The attack on Pearl Harbor had barely begun when the battleship USS California was struck by two Japanese torpedoes. A later bomb blast further disabled the vessel, which started taking on water.
Flooding and fires were the most immediate problems for the Tennessee-class battleship, the flagship of the Battle Fleet, as it continued to get bombarded.
In his report on the attack, Gunner’s Mate 3rd Class V.O. Jensen wrote, “During the air raid Sunday morning, December 7, 1941, Robert Scott of the ‘A’ Division was in waist deep water and fuel oil and refused to leave his station after we had gotten word to abandon our compartment. I called to him and told him everyone else had abandoned the compartment but he insisted on staying; ‘As long as I can give these people air, I’m sticking.’
“His station was on the Forward Air Compressor by Main G.S.K. Things were blacking out for me so I was forced to leave the compartment and I never saw him afterwards.”
Scott, a machinist mate first class, died and was one of four California crew members to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for their actions on Dec. 7, three of them posthumously.
A similar story of selfless valor was told of Ensign Herbert C. Jones, another posthumous Medal of Honor recipient from the California.
Jones stayed at an antiaircraft battery until he was mortally wounded when a bomb struck the ship.
“When two men attempted to take him from the area which was on fire, he refused to let them do so, saying in words to the effect, ‘Leave me alone! I am done for. Get out of here before the magazines go off,’” according to the Medal of Honor citation.
The third posthumous Medal of Honor winner from the battleship was Chief Radioman Thomas James Reeves who, according to the citation, “in a burning passageway, assisted in the maintenance of an ammunition supply by hand to the antiaircraft guns until he was overcome by smoke and fire, which resulted in his death.”
Despite the efforts of these and other crew members, burning oil from the destruction around them in Battleship Row threatened to engulf the battleship, which was ordered abandoned.
A short time later that order was canceled, and crew members returned to fight fires and continue the effort to save the California.
The fourth Medal of Honor winner from the California was Jackson C. Pharris, who set up a hand-supply ammunition train for the anti-aircraft guns and saved crewmen from flooded compartments despite being injured.
He also ordered the counterflooding of the ship, which kept it upright.
Even though it still sank, the California settled on the harbor bottom and was refloated in 1942, repaired and returned to the war in the Pacific in January 1944.
In all, 105 California crew members died in the attack.
Sources include USS California commander’s Dec. 13, 1941, report; Naval History and Heritage Command; Medal of Honor citations; newspaper reports.
