The Uncle He Never Met: Norfolk Resident Recalls Relative Who Perished During Pearl Harbor Attack

By Max Lonzanida
HRNM Public Affairs Officer

A cigar box contains letters and telegrams from the West Coast and Pearl Harbor, newspaper clippings of the Japanese attacks at Pearl Harbor, and a locket with a photo of the uncle he never met. These were some of the mementoes shared by 72-year-old Michael Jacobs of his uncle, Boiler Maker Second Class Wiley James Petway. Twenty-three-year-old Petway paid the ultimate sacrifice 80 years ago when his ship, USS Oklahoma (BB 37), sustained torpedo hits and capsized at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

Michael Jacobs reads from some of the letters and telegrams from his uncle, Boiler Maker Second Class Wiley James Petway. (Max Lonzanida)

That uncle is interred locally at Hampton National Cemetery. Jacobs shared some of his insights on his quest to learn more about Petway’s life and service to our nation: “My uncle died eight years before I was born. I was named after my uncle. He was known as James, and my first name is James. James Michael Jacobs,” he began as he laid out some envelopes on the table containing letters and telegrams Petway had sent home.

Wiley James Petway, shortly after enlistment in the U.S. Navy. (Courtesy Michael Jacobs)

Petway was born on December 29, 1918, in Wilson, North Carolina. Jacobs reflected on his family’s move, before his birth, to the Hampton Roads area: “You either farmed or you didn’t [in Wilson]. It was pretty much like that. That’s why it was a migration up to this area because the shipyard was really big. . . . The whole family migrated: grandfather, grandmother, aunt, uncle. Dad worked in the shipyard.” The family’s move to Portsmouth was tied to the influx of jobs at the Norfolk Navy Yard.

In the years leading up to 1941, Newport News Shipbuilding and Norfolk Navy Yard were bustling with new warship construction. Sixteen of the warships present at Pearl Harbor in December 1941 were constructed in Hampton Roads. Amid the activity of workers, one might think that Jacobs’ father would have probably seen, worked on, or been around one of those warships that would eventually be sent to Pearl Harbor.

Records show that Petway enlisted in the U.S. Navy on May 21, 1936. He first reported aboard Oklahoma on October 2, 1936. At the time, Oklahoma was in the process of shifting operations from Norfolk to the West Coast and then eventually to Pearl Harbor. The battleship arrived at Pearl Harbor on December 6, 1940.

USS Oklahoma (Hampton Roads Naval Museum)

One letter, dated April 1938, describes Petway’s time on the West Coast. Jacobs read his uncle’s words: “This place is alright [California] for a visit, but duty here is not that good. After we get to Long Beach, the ship will stay for about a month and then we will go to Bremerton for 3 months. It rains all the rest of the year. I’m sending you a snapshot of myself, I tried to grow a cookie duster while on the cruise and you may think I was drinking chocolate malt, maybe I’m not a man yet. Tell daddy hello for me.”

On June 15, 1940, Petway married Gwen Evans in Yuma County, Arizona. Gwen, Jacobs noted, was the aunt he never met. Jacobs brought out a browned envelope dated December 3, 1941, mailed by his grandmother to Petway at Pearl Harbor. The letter never reached its intended recipient and was returned. Jacobs read the words written by his grandmother: “It won’t be before about 6 more weeks when you and Gwen will be coming here [to Norfolk] to visit…If you find a surprise in here, then it won’t be a surprise anymore. $150 as a wedding present for you and Gwen.”

That wedding present, along with his mother’s words, never reached Petway, as he was one of the 429 Sailors who perished when Oklahoma sank. On December 7, 1941, over 2,000 U.S. service members perished. The majority of those were the 1,177 U.S. Navy Sailors who died aboard USS Arizona (BB 39). At the time of the attack, USS Oklahoma was one of the Navy’s oldest battleships. Oklahoma was built in Camden, New Jersey, and commissioned in May 1916. The battleship was among the first of the Navy’s large combatants built to burn fuel oil in its twelve Babcock and Wilcox boilers. Petway would have stood watch and tended to those boilers, which supplied power to the battleship. Oklahoma was also one of the first to have its boilers, engine spaces, and magazines enclosed with 13.5 inches of reinforced armor belt. This reinforcement, however, was no match for the torpedoes dropped by attacking Japanese aircraft. Oklahoma bore the brunt of torpedo strikes and strafing runs and capsized.

