Construction Oklahomas
keel was laid down on 26 October 1912, by the
New York Shipbuilding Corporation of
Camden, New Jersey, which
bid $5,926,000 to construct the ship. By 12 December 1912, she was 11.2% complete, and by 13 July 1913, she was at 33%. She was
launched on 23 March 1914,
sponsored by Lorena J. Cruce, daughter of
Oklahoma Governor Lee Cruce. The launch was preceded by an
invocation, the first for an American warship in half a century, given by
Elijah Embree Hoss, and was attended by various dignitaries from Oklahoma and the federal government. She was subsequently moved to a dock near the new
Argentine battleship and
Chinese cruiser Fei Hung, soon to be the Greek , for
fitting-out. s On the night of 19 July 1915, large fires were discovered underneath the
fore main battery turret, the third to flare up on an American battleship in less than a month. However, by 22 July, the Navy believed that the
Oklahoma fire had been caused by "defective insulation" or a mistake made by a dockyard worker. The fire delayed the battleship's completion so much that
Nevada was able to conduct her
sea trials and be commissioned before
Oklahoma. On 23 October 1915, she was 98.1 percent complete. She was
commissioned at
Philadelphia, on 2 May 1916, with
Captain Roger Welles in command.
World War I Following commissioning, the ship remained along the East Coast of the United States, primarily visiting various Navy yards. At first, she was unable to join the
Battleship Division Nine task force sent to support the
Grand Fleet in the
North Sea during
World War I because oil was unavailable there. In 1917, she underwent a refit, with two
/50 caliber guns being installed forward of the mainmast for
antiaircraft defense and nine of the 5-inch/51 caliber guns being removed or repositioned. While conditions on the ship were cramped, the sailors on the ship had many advantages for education available to them. They also engaged in athletic competitions, including
boxing,
wrestling, and
rowing competitions with the crews of the battleship and the tug . The camaraderie built by these small competitions led to fleet-wide establishment of many athletic teams pitting crews against one another for morale by the 1930s. On 13 August 1918,
Oklahoma was assigned to Battleship Division Six under the command of
Rear Admiral Thomas S. Rodgers, and departed for Europe alongside
Nevada. On 23 August, they met with destroyers , , , , , and , west of Ireland, before steaming for
Berehaven, where they waited for 18 days before battleship arrived. The division remained at anchor, tasked to protect American convoys coming into the area, but was only called out of the harbor once in 80 days. On 14 October 1918, while under command of
Charles B. McVay Jr., she escorted troop ships into port at the United Kingdom, returning on 16 October. For the rest of the time, the ship conducted drills at anchor or in nearby
Bantry Bay. To pass the time, the crews played
American football and sailed competitively.
Oklahoma suffered six casualties between 21 October and 2 November to the
1918 flu pandemic.
Oklahoma remained off Berehaven until the end of the war on 11 November 1918. Shortly thereafter, several
Oklahoma crewmembers were involved in a series of fights with members of
Sinn Féin, forcing the ship's commander to apologize and financially compensate two town mayors.
