the deck. Painting that as shadow accurately, however, will be interesting.....

[Jeff Sharp]

Perhaps this image of Portland on 12/7/41 will help a bit.
http://images.google.com/hosted/life/13 ... 81392.html

[Tracy White]

Proving that a picture is worth a thousand words....

[Wedgie01]

Hi Tracy and Jeff,

Thanks for your replies. They were extremely helpful and appreciated.

One more query; modelling the aviation fuel line running the port side; I've found the following photo of Arizona in dry dock (not dated) and it appears the fuel line runs much further towards the bow and snakes higher up the upper hull than I had previously seen modelled, or in any other pics.

Do you believe this is, in fact, the run of the fuel line, or just some interesting shadowing effect?

http://i1.wp.com/historyinfotos.com/wp- ... 12/932.jpg

[Mgunns]

That is an early photo of Arizona. The fuel line is best seen in the image below taken at Puget Sound in January of 1941.

[Jeff Sharp]

The aviation fuel line ran differently in 1935-36. Sometime after that time period it was re-routed to the way we see it in the 1941 photo. Here is a film clip following the path of the fuel line in 1935. The camera takes us from stern to bow. Oddly enough, the sailor sitting at the beginning of the film is almost in the exact location as the sailor sitting in the 1941 pick. Also notice the bars over the porthole at the end of the film. This is where the "Isolation Ward" was.
http://www.gettyimages.com/videos/51159 ... st#license

[Wedgie01]

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for the reference. That is an awesome video with excellent details shown. Makes me feel like I need to go bigger than 1/200 just to capture some of those features.

[tmfdmike]

First post here so be gentle with the fireman

I'm about to start a build of the Trumpeter 1/200 Arizona. I've done a survey of the subject and perused a few build logs and I'm minded to avoid the entire 'what colour' controversy by going for an early 1941 ship. But I've turned something intriguing up which I'd like some clarification on.

I've read Jeff Sharp's build log of his amazing example: viewtopic.php?f=60&t=154513

A couple of the photos there have me rubbing my eyes, asking myself if I'm seeing what I think I'm seeing, and wondering: what colour were the turrets?

This period shot appears to show a turret that's considerably lighter than the superstructure:



And this period shot makes them look almost white:



I thought... OK, glare, old film not handling highlights... but then I saw a photo from Leftie of (presumably) his build:



Which appears to show something very similar; turrets several shades lighter than superstructure.

But in actual documentation I can't find any evidence that turrets were painted a lighter shade (?? 5-L ??) or indeed any different shade to the rest of the vertical metalwork.

So what's the story? Is there something I've missed? Or just a trick of the light? Thanks for any pointers anyone can give!

[JCRAY]

Turrets photograph lighter due to their rounded, angular shape. #5 standard grey can look like white in photos. They are the same paint.
HTH John

[Tracy White]

Hello...ello..ello...ECHO...echo...echo

[JCRAY]

Is there an echo on here today?

[Jeff Sharp]

A few years back the USNI published an article by John F. De Virgilio titled "Seven Seconds to Infamy". This article described the two high level bombing attacks on the USS Arizona. He describes the five plane V formation of each bomb run and supplies a drawing of the location of all ten bombs that were dropped on Arizona and Vestal.



In this article he credits Pilot Tadashi Kusumi and bombardier Shojiro Kondo for the fateful bomb that destroyed Arizona. In his drawing, he circles the 2nd plane in the formation as being the plane to deliver said bomb.

Below, is another artists interpretation of the 1st bomb run on the stern of Arizona, then a crop of the very famous photo of these bombs exploding on and around the stern, then finally another cropped (not often seen) image from a high level bomber. In this last image things are a little bit tougher to make out due to the cloud cover but you can see that this image is also before Arizona exploded. In this photo you can still see the disturbance in the water where bomb #1 of the 1st bomb run hit. But the most interesting thing about this image is that there appears to be two bomb geysers in the water, one to the far left of this image and one to the far right. Assuming these geysers are from bombs #1 and #5 of the 2nd bomb run, we can now accurately plot the location of 4 of the five bombs. The other two known bombs landed on Arizona and Vestal.
Going back to the second photo, I marked the location of the geysers and the location of the bomb hits on Arizona and Vestal. If you equally space out the bombs, then the logical location of the unaccounted for bomb is in the water in-between the first geyser bomb and the Arizona bomb. This would indicate that the fateful bomb came from the 3rd (lead) plane in the formation, not the 2nd plane as De Virgilio suggests. The question I have now is...Who was in that 3rd plane?




There is no doubt in my mind this last photo was taken just an instant before Arizona exploded.

[David_Aiken]

Aloha All,
BATTLESHIP ARIZONA by Paul Stillwell (USNI 1989) was the initial presentation of the IJN bomb drops on USS AZ and USS VESTAL. I provided the IJN formations and John provided the splash analysis.

John had also done a dive on the ship as part of a Park Service dive...to measure the AFT holes. ALL were 'OUTGOING' except one 'INCOMING' (diameter was correct).

John then made his analysis "Seven Seconds to Infamy" for USNI PROCEEDINGS. He made an assumption on the formation ROTATION. There were TWO types of rotation...to bring the assigned/trained bombardier to the LEAD location. That bombardier was flying in the B5N in the #2 position (looking at your right hand's fingernails , this would be the index finger nail).

To move his plane to the lead position...one of TWO versions were used: 1) all five planes rotated...the thumb nail moved to the index finger position, etc or 2) just the three planes moved ...middle finger nail moved to ring finger while the index moved to the middle finger position. Hope this did not confuse you.

Of interest, the HIRYU leader who TRAINED the two bombardiers was Hirata MATSUMURA. John and I BOTH interviewed MATSUMURA in person. He used both versions in training, yet never confirmed which was selected by his two students. This threw our study into confusion for those who seemed to require to know "the dastardly evil person" to blame for the ship's demise. John chose one of the two formation changes.

NOW we come to the splash just off the port bow of USS AZ. The analysis made by your source has ignored that splash. This new study suggests that a fifth bomb hit far to starboard of USS AZ. Thus the evidence of that port splash should be addressed by your source. HTH

Oh, have you read my "Torpedoing Pearl Harbor", Military History mag, Dec 2001? All the torpedo planes are cited with the attack order and losses. Here are my latest articles:
http://www.flightjournal-digital.com/fl ... pg=48#pg48
http://www.flightjournal-digital.com/fl ... pg56Cheers,

David Aiken
student of 7 Dec 1941

[hondaman117]

Going back to the second photo, I marked the location of the geysers and the location of the bomb hits on Arizona and Vestal. If you equally space out the bombs, then the logical location of the unaccounted for bomb is in the water in-between the first geyser bomb and the Arizona bomb. This would indicate that the fateful bomb came from the 3rd (lead) plane in the formation, not the 2nd plane as De Virgilio suggests. The question I have now is...Who was in that 3rd plane?

I watched this show when it came out, but I found it online a while ago, Pearl Harbor Declassified. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2kcdos

If you go to about the 29:00 mark, they have some good images of the infamous Arizona exploding video, but that has been remastered to HD. Granted, the video in the link is not HD, but it is still an improvement over the old footage.

At one point, they are talking about the shape of the bombing runs, and they make the same conclusion as you. They state that it appears that 2 bomb splashes can bee seen before Arizona explodes, and that the 3rd (Center) plane dropped the bomb that made the fatal hit.

You can also see how the forward superstructure lifts up during the blast, then free falls back down to it's final position. Among other details, it puts into perspective how powerful the explosion really was.