USS Oklahoma, capsized at Pearl Harbor (NHHC)

Petway was aboard Oklahoma when the ship capsized, and he died immediately, just twenty days shy of his 24th birthday. He was one of the 35 Sailors whose remains were initially identified and buried at Oahu’s Nu’uanu Naval Cemetery and Halawa Naval Cemetery. Eventually, over 400 of Oklahoma’s Sailors would be buried at 52 locations spread over the two cemeteries from December 9, 1941, through June 27, 1944. The burials coincided with efforts to upend and salvage the ship.

Jacobs discussed how his family was notified of his uncle’s death, noting, “I think they got a telegram [about his death]. Other than that, my grandmother was beside herself. Greatly depressed.” His grandparents’ marriage eventually dissolved, in part because of the devastation that fell upon the family in the aftermath of his uncle’s death.

Wiley Jacobs (father), Melba Jacobs (sister), Lydia Eason Petway (mother), Ann Jacobs (sister), Wiley James Petway (Courtesy Michael Jacobs)

Repatriation stateside began after the cessation of hostilities. Petway’s remains were among the first to be disinterred and brought to Oahu’s Schofield Barracks. From there, his remains, along with caskets containing 3,012 deceased service members, were loaded aboard the Army transport ship, USAT Honda Knot. Honda Knot was a C1-M-AV1 type merchant ship, one of over 200 built for the US Maritime Commission during World War II. The 338-foot-long cargo ship was originally constructed to transport cargo; however, on this occasion, it was assigned the solemn role of transporting the first sets of remains to the West Coast as part of the Army’s operation to bring home deceased and buried servicemembers from overseas. The operation would transport over 233,000 deceased service members home from 1945 to 1951.

Honda Knot departed Oahu on September 30, 1947. As was custom, every ship at Pearl Harbor brought its flags to half-mast and crews rendered honors as the ship departed. The transport steamed at a top speed of 11 knots and reached San Francisco on October 10, 1947. An aerial escort of 48 fighter planes flew over the vessel before dipping their wings and banking away. A Coast Guard cutter, along with a Navy warship, escorted Honda Knot to its anchorage. Waiting on shore was a crowd of thousands of civilians and service members, many of whom were family members of the deceased. San Francisco’s mayor, Roger Lepham, led a memorial service, which was attended by then Secretary of the Navy John L. Sullivan and General Mark Clark, Commandant of the 6th U.S. Army Corps.

Petway’s remains arrived in Hampton, Virginia, on either October 21 or 22, 1947. A newspaper article, with the headline, “Five War Dead From This Area Brought to U.S.,” detailed Petway’s arrival and subsequent burial. Another newspaper article titled, “War Hero’s Funeral at Hampton Tomorrow,” read: “Funeral services for a heroic victim of World War II will be conducted graveside in the National Cemetery at Hampton tomorrow [October 24, 1947] at 1:30 p.m. The body of Wiley James Petway, Boiler Maker second class, U.S.N., who was killed at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, arrived this afternoon after a long journey homeward from the Pacific. He was aboard the U.S.S. Oklahoma, awaiting transportation home for a 30-day furlough after having decided to re-enlist for another four years. He was the son of Mr. and Mrs. W.E. Petway, 428 West Twenty-seventh street.”

Jacobs noted, “I don’t know why [my uncle] went into the service. I don’t if he decided if the military was a job and it was a way out of North Carolina. I don’t know if he was patriotic and if there was a call to defend our country. I know what was important is that he went in, he served his country with honor, and he paid the ultimate sacrifice.”

Let us remember Wiley James Petway and all those who lost their lives during the attack on Pearl Harbor eighty years ago.

Before the Pearl Harbor Attack, the "Sleeping Giant" was Actually Hard at Work in Hampton Roads

Each year the first week of December is one in which the mass media dutifully reminds the American public of the infamous Japanese attack upon American military facilities on the island of Oahu and the over 2,000 Americans who perished on December 7, 1941.  One way to do that is to broadcast documentaries and feature films about it.  One of them, Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970), has for generations taught the public about the attack.  In an iconic scene near the end of the movie, the architect of the successful attack, Admiral Isoruoku Yamamoto (Soh Yamamura), ruefully opines afterward, "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with terrible resolve."