Interwar period Oklahoma left for
Portland on 26 November, joined there by on 30 November,
Nevada on 4 December, and Battleship Division Nine's ships shortly after. The ships were assigned as a convoy escort for the
ocean liner , carrying President
Woodrow Wilson, and arrived with that ship in France several days later. She departed 14 December, for
New York City, and then spent early 1919 conducting winter battle drills off the coast of Cuba. On 15 June 1919, she returned to
Brest, escorting Wilson on a second trip, and returned to New York, on 8 July. A part of the Atlantic Fleet for the next two years,
Oklahoma was overhauled and her crew trained. The secondary battery was reduced from 20 to 12 5-inch/51 caliber guns in 1918. Early in 1921, she voyaged to South America's West Coast for combined
exercises with the
Pacific Fleet, and returned later that year for the Peruvian Centennial. She then joined the Pacific Fleet and, in 1925, began a high-profile training cruise with several other battleships. They left
San Francisco on 15 April 1925, arrived in Hawaii, on 27 April, where they conducted war games. They left for
Samoa, on 1 July, crossing the equator on 6 July. On 27 July, they arrived in Australia and conducted a number of exercises there, before spending time in New Zealand, returning to the United States later that year. In early 1927, she transited the
Panama Canal and moved to join the
Scouting Fleet. In November 1927, she entered the
Philadelphia Navy Yard for an extensive overhaul. She was modernized by adding eight
5-inch/25 cal guns, and her turrets' maximum elevation was raised from 15 to 30 degrees. An
aircraft catapult was installed atop turret No.3. She was also substantially up-armored between September 1927 and July 1929, with
anti-torpedo bulges added, as well as an additional of steel on her armor deck. The overhaul increased her beam to , the widest in the US Navy, and reduced her speed to .
Oklahoma rejoined the Scouting Fleet for exercises in the Caribbean, then returned to the West Coast in June 1930, for fleet operations through spring 1936. That summer, she carried midshipmen on a European training cruise, visiting northern ports. The cruise was interrupted by the outbreak of
civil war in Spain.
Oklahoma sailed to
Bilbao, arriving on 24 July 1936, to rescue American citizens and other
refugees whom she carried to
Gibraltar and French ports. She returned to
Norfolk on 11 September, and to the West Coast on 24 October. The Pacific Fleet operations of
Oklahoma during the next four years included joint operations with the
Army and the training of reservists.
Oklahoma was based at
Pearl Harbor from 29 December 1937, for patrols and exercises, and only twice returned to the mainland, once to have anti-aircraft guns and armor added to her superstructure at
Puget Sound Navy Yard in early February 1941, and once to have armor replaced at
San Pedro in mid-August of the same year. En route on 22 August, a severe storm hit
Oklahoma. One man was swept overboard and three others were injured. The next morning, a broken starboard propeller shaft forced the ship to halt, assess the damage, and sail to San Francisco, the closest navy yard with an adequate
drydock. She remained in drydock, undergoing repairs until mid-October. The ship then returned to Hawaii. The
Washington Naval Treaty had precluded the Navy from replacing
Oklahoma, leading to the series of refits to extend her lifespan. The ship was planned to be retired on 2 May 1942.
Attack on Pearl Harbor On 7 December 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor,
Oklahoma was moored in berth Fox 5, on
Battleship Row, in the outboard position alongside the battleship . She was immediately targeted by planes from the
Japanese aircraft carriers Akagi and
Kaga, and was struck by three torpedoes. The first and second hit seconds apart, striking amidships at approximately 07:50 or 07:53, below the waterline between the smokestack and mainmast. The torpedoes blew away a large section of her
anti-torpedo bulge and spilled oil from the adjacent fuel bunkers' sounding tubes, but neither penetrated the hull. About 80 men scrambled to man the AA guns on deck, but were unable to use them because the firing locks were in the armory. Most of the men manned battle stations below the ship's
waterline or sought shelter in the third deck, protocol during an aerial attack. The third torpedo struck at 08:00, near Frame 65, hitting close to where the first two did, penetrating the hull, destroying the adjacent fuel bunkers on the second platform deck and rupturing access trunks to the two forward boiler rooms as well as the transverse bulkhead to the aft boiler room and the longitudinal bulkhead of the two forward firing rooms. As she began to
capsize to port, two more torpedoes struck, and her men were
strafed as they abandoned ship. In less than twelve minutes, she rolled over until halted by her
masts touching bottom, her starboard side above water, and a part of her keel exposed. It's believed the ship absorbed as many as eight hits in all. Many of her crew, however, remained in the fight, clambering aboard
Maryland to help serve her anti-aircraft
batteries. Four hundred twenty-nine of her officers and enlisted men were killed or missing. One of those killed,
Father Aloysius Schmitt, was the first American
chaplain of any faith to die in
World War II. Thirty-two others were wounded, and many were trapped within the capsized hull. Efforts to rescue them began within minutes of the ship's capsizing and continued into the night, in several cases rescuing men trapped inside the ship for hours. Julio DeCastro, a Hawaiian civilian yard worker, organized a team that saved 32
Oklahoma sailors. This was a particularly tricky operation as cutting open the hull released trapped air, raising the water levels around entombed men, while cutting in the wrong places could ignite stored fuel. It is likely that some survivors were never reached in time. Some of those who died later had ships named after them, including
Ensign John C. England for whom and are named. was named for Ensign Charles M. Stern, Jr. was named for Chief Carpenter John Arnold Austin, who was also posthumously awarded the
Navy Cross for his actions during the attack. was named for Father Aloysius Schmitt. was named for Malcolm, Randolph, and Leroy Barber. In addition to Austin's Navy Cross, the
Medal of Honor was awarded to Ensign
Francis C. Flaherty and Seaman
James R. Ward, while three
Navy and Marine Corps Medals were awarded to others on
Oklahoma during the attack.
