The Oklahoma was old, but she had a kind of dignity, with her broad beam and tripod masts. The home of a thousand sailors, she had never fired a gun in anger, not even in World War 1. Her cruising speed was only ten knots or so, but when she left the Golden Gate behind and began to push her ponderous bulk into the Pacific swells, you could feel her strength.

 

 

The old dreadnought, which had been the most modern in the fleet in 1916, turned turtle under an onslaught of Japanese torpedoes in 1941. She went down in about eleven minutes, but it took one of the biggest and most difficult salvage operations in the Navy's history to bring her back up.

 

 

sea. 1/c Stephen B. Young

 

 

 

 

 

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