A submarine deck, not a battleship: Nimitz takes the Pacific Fleet, 31 December 1941

[TheIronDiaries]

31 December 1941, Pearl Harbor Submarine Base. The change of command ceremony for the Pacific Fleet was held on the deck of the submarine Grayling, because there was no battleship deck left to hold it on.

I put together a short documentary on the shakeup that put Nimitz in command, and on King rising above him the day before. Kimmel relieved, Pye holding the fleet in between, and then a submariner taking over a fleet whose battleships were sunk or burning.

The part that stayed with me is the choice of deck itself. It reads like an admission of how bad things were, and also like a statement about what the Navy still had left to fight with.

Video here:
View: https://youtu.be/QFStWx8xT2A

Happy to be corrected on any detail. Sources are in the description.

 

[GrauGeist]

My Uncle Fred served aboard the Grayling (SS-209), going aboard for her second patrol (March '42) assigned as the boat's steward and torpedoman.
He and a shipmate missed the boat when it had emergency orders to pull out of Freemantle in July '43, which saved their lives as the Grayling was lost on that patrol.

A fun fact: the Grayling was attacked by Midway based B-17s while surfaced on picket during the battle of Midway.
The B-17 crews reported sinking a Japanese cruiser, which sank literally in seconds. Fortunately, the Grayling's crash-dive drills paid off...

 

[EwenS]

31 December 1941, Pearl Harbor Submarine Base. The change of command ceremony for the Pacific Fleet was held on the deck of the submarine Grayling, because there was no battleship deck left to hold it on.

I put together a short documentary on the shakeup that put Nimitz in command, and on King rising above him the day before. Kimmel relieved, Pye holding the fleet in between, and then a submariner taking over a fleet whose battleships were sunk or burning.

The part that stayed with me is the choice of deck itself. It reads like an admission of how bad things were, and also like a statement about what the Navy still had left to fight with.

Video here:
View: https://youtu.be/QFStWx8xT2A

Happy to be corrected on any detail. Sources are in the description.

What is not generally appreciated is how quickly the US Pacific Fleet battleship force recovered.

Colorado missed PH as she was in refit at Puget Sound at the time. She was ready for sea again by the end of March 1942.

Pennsylvania was in dry dock at PH on 7th Dec 1941 and was only lightly damaged. She was undocked on 12th Dec and sailed for San Francisco on 20th along with Maryland and Tennessee. Her repairs were complete by 14th Feb 1942.

Maryland arrived at Puget Sound on 30th Dec 1941. Repairs and modernisation were completed by 26th Feb 1942. Tennessee also went to Puget Sound arriving 29th Dec 1941. Her repairs were completed by 25th Feb 1942.

Nevada, California and West Virginia took a bit longer to salvage and return to the West Coast for reconstruction.

The three New Mexico class battleships were transferred from the Atlantic to the Pacific Fleet. New Mexico reached the Pacific in Jan 1942 and was at San Francisco by March. Idaho left Iceland two days after PH and arrived at San Francisco on 31st Jan 1942. Mississippi also left Iceland at the same time and reached San Francisco by 22nd Jan 1942.

So back to a force of 7 battleships by end of March 1942. Nearly the same number as present at PH on 7th Dec 1941.

These battleships formed TF 1 under Admiral Pye from 4th April 1942, working up and patrolling between Hawaii and the West Coast in case of further Japanese strikes. Why was more use not made of them? In a word Logistics. The Pacific Fleet had few replenishment oilers at that time. Those it did have were needed to support the various fast carrier strikes that took place across the Pacific in the first few months of 1942 Again another little discussed series of operations.