Stuck in dry dock beyond its scheduled Dec. 6 departure date, the USS Pennsylvania was reported to be one of the first ships to return fire on Japanese raiders.
The quick, battle-ready action of the ship’s crew proved to be a harbinger of their prolific fighting performance throughout the war.
The Pennsylvania’s Day of Infamy story is one of great fortune in addition to great valor.
A coveted target of the Japanese battle plan, the Pennsylvania’s delayed dry-dock departure kept it safe from torpedoes. However, that did not stop bombers from attacking the ship and the dry dock itself.
Two destroyers, the Cassin and Downes, were just forward of the Pennsylvania in dry dock and sustained serious damage from the bombardment and strafing. Fire on the Downes ignited fuel oil tanks, causing a massive explosion that intensified the damage to that ship.
The Pennsylvania, sister ship of the USS Arizona, took a bomb to its starboard side and sustained further damage from intense strafing.
The Pennsylvania commander’s action report submitted about a week after the attack describes the bombing wave: “The second attack coming in slightly on the port bow dropped bombs on the ships in the drydock, one heavy bomb hit the destroyer Downes in the dock ahead of the Pennsylvania, one hit the dock approximately abreast frame 20 starboard of the Pennsylvania and one hit the boat deck of the Pennsylvania a few feet abaft 5”/25 gun No. 7, passing through the boat deck and detonating in the casemate of 5”/51 gun No. 9.”
Soon after that bombing wave, the dry dock was flooded as fires raged on the Cassin and Downes.
Through the bombing and strafing runs, the sailors of the Pennsylvania manned their anti-aircraft guns valiantly, according to the ship’s commander, Charles M. “Savvy” Cooke Jr., who would later become an admiral.
“The conduct of all officers and men was of the highest order,” Cooke wrote in his Dec. 16, 1941, action report. “There was no flinching. There was no necessity of urging men to action. Rather was there perhaps in some cases over zeal in the matter of expending ammunition.”
While damaged by bombs, the Pennsylvania was at sea in two weeks, and after being repaired on the West Coast, it quickly returned to action in the Pacific.
By war’s end the battleship had fought in key battles at Kwajalein island, Saipan, Guam and Leyte, among many others, and the ship’s crew had reportedly fired more ammunition than any other ship.