Salvage , with the ship halfway righted. By early 1942, it was determined that
Oklahoma could be salvaged and that she was a navigational hazard, having rolled into the harbor's navigational channel. Even though it was cost-prohibitive to do so, the job of
salvaging Oklahoma commenced on 15 July 1942, under the immediate command of Captain F. H. Whitaker, and a team from the
Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard. Preparations for righting the overturned hull took under eight months to complete. Air was pumped into interior chambers and improvised airlocks built into the ship, forcing of water out of the ship through the torpedo holes. of coral soil were deposited in front of her bow to prevent sliding and two barges were posted on either end of the ship to control the ship's rising. Twenty-one
derricks were attached to the upturned hull; each carried high-tensile steel cables that were connected to hydraulic winching machines ashore. The righting (
parbuckling) operation began on 8 March, and was completed by 16 June 1943. Teams of naval specialists then entered the previously submerged ship to remove human remains.
Cofferdams were then placed around the hull to allow basic repairs to be undertaken so that the ship could be refloated; this work was completed by November. On 28 December,
Oklahoma was towed into drydock No. 2, at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard. Once in the dock, her main guns, machinery, remaining ammunition, and stores were removed. The severest structural damage on the hull was also repaired to make the ship watertight. The US Navy deemed her too old and too heavily damaged to be returned to service.
Oklahoma was
decommissioned on 1 September 1944, and all remaining armaments and superstructure were then removed. She was then put up for auction at the
Brooklyn Navy Yard on 26 November 1946, with her engines, boilers, turbo generators, steering units and about of structural steel deemed salvageable. She was sold to Moore Drydock Co. of Oakland, California for $46,127.
Final voyage In May 1947, a two-tug towing operation began to move the hull of
Oklahoma from Pearl Harbor to
San Francisco Bay. She was due to arrive on Memorial Day (26 May); a delegation of nearly 500 Oklahomans led by Governor
Roy J. Turner planned to visit and pay final respects to the ship. Disaster struck on 17 May, when the ships entered a storm more than from Hawaii. The tug
Hercules put her searchlight on the former battleship, revealing that she had begun listing heavily. After radioing the naval base at Pearl Harbor, both tugs were instructed to turn around and head back to port. Without warning,
Hercules was pulled back past
Monarch, which was being dragged backwards at .
Oklahoma had begun to sink straight down, causing water to swamp the sterns of both tugs. Both tug skippers had fortunately loosened their cable drums connecting the tow lines to
Oklahoma. As the battleship sank rapidly, the line from
Monarch quickly played out, releasing the tug. However,
Hercules cables did not release until the last possible moment, leaving her tossing and pitching above the grave of the sunken
Oklahoma. The battleship's exact location is unknown. ==Memorials and recovery of remains==