The SteelNavy.Com Message Board: Re: Pearl Harbor-attack on USS Arizona

The YouTube video referenced above is shown as a mirror image of what it should be; one can verify this shortly after the Arizona explodes, where the cage masts of the USS West Virginia are shown tilting to the right -- as though she were listing to STARBOARD instead of to port. This is a common mistake in many reproductions of such films. Also, prior to the Arizona blowing up one can see a good view of either the USS Oklahoma or USS Nevada (undamaged) moving through the harbor, obviously filmed before Dec. 7. Lastly, the planes with their landing gear down shown flying low over the ships are evidently US Navy Dauntlesses and Wildcats, not Japanese aircraft.

Previous Message

There is very famous video footage captured of the Arizona at the moment she blew up. It is included in this footage here:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WvhJboFYFX4

It starts at about 1:53. If you freeze the footage there or at 1:54, you are seeing a couple of seconds before she blew up. Freeze it at 1:55, and you can see two things... 1) The explosion starting, and 2) a hand off to the right of the screen pointing up into the sky at the plane which attacked her.

As Tracy has noted, that plane was very high up. So high up that it is not in the image. All you see is the hand pointing up to where it is "up there," out of the frame. You also do not see any other planes anywhere around in the background.

The attacking plane was a level bomber...a Kate torpedo bomber, but with bombs instead of torpedoes. The level bombers had lined up one behind the other, and spaced 200 meters apart. Then they all made their runs from South to North and bow to stern. Each group of about 5 planes had an assigned ship for a target as they came in single file up Battleship Row.

All this comes from the 1952 account of Mitsuo Fuchida, who led the attack. That account is here:

https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1952/september/i-led-air-attack-pearl-harbor

So, if you want to do this diorama, and show just the Arizona just as she was hit, you need a single Kate flying over the ship pointing from bow to stern. To put it in scale, as Tracys wrote, you would have to mount it ridiculously high over the model. If you lowered it down to something more reasonable for display, most people probably would not object.

Previous Message

Hello everyone!
I understand that the USS Arizona was not the first battleship to be attacked on that day.
But as for the so called aircraft traffic, there was not to many, or a lot of Japanese planes flying around or even over the USS Arizona just before she blew up?
I have tried to find photos of her just before she blew up,but unfortunately there isn't really any clear, for that time, photos that would show this.
The reason why I am asking this is, that I was planning on building a diorama with planes fling over just minutes/seconds before USS Arizona blew up.
Does anyone know of where I might find such photos?
Thank you.