Anybody notice the similarities between the Zapruder video and Haakenson videos?

Not this business again...so according to Don Green's recollection then the Nevada's magazines were empty, right? Except then why were her magazines flooded during her sortie? Or was this all part of the conspiracy to sink her too?

Thomas Hone assumed the Type 80 didn't have the capability of penetrating the deck armor of Arizona from the assumed angle of fall. He was incorrect as John De Virgilio has demonstrated. What "doubts" do you have with the "bomb overlay theory"? It is congruent with what we know of the Japanese aircrafts course, formation, speed, and altitude, as well as with the known impacts of the misses. It is also congruent with the visible strike on the starboard side and the smoke plumes. Which are also congruent with the gas expansion model, which is congruent with the physical attributes of the hull and the damage it sustained.

Aside from those multiple congruencies I guess everything points to what? What do you think the evidence indicates? That the FBI smuggled a bomb on board to ignite the magazine when the expected Japanese attack began? Timed to explode when the level bombers came over? What?

 

One of the peculiarities of explosions in enclosed spaces (like ships) is that they create just such a flash of flame through every opening. If you talk to any sailor they'll tell you about battle dress used just to minimize injuries from that flash. They have replaced some of this now with different fabrics, but in my time only cotton apparel was allowed. You couldn't wear any poly blend clothes like shore-side sailors used, it was all cotton which won't melt to your skin. During GQ, you pulled your cotton socks up over your trouser bottoms, buttoned your shirt to the neck and turned the collar up, if you had long sleeves you buttoned them down to your wrists. Then you pulled on a hot, sweaty flash hood that covered everything but your eyes and went over your neck and shoulders, then heavy cotton gloves that went to your elbows. If stationed topside, you put a helmet on top of all that.

All of that was created just because of that momentary flash your are talking about. There's not much you can do about the blast wave itself - it either throws you into something or not because of the direction it is coming from, but that flash fills every open compartment and passageway as it travels through the vessel. You can't avoid it, you can only minimize the injuries it creates. That heavy cotton flash gear was about all you could do. if you were wearing it you likely had 1st Degree burns on your body. If not wearing it, you likely had 3rd Degree (charred) flesh on much of your body.

There's nothing mysterious about that flash. Shoot a gun at night and you'll see a huge flash at the muzzle. If it's a revolver, you'll see a flash both at the muzzle and at the tiny opening between the cylinder and barrel. If you hold your finger next to the muzzle (or next to the opening between cylinder and barrel), your skin will be charred. It's the same thing - an explosion in an enclosed space with super-heated gases expanding and exiting through any opening.

 

Why is it that anybody that doesn't agree has to be some conspiracy nut. Is that really necessary .Don Green's story really has nothing to do with the Arizona. It's just something that I ran across. Another story is from Radio Mate 3rd G H Lane, USS Arizona. He recalled an order for all hands not assigned to AA guns to go to the third deck. Unfortunately, this order may have signed the death warrant for many of the crew who were trapped below or killed outright by the blast. Now back to RichTO90's God of truth, John F De Virgilio.

I have read De V's article that was published in 1997. As I posted before, I agree with some of his article but have questions about the overlay theory. De V follows the party line that the fatal bomb hit was to starboard of Turret II. Why starboard and not port, no one has the answer and he doesn't supply one. He writes that Commander Cassin Young reported a bomb hit the forecastle of the Arizona about the same time as a near miss occurred between the Vestal and the Arizona. The Vestal was tied up stern to bow to the Arizona with approximately 100 ft of the Arizona clear of the stern of the Vestal. This puts the bridge of the Vestal roughly even with the main mast of the Arizona. With his ship under attack, you would assume that Commander Young would be on the bridge. If that is true, and with practically the entire superstructure of the Arizona between Commander Young and the bomb impact point, then how could he have possibly seen a bomb hit on the forecastle of the starboard side of the Arizona? He couldn't, unless, the bomb hit on the port side of the Arizona but De V said no bombs hit on the port side of the Arizona and he has the overlay to prove it. Now you see the problem RichTO90. De V also had the luxury of the information that was gathered from the archeological expeditions of the '80s and '90s. He even cites it to give credit to the expedition for finding the starboard aft bomb entry hole. But somehow or for some reason, De V overlooked the video, that was shot by the same divers, working on the same expedition, that suggests that they found a bomb hole, port side midships of the Arizona that De V is adamant isn't there because it doesn't match his bomb overlay theory. Google underwater videos uss Arizona bomb hole midships port and see for yourself.

What I think is that there was no bomb hit on the starboard side of Turret II. Absolutely, something set off the forward magazines, but what?The expeditions of the '80s and '90s went literally foot by foot over the whole ship and documented everything that was found. From coke bottles to lengths of pipe, to cookware that survived the blast and nothing about a 2 foot hole in the deck, where the official version says that a hole should be. They found one starboard aft and one port midships. There is no goofy conspiracy theories, just questions. Maybe the politicos thought that a remember the USS Maine type of story would be better than a magazine being detonated because of gas fumes from a punctured av gas tank line which ran from the bow to the stern. Maybe the midships hit started a fire that touched off a 5" magazine which set off a main magazine. Who knows.

