« Upcoming Iraqi Elections | Main | Days of Infamy »

December 7, 2004

Pearl Harbor

Pearl Harbor Originally uploaded by Tom the Redhunter.
This photo shows sailors in a motor launch rescuing a survivor of the attack. The USS West Virginia is burning in the background. The USS Tennessee is in the background. Both of them were among the eight battleships parked on "battleship row."

As an historical aside, note the distintive "cage masts" of the ships. Called "waste paper baskets" by their detractors, they were unique to American ships of the pre-WWII era. The idea was that they would be more resistant to gunfire than the traditional tripod mast. While this may have been so, they could not withstand hurricane force winds and were eventually discarded. When the ships were rebuild after the attacks the cages masts were replaced with tripod ones.

Posted by Tom at December 7, 2004 11:42 AM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.theredhunter.com/mt/refer.cgi/233

Comments

Post a comment




Remember Me?

(you may use HTML tags for style)