Note that this message that reached Naval Air Station Norfolk on the afternoon of December 7, 1941, is devoid of details.  It gets straight to the point, merely instructing all recipients to "EXECUTE WPL FORTY SIX (Also known as War Plan Rainbow Five) AGAINST JAPAN."  War Plan Rainbow Five, a highly detailed set of instructions on how to respond to a specific attack scenario in a particular geographic area, had been promulgated to the fleet by Chief of Naval Operations Harold Stark on May 26, 1941.  On November 27, Stark issued a "war warning" to all American naval forces in the Pacific to "[e]xecute an appropriate defensive deployment preparatory to carrying out the tasks assigned in WPL 46." A young naval officer from Tennessee named William B. Wingo was Officer of the Day (OOD) when this message reached NAS Norfolk.  He served another two decades in the Navy, active and reserve, while making Norfolk his home for another half-century.  He died in 1994.  (Courtesy the Sargeant Memorial Collection, Norfolk Public Library)

The apocryphal line says less about what Yamamoto really said aboard the Japanese battleship Nagato in December 1941 and more about the beliefs of some Hollywood producers and writers nearly three decades later.  With this in mind it seems that they believed that Americans collectively refused to get involved in the war until after American territory was attacked.   But was America really so "America First" in 1941?  Some academics and reporters seem to think so, 75 years on.  A recent Florida State University news release called the attacks “a brutal salvo that forced the United States into the fray of World War II,” and a national security writer for US News and World Report recently wrote of the attack's significance: “Pearl Harbor was supposed to serve as a lesson that American popular disapproval for going to war should not have allowed its government to fail in preparing for one.”

This widely held assumption about prewar American ill-preparedness ignores abundant evidence that thousands if not millions of Americans had been actively preparing the nation for a war that presidents from Theodore Roosevelt onward to his cousin Franklin knew the nation had to be ready for. And ready, the nation was. You would be hard pressed to find a better example of this prewar preparation than in Hampton Roads, where by mid-1941, one could hardly be blamed for thinking that the nation was already at war.  In fact, local shipyard workers and Sailors had been preparing since President Herbert Hoover ordered a significant part of the Atlantic Squadron transferred from Norfolk to the Pacific in 1931 during his administration’s Asia pivot to counter Japanese expansionism. 

Norfolk Naval Shipyard in 1941 was bustling with activity, just as it had been for several years, with the battleship Alabama (BB-60) under construction and several other battleships, including USS New York (BB-34), undergoing modernization. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum Photograph)

The shift of so many ships from Norfolk had hit the local economy pretty hard at first, just as the Great Depression was entering its darkest days.  Rents and the cost of living dropped over 20 percent over the next few years, yet by 1935, they started to rise again, thanks to shipyard and construction  jobs springing up in the defense sector.  Because of the passage of the National Industrial Recovery Act and the Vinson-Trammell Act during the decade preceding the Pearl Harbor attack, not to mention the Naval Act of 1938, Norfolk Navy Yard and what is now Newport News Shipbuilding spent the decade making up for the warship tonnage lost as a result of Hoover’s Asia pivot, hiring many thousands in the process.  Norfolk Navy Yard built nine destroyers during the 1930s as its workforce expanded to 7,625 by September 1, 1939, when World War II actually began in Europe.  By 1940, 1,000 employees were being added to the shipyard’s rolls every month.  Newport News Shipyard increased from 6,500 workers in 1935 to more than 10,000 in 1940. 

Still being painted before her first war deployment, USS Indiana (BB-58) is shown here in September 1942 off Old Point Comfort, with Fort Monroe and the Chamberlin Hotel in the background. (Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph)

Throughout 1941, the naval expansion was bearing fruit. On February 1, after an 18-year hiatus, the United States Atlantic Fleet was resurrected as a command under Admiral Ernest King. By mid-March, King commanded 159 ships.  By October 20, when the aircraft carrier Hornet (CV-8), built at Newport News Shipbuilding, was commissioned under the command of Capt. Marc A. "Pete" Mitscher, the Atlantic Fleet had more than doubled, to 355 ships.  The battleship Indiana (BB-58) was launched in Newport News on November 21, while her sister ship Alabama (BB-60) was only a few months away from launching in Norfolk when news of the Pearl Harbor attack broke over local radio at a little after 2 pm on December 7.  

