Reddit reviews Descent into Darkness: Pearl Harbor, 1941 - A Navy Diver's Memoir

https://www.amazon.com/Descent-into-Darkness-Harbor-1941_A/dp/1591147247

> The entire thing keeps referencing 'hours', despite this entire rescue taking place underwater?
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> What was the tech like for diving in 1945?!

It looked something like this. The various hoses were air lines running to a salvage boat on the surface.

This gave the diver much longer endurance than modern divers, but limited movement drastically... and woe betide the diver who got stuck or his lines got cut.

If you're at all curious, the book Descent Into Darkness was written by Edward Raymer, the chief diver of the Pearl Harbor salvage operations.

It's a remarkably good read, but I suspect that Cmdr Raymer maybe embellished his stories a little bit. He comes off as The Most Interesting Man In The World. I have no doubt that he did exactly what he says he did when it comes to diving, but... well... if he got into all the hijinks he claims, chances are he would have been thrown in the brig, shot, then court martialed. In that order.

Gripping read though, and it gets into the nitty-gritty of the salvage work. I'm of the opinion that the Pearl Harbor salvage and/or refloating of the battleships is one of those stories that's not given enough attention.

They used bunker oil it's an extremely dense oil. You should read Halsey's Typhoon it's incredible what those men went through. President Gerald Ford was almost washed overboard during it, he was saved by catching the lip of the flight deck with the tips of his toes.

As for your recurring nightmare, Descent into Darkness is a memoir about a US Navy salvage diver in Pearl Harbor. They found men who had survived for weeks in air pockets but died before they could be rescued... they found the dates scratched into the bulkhead. I personally would take the sudden sinking rather than being trapped and hearing salvage divers constantly passing you for weeks before finally dying alone in the cold darkness.

Longtime lurker, very first time poster, a degreed journalist and maritime historian. The men lost on the USS West Virginia -- "The Wee Vee" -- were at their battle stations well below decks. She was moored outboard of the USS Tennessee, with her port side fully exposed to the attacking planes. Six Japanese torpedoes ripped open her hull and she immediately began to settle and capsize to port. Damage control counter-flooded starboard compartments and WV came to rest on the bottom with a list, but largely on an even keel. An aerial bomb ignited aviation gas from a sea plane on an aft deck catapult and West Virginia was also overtaken by a pool of burning oil that spread out on the water from damaged fuel tanks on the WV and from USS Arizona, which was afire astern. This was not diesel but heavy bunker oil, like thick molasses, and it’s still leaking from Arizona to this day. See here for an aerial view with a caption. These major fires -- along with the chaos of the death, injuries and destruction around Pearl -- complicated rescue efforts on the West Virginia, but the men were not just abandoned. Tethered hardhat divers went into the water as soon as possible on Dec 12 and sounded along West Virginia’s underwater hull with a sledgehammer, listened for a response from within and heard nothing. The area of West Virginia’sstarboard hull adjacent to where the three men were trapped in the water pump room was not accessible as it was wedged tightly against Tennessee. This can be seen clearly in the photo. There was no way the divers could have known the trapped men were there or that the compartment did not flood from damage or from the counterflooding efforts. There was no way to get to them from outside since WV was wedged tightly against Tennessee, and the ship’s interior was largely flooded with no lighting, companionways were cluttered with wreckage and the divers reported that internal access hatches were under tons of water pressure. The divers and salvage men were really upset when the bodies were found after WV was refloated and dewatered. They tried. There were something like another 60+ bodies recovered from inside the ship. A great book that explains the Pearl Harbor salvage operations is Descent into Darkness by CDR Edward C Raymer.

TL;DR - Rescuers tried to save the trapped sailors after fires were put out but the men from the OP were located in a part of the ship that was inaccessible. (Added as edit)