[Fiddlstix]

Thanks for posting this

[jimtorr]

I wonder what Ballard says now?

[csvset]

Cool. Good shooting by the Ward's crew.

[csvset]

[Wolverine]

The original testimony:
http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/myths/outerbr1.html
Submarine Contacts Outside Pearl Harbor, December 7th, 1941

From: Congressional Investigation into the Pearl Harbor Attack, Pt. 36
(Exhibits of the Joint Committee), pp. 55-60.

Testimony of:
CAPTAIN WILLLAM W. OUTERBRIDGE,
COMMANDING OFFICER, Ward

Before the Hewitt Inquiry

See Comment #126 USO Canteen FReeper Style ~ Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day Public Law ~ December 7 2002
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/802420/posts

[LibKill]

Great shootin', Navy. :)

Too bad it took so long to score the target. :(

That sub should be raised and made a part of the Pearl Harbor Memorial, a trophy, with credit to the men of the Ward, who scored the very first U.S. victory of WWII.

[SamKeck]

After the war ended, the men from the reserve unit formed the First Shot Naval Vets club in St. Paul in 1947 and have met regularly over the years. They helped get the gun from the Ward brought to St. Paul in 1958, where it now sits on the state Capitol grounds next to the Veterans Service Building.

A fitting ending to one of the most meaningful naval sea battles in the history of our republic. Go Navy!

[Uncle Jaque]

I heard of this back around August, and downloaded a bunch of really neat photos of the sub taken by the Univ. of Hawaii robot submersable that found it.

Of course, I don't have a clue how to post a graphic on here, and I can't find the URL for the U of H website where I got them - but a search could probably turn them up. I think it is in Honalullu.

The reason I was interested is that a fellow I used to have breakfast with in North Yarmouth, Maine is one of the Pearl Harbor Survivors, and had related how his ship (I think it was the Ward) sank a Jap mini-Sub just outside of the Harbor shortly before the attack.

According to "Burt" Davis, they were returning from a top-secret mission to rescue a US Merchant ship that had been taken hostage, essentially, by the Japanese, and to escort it back to the US base. He says that the mini-subs had been following them all the way from Japan and were under orders to sink the Merchantman "at all costs", it's recapture by the U.S. Navy having caused considerable "loss of face" to the Empire. It was during a last-ditch, suicidal attack by one of the subs that the Ward sank it.

Burt's ship had just begun refueling when the attack hit, and he helped rescue tug crews pull what victims they could from the oily, often burning water, while his Crewmates fought from the deck of the Ward as best they could. The ship was "running on fumes" coming into the harbor after the long-range mission, so making a run for it was not an option. Apparantly the Ward survived the attack and went on to distinguish itself in the Pacific Theater for the rest of the War.

The pictures from the research sub show the two 14" HE torps in the bow, one on top of the other and noses exposed, and shell - hole through the base of the conning tower quite distinctly, and I hope someone who knows how can post the pictures on here.

I have never seen any "official" account which collaborates Burt's story. Sadly, I am told that he is currently suffering from the advanced stages of Alzheimer's and may not be with us much longer.

[Southack]

The one hour advance warning given by the USS Ward should have been plenty of time to recover from Short's short-sighted parking of our aircraft at Pearl (wingtip to wingtip), among other possible defensive manuevers.

Notice that the shell of the USS Ward didn't detonate, either. It physically punched through the midget sub, but didn't explode. We likewise suffered from torpedoes that were set to run at the wrong depth (and those weapons also had trouble detonating - at least at the start of the war).

Kimmel and Short weren't testing their artillery shells and they weren't properly testing their torpedoes. They weren't sending out patrol aircraft and they weren't leaving anti-aircraft batteries manned on weekends.

Kimmel and Short were court-martialed. Their descendents continue to fight their convictions to this very day.

Don't let them win.

Never forget.

Never forget that Kimmel and Short were partying in the hotel ballrooms and socializing with the local women rather than drilling their charges and defending their base.

Kimmel and Short had only been sent to Pearl Harbor in February of 1941, and they were SPECIFICLY sent to Pearl by FDR in order to defend that base from the Japanese.

[jim_trent]

Some of the leftist webpages have a different take on this discovery. They say that it proves the US started WWII, not the Japanese. How anyone can say that in all seriousness is unknown to me.

[GATOR NAVY]

From the Naval Historical Center website page on USS WARD:

On the morning of 7 December 1944, three years to the day after her Number Three Gun fired the opening shot of the War, she was patrolling off the invasion area when she came under attack by several Japanese aircraft. One bomber made a suicide crash into her hull amidships, bringing the ship to a stop. When the resulting fires could not be controlled, Ward's crew was ordered to abandon ship and she was sunk by gunfire from USS O'Brien (DD-725), whose Commanding Officer, William W. Outerbridge, had been in command of Ward during her action off Pearl Harbor three years before.

[1rudeboy]

bttt

[Pagey]

Every American should be forced to read this article!

[Junior]

Hoorah the Naval Reserves!

JOC Junior, USNR

[tubebender]

I watched "WAR STORIES" with Ollie North on Fox Sunday about the little subs and at the end they used footage of the UH tapes of the sub sitting on the floor in about 1500 feet of water and get this...there was a hole in the conning tower exactly were the crew said they hit it. It was very emotional when they interviewed the remaining crew. There was a lot more on the show about more of the subs and Pearl Harbor.