This aerial photograph of Sewells Point shows the nearly complete landing field at Naval Air Station Norfolk on May 13, 1941, located on 1,041 acres of newly-acquired land between Mason Creek at lower right and the rapidly disappearing Boush Creek (spelled “Bush” on some older maps) in the middle of the photograph, which once separated the new runways from the original Naval Operating Base area and older Chambers Field runways in the background. Newport News can be seen on the horizon. Boush Creek would completely disappear during subsequent construction and the mouth of Mason Creek would be covered by the rapidly expanding air station. The project was spearheaded by the Virginia Engineering Corporation of Newport News, which was awarded on June 29, 1940, the largest construction contract in Norfolk’s history up to that time, ultimately totaling almost $75 million. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum Photograph)

As seen from the control tower at Naval Air Station Norfolk (which was still under construction at the time) on May 28, 1941, the first aircraft touches down on the new landing field being built by the Virginia Engineering Corporation of Newport News.  (Hampton Roads Naval Museum Photograph)

During 1940 and 1941, the Naval Operating Base at Sewells Point was virtually doubling in size with the acquisition of land for a new South Annex. Naval Air Station Norfolk had also added about 1,500 acres of runways to the east of the base in the past year and a half, absorbing even Norfolk's old commercial airport. Between 1938 and 1941, NAS Norfolk had already provided aircrews, material, maintenance, training and repair capability for two carriers built in Newport News during the 1930s, Ranger (CV-4), and Yorktown (CV-5), as well as the aircraft carrier Wasp (CV-7).
 
Among the six battle-weary British warships that paid call in Hampton Roads for vital repairs during the summer of 1941, the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious had arrived for repairs and structural modifications at Norfolk Naval Shipyard on May 12, so British pilots from Illustrious and a sister ship, HMS Formidable, which arrived August 25, were likely some of the first to benefit from the major expansion of the air station’s runways and hangars, as well as its aircraft testing and repair facilities, that were completed that summer. Royal Navy Captain Lord Louis Mountbatten arrived to take command of Illustrious at a ceremony at the yard on August 28, 1941. Norfolk was only one of the locations Lord Mountbatten visited on his speaking tour across the America, professing his belief to the consternation of some senior American military leaders that Pearl Harbor was vulnerable to surprise attack. Both carriers left the area for Europe, reinvigorated and ready for battle, shortly after the official American entry into the war.

In addition to the major expansion of existing naval facilities in the area, new bases which still serve the fleet today came into being during the months leading up to the Pearl Harbor attack.  Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek had been commissioned on September 2, and Anti-Aircraft training and Test Center, Dam Neck, was completed on November 29, 1941.  Within months, work would also begin on another new facility, Camp Peary, near Williamsburg, which would train members of some of the Navy's first Mobile Construction Battalions, known later as Seabees.

More ships, planes, shore stations and runways meant that more Sailors were needed in a hurry, and recruits were being brought to Hampton Roads in exponentially larger numbers. By 1940, the traditional areas of downtown Norfolk open to Sailors could no longer hold them. The downtown Norfolk YMCA, for example, recorded 213,000 more Sailors entering its doors than it had just a year earlier. In addition to the hordes of single Sailors, Rear Adm. Joseph K. Taussig, who as commandant of the Fifth Naval District led the effort to prepare Naval Operating Base Norfolk for the Second World War, estimated that there were 7,500 married Navy personnel with over 22,000 dependents in the area, not accounting for those who wanted also to bring their families to the area but could not for want of housing.  In response he and Rear Adm. Ben Moreel, head of the Bureau of Yards and Docks (and later the founder of the Seabees), launched the first Navy efforts to construct housing for its own enlisted members on a large scale.

