Ahead of the 80th Anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, in which a Japanese surprise attack killed over two thousand Americans, it is worth taking a look at the role that the Navy's salvage divers played in helping to recover sailors and helping the Navy bounce back as best as it could in the wake of tragedy.
After the attack on Dec. 7, 1941, Navy divers were rushed to Hawaii to begin recovery operations. Back in those days, they didn't have oxygen tanks and modern SCUBA gear. This was the era of brass hard hats diving in heavy canvas suits.
The divers worked to recover three battleships, three cruisers, and two destroyers raising them up and preparing them for repairs and eventual re-entry into active service.
Tens of thousands of hours were spent submerged underwater during the course of over 4,000 dives, the sailors pawing their way through the dark oil clouded wrecks while being confronted with ghastly scenes of death.
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When Navy diver Ken Hartle passed away at the age of 103, his family recalled the one aspect of the job that he never wanted to talk about was recovering the remains of the sailors killed at Pearl Harbor. His son said of his late father that, "he would only say that the hardest part of the job was 'bringing up our boys.'"
Amid the recovery of perished sailors and working in oil slicks, the divers also had to recover tons of ammunition that had sunk with the ships before they could be raised back to the surface. Some of those shells could weigh up to 2,000 pounds each.
Despite the many hardships they encountered, the Pearl Harbor recovery effort is considered one of the greatest salvage operations in history and helped the Navy bounce back from a demoralizing defeat.
Today, the Navy continues to train and deploy salvage divers, Explosive Ordinance Detachment divers, and saturation divers each with their own specialized mission. All of them have a unique and courageous legacy to reflect on that stretches back to some of America's darkest days.
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Reach Jack Murphy: jack@connectingvets.com or @JackMurphyRGR.