Harold Stassen... there's a name we may see again.
Love the article on Pearl Harbor salvage. The Naval Historical Center has an excellent on-line library of photographs. The link to the general site (which I have bookmarked) is:
http://www.history.navy.mil/branches/org11-2.htm
There are a number of images at the site relating to the damaged ships of Pearl Harbor and the salvage operations. The salvage of the Oklahoma, in particular, was an impressive engineering feat and shows just how extensive the military resources of the United States were during the war. This ship could easily have been written off and left to rust while more important work was done on new ships. But we salvaged the hulk of a ship we were pretty sure would never see action at great expense and effort…because we could.
The link below shows photos of salvage of the USS Oklahoma:
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/wwii-pac/pearlhbr/ph-ok9.htm
The next link is of the damage and salvage of several other ships:
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/wwii-pac/pearlhbr/ph-salv.htm
The next link is photos of the salvage of the West Virginia:
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/wwii-pac/pearlhbr/ph-wv9.htm
Finally, this last link shows the before & after photos of West Virginia:
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-w/bb48.htm
As badly damaged as she was, the reconstruction was remarkable. She was fitted with modern radar and fire control, her secondary armament and anti-aircraft suite were upgraded to modern equipment and standards. Except for her speed, which was not significantly upgraded, Wee Vee came out of the reconstruction a modern battleship. So too did Tennessee and California. Oddly enough, the ships at Pearl that had the least damage (Nevada, Pennsylvania) were also the least upgraded during the war.
...and again....and again...and again....