Although the evidence is clear that preparations for war were in full swing by late-1941, it would be no exaggeration to say that, at least for the United States Navy, an undeclared war with Germany had already begun. German U-boats were prowling off the east coast, dodging the neutrality patrols that had been instituted under the order of President Roosevelt in 1939. The destroyer Greer (DD-145) had narrowly missed being torpedoed in September 1941 after chasing a German submarine with the help of British planes. In response, Roosevelt had issued “shoot on sight” orders for all US vessels on patrol. He then ordered that destroyers of the Atlantic Fleet relieve their British counterparts on convoy escort duty to Iceland, escalating the potential for armed hostilities between American destroyers of the new Support Force and German submarines. On October 17, seven Sailors were killed when the Norfolk-based destroyer Kearny (DD-432) sustained a torpedo hit, and on the 31st, USS Reuben James (DD-245) sank into the frigid waters off Iceland after a torpedo attack, taking 115 of her crew with her. Although actual declarations of war would be voted upon by Congress against Japan and the other Axis powers about seven weeks later, it is safe to say that Hampton Roads was already playing the role it would play throughout the war for months, if not years, beforehand.
 
December 7 is a time to remember those who lost their lives in America’s far-flung Pacific outposts after one of the worst tactical intelligence failures in American history, yet should we not also bring to remembrance those who paved the path to victory, and paid the ultimate price, before that fateful morning? Their hard work and sacrifice made it possible to bomb Tokyo a little over four months later and strategically turn the tide of the war only two months after that (something Adm. Yamamoto actually predicted could happen), and place victorious American troops firmly in control of the Japanese home islands less then four years later. Improvement in intelligence collection and analysis deservedly receives credit for the victory at Midway six months after Pearl Harbor, but without the "giant" building, modernization, and expansion programs begun years before the Pearl Harbor attack, much of which were carried out in Hampton Roads, that intelligence would not have been actionable.

Pier side scene taken from USS Ranger (CV-4) at Naval Operating Base Norfolk on September 20, 1941, showing a Grumman J2F-5 "Duck" being hoisted from the pier. Note spare SOC-1 floats (foreground); Grumman F4F -3s in background. Ship at upper right is USS WYOMING (AG-17); unidentified AO is at near right. Also note family members on pier (lower right) and civilian trucks at various points on the pier. Although the largest carrier in the Atlantic Fleet, because of her size and capability, Ranger never joined the fight against Japan. (Naval History and Heritage Command Image)

Pearl Harbor Battleships, Part I



New York Times announces
contract awards to Newport News
for West Virgina and Maryland.

Despite its physical distance from Pearl Harbor, the Hampton Roads area has long been known for its strong ties to many ships stationed in the Pacific.  When Japan launched its surprise attack against the U.S. Naval base at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the enemy targeted the eight battleships moored near one another.  Many of those battleships were either stationed, built, or overhauled in Hampton Roads before being sent out to the Pacific Fleet in the late 1930s.  Today and tommorow, we will be featuring photographs of those ships in remembrance of their sacrifice.

First are USS Maryland (BB-46) and West Virginia (BB-48).  Newport News Shipbuilding constructed and launched the 33,000-ton Maryland on March 20, 1920, and West Virginia on November 19, 1921. Observers considered them technological wonders of the age.  Not only did they come equipped with the most powerful guns in the Navy's inventory (Mk 6 16-inch/45), but they also came equipped with an all-electric drive that more efficiently linked the ships' fire rooms and boilers with the shaft and propellers.  This resulted in a savings in space and additional control over the speed of the ship. 

Maryland on Newport News'
building ways.

However, like all state-of-the-art technology, the ships were expensive.  Each vessel cost the American taxpayers about $40,000,000 (the Navy's total budget between 1920 and 1922 averaged about $700,000,000 a year, with major reductions on the horizon).  Because of the naval arms limitations talks taking place in Washington, many people feared that both ships would never actually make it to the fleet.  One reporter wrote, "West Virginia (BB-48), the newest addition to Uncle Sam's navy and the seventh of the electric battleships, launched at Newport News last Saturday and destined to grace the scrap pile within a few months under the naval reduction program. If the American plan is agreed to, the new $40,000,000 dreadnought, now 60 percent complete, will never be finished."

