Diving the Forgotten Battlewagon
While everyone is quick to point out that there were eight American battleships in and around Battleship Row at Pearl Harbor, there was actually a ninth– past Warship Wednesday alumni, USS Utah.
Battleship Number 31, USS Utah, at rest in Guatanamo Bay, Cuba, January 1920.
Built as a 22,000-ton Florida-class dreadnought, Battleship # 31 was disarmed of her impressive battery of ten 12-inch guns in accordance with the Washington Naval Treaty in 1931, converted to a radio-controlled target ship, and redesignated AG-16.
Although it was unlikely she would have gotten her teeth back in WWII had she not rolled over and sank following hits by Japanese aerial torpedos, the old Utah was, like Arizona, never fully salvaged. A few years after the attack her hull was partially righted and moved closer to Ford Island, where she remains today. Some 58 members of her crew died during the attack, and a memorial is in place, but it is not open to the public.
A birds-eye view of the USS Utah Memorial with the flag at half-mast. NPS photo
Utah is often described as “The Forgotten Ship of Pearl Harbor.”
However, the Pearl Harbor National Memorial in partnership with the National Park Service – Submerged Resource Center, recently conducted the first-ever virtual interactive live-dive of the USS Utah. The dive included NPS divers and U.S. Navy divers from Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit One (MDSU 1), including a 1940s vintage Mark V hard hat rig that is often used to inter remains on Arizona.