 

That's exactly right. Nobody knows and nobody will ever know with any certainty the exact chain of circumstances that happened in those seconds following the hits. Naval investigations, just like police investigations, can only result in probabilities. Sometimes evidence comes to light later that adds or detracts weight from the prevailing conclusion. That's why I brought up the Zapruder film earlier - the Warren Commission got the order of the shots wrong and that has created an endless (and silly) chain of books and theories and speculation about the murder. The conspiracy mindset goes like this - if Warren was right then there must be a second gunman, but if the Warren Commission was wrong then they are lying and thus part of the conspiracy. Either way, there is fuel for people that want to believe in a conspiracy. They simply can't accept the fact that some details are just unknowable.

9/11 - some mysterious cabal set charges within the buildings at the exact spots the planes would hit. As ridiculous as that sounds, there are people that believe it. No amount of engineering and metallurgy facts can dissuade them from that ridiculous notion.

And it's that way with the Arizona. Nobody can know what damage within the vessel was caused by the hits or were secondary explosions created by the hits and the resulting flash and blast waves. The investigation was a required affair to see what might have been done correctly, or not done correctly, by the Captain and/or Officers on watch - did somebody screw up? What doors and hatches should have been opened or closed? How quickly did the crew get ordered to General Quarters? Beyond that, it's just a collection facts and theories that are only of interest to those that design warships or create protocols for warships in battle. It wasn't designed for amateur armchair Admirals to get hits on Youtube 75 years later.

 

Perhaps its because you have done a rather poor job of explaining what you think happened or what you think the discrepencies are? For example, why throw in the business of Nevada, which has zero to do with the investigation of the Arizona?

"Commander Cassin Young, skipper of the Vestal, who thought a torpedo detonation caused the splash. Young noted that the splash occurred near frame 35 on the Arizona. He and a number of his crew witnessed and correctly reported that a bomb hit the Arizona's forecastle at the same time as the outboard splash occurred." It wasn't Young alone reporting it, it was Young and a number of his crew. Why would Young not be able to see Arizona? All he needed to do was walk out onto Vestal's bridge wing.

WRT the number of hits, it is disputed weather or not the Kaga Group got one or two hits on Arizona. One is known to have hit the Number IV Turret face and richocheted off, penetrating the deck and exploding in the Admiral's pantry. As of 1997, when De Vergilio wrote his article, it was unclear if the center bomb missed or hit. If you notice, he actually bollixed the writing a bit, saying "The Arizona and the Vestal each suffered two No. 80 bomb hits from the carrier Kaga's high-level bomber group at 0805. Lieutenant Hideo Maki's group scored one hit on the Arizona's number-four turret...Three other bombs missed both ships." In fact, Vestal was hit once, but now it appears Arizona was hit twice (the midships hit that set fire to the Executive Officers office and the meat locker was at one time thought to have been a 250-KG hit from a Val, but was most likely a low-order detonation from a Type 80, which was common at Pearl Harbor. In any case, the effects of botyh hist are known and were outside the blast area. Neither threatened damage to a magazine and neither were proximate causes for the detonation of the starboard forward and then port forward magazines.

Except there is one, identified in 2000 by divers Mike Field and Curt Storlazzi during the ongoing exploration. Mind you, given that virtually all of the main and forecastle deck forward of the brigde were either destroyed in the blast or removed in the subsequent salvage operations, it isn't all that remarkable it took so long to find it.

EDIT: BTW, the forward "avgas tank" extended from the double-bottom, through the hold, to the second platform deck, where the lines were accessed. The Powder Magazines were the deck above that and 44 feet further astern, behind the 13" transverse bulkhead closing the citadel.

 

I find this thread a little difficult to understand. Japanese aircraft are dropping bombs and torpedoes on US ships in front of thousands of witnesses. Many of those witnesses have been referenced here by those familiar with the subject. Given this, why do some people still seek improbable sideways explanations for what happened?

 

Exactly. It seems simply saying the Japanese plan of dropping 50 very heavy AP bombs in groups of five from a tight formation overflying battleship row succeeded in obtaining one devastating hit just isn't enough. Never mind the bomb had the ability to penetrate. Never mind that one hit in a potential devastating area. Never mind the effect of explosions in powder magazines is well known. Never mind the formation of aircraft was actually filmed overflying battleship row. Never mind the physics of the deflagration and expanding gases and what they did is well understood and can be modeled. Because it is difficult to see what happens in the film of the catastrophic event that took 7 seconds, then "something" must be going on.

 

To be fair, the OP clarified he wasn't believing in the standard Pearl Harbor conspiracy theory, but a different one. He apparently believes the cause of Arizona's loss was never actually understood and all the proposed theories were never proven, so there must be a different way it was sunk...apparently because of a leaking gasoline line.