But the Navy spared both ships from the Washington Naval Treaty axe and commissioned them into the fleet.  After spending the 1920s in Hampton Roads, the Navy redeployed both vessels to the Pacific Fleet in the 1930s. 

West Virginia (at left) at Newport News Shipbuilding, 1923.  The larger ship at right is
 the giant 54,000-ton SS Leviathan. 



USS Nevada in Hampton Roads, 1927, during a Naval Review

The third ship to mention is USS Nevada (BB-36).  Built in 1914, Nevada was based in Hampton Roads for much of World War I. Under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty, the U.S. Navy needed to decide whether to build new battleships and scrap the old ones, or upgrade the old ones and scrap battleships under construction.  It chose the second option.

Nevada arrived at Norfolk Naval Shipyard (NNSY) in 1929 and received a major technological upgrade.  Workers added two inches of deck armor; ten new five-inch guns for anti-aircraft (this was found to be seriously inadequate in the days after Pearl Harbor); retrofitted 14-inch guns to allow them to increase their elevation to 30 degrees; and received new geared turbines that had been originally slated for North Dakota (BB-29).  NNSY workers completed the job by the spring of 1930 and the ship immediately headed for the Pacific.

USS Nevada (far side of picture) at Norfolk Naval Shipyard, 1930.  
The ship on the near side is USS Arizona (BB-39). 

Battleship Gunnery at the Battle of Surigao Strait

This gunnery trophy plaque off USS West Virginia (BB-48) hangs in our World War II gallery. As can be seen on the plaque, West Virginia won it five times in the first ten years after it was commissioned in December 1923. Although the plaque dates from the interwar period, the sailors of West Virginia lived up to their ship’s tradition during WWII. Built at Newport News right after WWI, it was at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked on December 7, 1941. Rebuilt and brought back into service, the ship was part of the invasion fleet at Leyte Gulf in October 1944. Sailing alongside it were several other survivors of Pearl Harbor, including other Newport News-built battleships USS Maryland (BB-46) and USS Pennsylvania (BB-38).

In October 1944, the Japanese launched an all-out naval assault on the invasion fleet in Leyte Gulf. Their plan had multiple moving parts which led to problems. The Japanese divided their fleet into three sections. First a diversion force in the north would draw the main American force (under Halsey) away from the invasion fleet. Then two fleets would deploy in a pincer formation to attack the vulnerable landing and supply ships. The southern force (divided into two parts) was to head through the Surigao Strait.

Navy planes spotted and attacked the first part of the southern force under Vice Admiral Shoji Nishimura on the morning of October 24 as it cruised south of the Philippine island of Negros. The detection of this force allowed Admiral Jesse B. Oldendorf, in charge of bombardment/fire support for the invasion fleet, to set a trap for when the enemy force entered Surigao Strait that night. First the Japanese fleet had to make it through PT (patrol torpedo) boat attacks, then a crossfire of more torpedoes launched from destroyers, before having to deal with both a line of cruisers and a line of battleships, which would be maneuvering in the classic naval tactic of “crossing the T.” This tactic would allow for the greatest number of guns to bear on the Japanese while their return fire was largely limited to the lead ship. Besides West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, the American battleship force included two other Pearl Harbor survivors: USS Tennessee (BB-43) and USS California (BB-44). The sixth battleship included in the force was the Newport News-built battleship USS Mississippi (BB-41), which was doing escort duty near Iceland when the war started.

As the Japanese fleet headed into Surigao Strait, the torpedoes from the PT boats missed, but the destroyers had much better success. The U.S. destroyers were deadly with their torpedo attack, as they sank the battleship Fuso (one of two in the first striking force) and a destroyer, crippled another destroyer, and damaged another destroyer enough that it limped back the way it came. The flagship Yamashiro was also damaged but continued on toward the strait, along with the cruiser Mogami and a remaining destroyer. The second half of the Japanese force (under Adm. Shima) was nearly 30 miles behind, as strict radio silence had prevented close coordination. 

As opposed to their predecessors who earned the gunnery plaque, the sailors onboard West Virginia were aided by a new fire control radar system (Mk 8) which enabled them to detect the enemy at a great distance. In the early morning hours of October 25, the ship’s radar picked up the Japanese force at 42,000 yards (nearly 24 miles, or the length of 140 football fields). By the time they had approached to 30,000 yards, the gunnery crews had a firing solution, and when the Japanese ships approached to about 26,000 yards (nearly 15 miles) away, the 16-inch guns opened fire shortly before 0400 on October 25.

