Western Railroad Discussion > USS Arizona Gun

Here is Matt Martin's shot of it. He has allowed me to post it here with permission.

Ian



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/18/12 03:31 by CSabresXr1.

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Hey, that's what should be on the head end of every Amtrak train. If they come up to a truck on a crossing, fire that baby and it will clear the track!

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

If they fired that gun the train would quickly reverse direction from the recoil.

I thought an earlier thread said it was the Missouri's gun?

poffcapt Wrote:
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> I thought an earlier thread said it was the Missouri's gun?

There is a movement of one of the guns from the Missouri over on the Eastern Board.

Ron

Why is this gun not rusting in peace with the rest of the Arizona and crew?

Scoopcat Wrote:
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> Why is this gun not rusting in peace with the rest
> of the Arizona and crew?

Two reasons, it appears from another thread: 1) Some barrels were removed from the Arizona before Dec 7 for refurbishment, and this is presumably one of them. 2) Except that it isn't, because this is a 16" barrel and the Arizona had 14" guns.

For that matter, most or all of the usable guns were removed from the Arizona after it was sunk and used as coast defence guns. I guess it isn't generally known, but the Arizona didn't just rust off even with the water line. The superstructure was cut down in the first days of the war, and anything easily salvagable and very useful (like guns) were removed from her and refurbished for other uses. She was considered for salvage and rebuild like the other ships, but the explosion in the ammo locker broke her back, and as an older ship she wasn't considered worth salvaging with that kind of damange. It is true she is a memorial. But it is worth remembering that in the first days of the war, the one and only goal was to keep all of Hawaii from becoming a similar memorial, and doing it with almost no working equipment. Salvage was the order of the day, sentiment really did have to take second place. (We know NOW that there was no secondary attack planned and that there was no invasion force about to land. But they DID NOT know that THEN, and standard milirary logic of the day said that there was one, and it could be expected Real Soon Now. Best to prepare for it.)

lwilton Wrote:
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> Scoopcat Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Why is this gun not rusting in peace with the
> rest
> > of the Arizona and crew?
>
> Two reasons, it appears from another thread: 1)
> Some barrels were removed from the Arizona before
> Dec 7 for refurbishment, and this is presumably
> one of them. 2) Except that it isn't, because this
> is a 16" barrel and the Arizona had 14" guns.
>
> For that matter, most or all of the usable guns
> were removed from the Arizona after it was sunk
> and used as coast defence guns. I guess it isn't
> generally known, but the Arizona didn't just rust
> off even with the water line. The superstructure
> was cut down in the first days of the war, and
> anything easily salvagable and very useful (like
> guns) were removed from her and refurbished for
> other uses. She was considered for salvage and
> rebuild like the other ships, but the explosion in
> the ammo locker broke her back, and as an older
> ship she wasn't considered worth salvaging with
> that kind of damange. It is true she is a
> memorial. But it is worth remembering that in the
> first days of the war, the one and only goal was
> to keep all of Hawaii from becoming a similar
> memorial, and doing it with almost no working
> equipment. Salvage was the order of the day,
> sentiment really did have to take second place.
> (We know NOW that there was no secondary attack
> planned and that there was no invasion force about
> to land. But they DID NOT know that THEN, and
> standard milirary logic of the day said that there
> was one, and it could be expected Real Soon Now.
> Best to prepare for it.)

Loren -

Thank you for clarifying the confusion...the USS Missouri did have 16" guns and the USS Arizona had quite different 14" guns. To expand on your post, before USS Arizona put to sea for O'ahu, two of her three 14" guns from the forwardmost turret (Turret 1) were removed at Mare Island Navy Yard to be relined. USS Arizona arrived at Pearl Harbor on December 6, 1941 for further repairs after sailing from the California shipyard.

She sank the next day (with the repair ship USS Vestal moored alongside her) during the Pearl Harbor Attack and there is a well-known photograph taken on December 8, 1941 showing what remained of her forward port side and visible is Turret 1 showing the 2 guns missing. It took 1 year for USS Arizona to be salvaged and the report of that operation states that "Turret 1 was not salvaged". It has been several years since I watched the show on TV and I cannot recall whether the account of her being struck from the US Naval Ship Registry mentioned if the sole gun remains attached to Turret 1 or if it was salvaged sometime after December 1942 from her resting place in the coral beds of Battleship Row in Pearl Harber.

Don



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/18/12 03:25 by 2472Don.

This may clear things up...

http://ktar.com/6/1529037/USS-Arizona-gun-barrel-to-arrive-at-capitol-Tuesday

TonyJ Wrote:
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> If they fired that gun the train would quickly
> reverse direction from the recoil.


That would give a new meaning to push-pull.

Jerry Martin
Los Angeles, CA
Central Coast Railroad Festival

GP25 Wrote:
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> TonyJ Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > If they fired that gun the train would quickly
> > reverse direction from the recoil.
>
>
> That would give a new meaning to push-pull.

There are some conductors who wouldn't be high on my list to get fire control authority for a 14" or 16" cannon, though.

I'm sorry, but the Arizona went down with all of it's 14 inch guns mounted. Looking thru my copy of "Battleship Arizona" by Paul Stilwell photos after the battle show turrets B, C, and D fully equipped, and to this day the guns remain in turret A. Also there's the question of why they would remove guns at Pearl Harbor since they would have to be shipped to the mainland to be relined. It's far more likely that work like this would have been done at Bremerton WA or San Diego CA.

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
> There are some conductors who wouldn't be high on
> my list to get fire control authority for a 14" or
> 16" cannon, though.

But there are a some of us conductors who have been
to Artillery training maybe not for 14" or 16" guns
but the bigger the better.

CSabresXr1 Wrote:
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> Here is Matt Martin's shot of it. He has allowed
> me to post it here with permission.
>
> Ian


Actually that is the gun off of USS Missouri. When compared to the pictures of the gun from USS Arizona, you can see the difference in size and the difference in technology from WWI to WWII. It is much longer that the gun from USS Arizona (67 feet vs 52 feet) and has a different shape.

Pictures of the gun from USS Arizona:

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?2,2739064

Posted also on the Eastern Discussion Board. How many battleship gun barrels are moving? It appears we have three different barrels movements (one a confirmed 14 inch and two 16 inchers?) from what I am gathering. Each barrel pictured is on a different flat car. I doubt the barrels have been moved from one car to another.

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?2,2743824

Kent

Thats the Missouri s gun , the Arizona's is also floating around here, Both are going to Arizona I think or is there another going somewhere?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/18/12 14:15 by kingman.

If you to the AZ state capital building it has all the fine China and other goodies from the ship that were removed before Dec. 7th.