Mogami was badly damaged at the Battle of Midway, so the two aft turrets were removed and it was converted to an “aircraft cruiser.”

Yamashiro was the focus of most of the fire emanating from the American battleships and cruisers. It was hit numerous times and quickly caught on fire. In addition to the gunfire pouring in, the Japanese battleship was struck by more torpedoes, and it sank less than 30 minutes after West Virginia opened fire. Mogami was also badly damaged and on fire. In roughly 15 minutes of engagement, the U.S. battleships alone fired 285 (16 or 14-inch) armor piercing shells. West Virginia expended near half of the armor piercing ammunition, firing 93 rounds from its eight 16-inch guns. The old battle wagons resurrected from Pearl Harbor had exacted their revenge on the Japanese navy.

Shima’s force arrived too late to assist Nishimura’s ships and quickly fled the scene. Some U.S. cruisers and destroyers pursued them, sinking another destroyer and causing fatal damage to Mogami. The Japanese thrust from the south had utterly failed, but the northern part of the pincer was still a major threat, although Adm. Halsey inexplicably ignored it. The consequences of this decision would be readily apparent when the sun came up east of Samar on October 25, 1944. 

In the Collection: Mark V Diving Helmet

By Nick Wieman
HRNM Volunteer

While humanity has been diving for thousands of years in search of food, pearls, and other treasures found on the sea floor, it wasn’t until the early 19th century when diving was no longer limited by the divers’ lung capacity or inflexibility of a diving bell. The invention and proliferation of reliable surface-supplied diving dress (diving suits with gases pumped from the surface) in the early 19th century revolutionized diving for commercial, scientific, and military purposes. While every seafaring nation had its own models of diving dress, the American Mark V diving dress would prove to be one of the most popular and recognizable models in the world, not just among divers but with the general public as well.

The US Navy had followed the lead of other navies in adopting diving suits in the mid-1800s, but until the early 1910s Navy divers were primarily utilized for underwater construction and repair of ships in harbor, with divers rarely going below 60 fsw (feet of seawater). With no standardized set of equipment, dives could become needlessly complicated by incompatible assortments from a wide range of commercial manufacturers. In 1912, Chief Gunner George D. Stillson established a program to test Scottish physician John Scott Haldane’s observations of stage decompression, with the broader goal of improving and professionalizing the US Navy’s diving program.

Stillson’s program yielded many firsts for the US Navy: the first official US Navy Diving Manual, published in 1916; the first official US Navy Diving School in Newport, Rhode Island (to be replaced by the Naval Diving and Salvage Training Center in 1941); and the deepest dive of any Navy diver yet, at 274 fsw. The program also introduced the first standard set of equipment for divers: the 1916 Mark V Diving Rig. Originally introduced in 1905 as a copy of the British Siebe-Gorman Davis Six Bolt Admiralty Pattern Helmet, the 1916 model implemented several key improvements, namely the telephone system and the “chin button” internal pressure regulator. Aside from small improvements in 1927 to reduce weight, and minor differences between manufacturers—Morse Diving Equipment Company and A. Schrader’s Son before WW2, additionally DESCO and the Miller Dunn Company after Pearl Harbor—the Mark V would remain unchanged as the standard diving system of the US Navy until the introduction of the Mark XII in 1984 and remains popular among commercial divers to this day.

Front view, Mark V diving helmet 

While scientific inquiry did its in part in furthering development of Navy diving, necessity has always been the mother of invention. The expansion of the Navy’s submarine fleets brought along with it a corresponding increase in submarine accidents, and an increased demand for skilled divers for rescue and salvage. The attack on Pearl Harbor signaled a new era for the Navy Diver; within an hour of the attack’s ending, divers were in the water, cutting open the capsized USS Oklahoma to rescue Sailors still trapped aboard the vessel, successfully rescuing 32 Sailors. Navy divers were crucial for the salvage and recovery efforts at Pearl Harbor, logging a cumulative 16,000 hours underwater and contributing to the successful salvage of 18 of the 21 ships lost or damaged during the attack; they would continue to play critical parts in salvaging both Allied and Axis shipwrecks throughout the course of the war. While not typically surface-supplied diving rigs, Navy divers in Construction Battalions (“Seabees”) were nevertheless crucial in building and maintaining the infrastructure necessary to conduct the island-hopping campaign in the Pacific.

U.S. Navy salvage unit clearing wreckage from Naples Harbor, October 22, 1943 (National Archives)

After the Second World War, surface-supplied diving continued its importance even with the advent of the Aqua-Lung and scuba systems in the late 1940s/early 1950s and the decline of dedicated naval salvage ships, becoming instrumental to several noteworthy scientific endeavors. Navy divers studied the wrecks of ships sunk during nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll during Operation Crossroads in 1946, carrying watertight Geiger counters that warned against radioactive hotspots. Navy Divers assisted in the recovery of the four hydrogen bombs lost off the coast of Palermos, Spain in 1966, alongside the DSV-2 Alvin submersible. Finally, US Navy divers were critical to the construction of several undersea research laboratories, including the three SEALAB and two Tektite projects; the latter Tektite projects led to the creation of the Seabees’ two dedicated Underwater Construction Teams.

Divers off USS Preserver preparing to do a visual survey of USS Saratoga at Bikini Atoll in 1947 (Lauren R. Donaldson collection, University of Washington)

This particular helmet in the Naval Museum’s collection is the Mark V Model 1 Diving Helmet, formerly owned by Lt. Albert J. Banasky. It measures roughly 20 inches in height from the upper viewport to the tip of the breastplate, 14 inches wide from either side viewport, 15 inches deep from the faceplate to the back of the helmet and weighs a solid 68 pounds of solid bronze and brass. The “bonnet,” or the part of the helmet that goes over the diver’s head, is a copper dome with four prominent glass viewports, roughly half an inch thick, covered by brass grills for protecting. The insignia on the breastplate reads, “US NAVY DIVING HELMET/MARK V-MOD.1/DIVING EQUIPMENT AND SALVAGE CO. INC /[MILWAUKEE WIS./1917/DATE 12 1 44/”. The helmet’s overall condition is good, exhibiting the greenish discoloration typical of bronze and brass due to prolonged oxidation, with only the insignia on the breastplate becoming more obscured.

Right side view of helmet

Running along the bottom of the helmet’s right side is the spring-loaded exhaust system, which regulated the air pressure within the diver’s suit. One spring automatically triggered when the internal pressure reached .5 pounds per square inch, or by the diver turning the external valve; another spring guarded against over pressurization. Both could be bypassed by a “chin button,” within the helmet, activated by the diver pressing against it with his chin (hence the name), opening the helmet for maximum air circulation. Air is expelled from the helmet through the exhaust port towards the back of the diver’s neck, which prevented bubbles from obscuring their vision.

Left side view of helmet

On the left side of the helmet is the aptly named spitcock, which allowed the diver to draw water into their helmet to spit on the viewport in case of fogging, or for blowing air out of the helmet to fine-tune air pressure. On the left side of the helmet’s back is the air inlet elbow, on the right the inlet for the telephone cable.

Divers wearing Mark V diving rig inter remains of USS Arizona survivor Lauren Bruner aboard the sunken Arizona, December 7, 2019 (Navy Times)

In one form or another, the Mark V has been a constant presence in the United States Navy since its introduction in 1916. While the Mark V may have been retired from active service in the United States Navy, it endures as a symbol of the diver’s heritage within the military. The Mark V features prominently in the insignia of the National Diving and Salvage Training Center, almost all diver insignias in the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard, and countless official and unofficial memorabilia relating to the Navy. More broadly, the Mark V has become the quintessential “diving suit,” an enduring symbol of undersea exploration and adventure in the popular consciousness.



Sources/Further Reading:
1. https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/d/diving-in-the-u-s-navy-a-brief-history.html
2. https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/communities/divers.html
3. https://navalunderseamuseum.org/mk-v/
4. Raymer, Edward C. Descent into Darkness: Pearl Harbor, 1941—A Navy Diver’s Memoir. US Naval Institute Press. 2015