november 4th, 1941.
More about Captain Valkenburgh.
Quote:
In a letter to a relative, Faith Van Valkenburgh Vilas, dated November 4, 1941, Captain Valkenburgh wrote: "We are training, preparing, maneuvering, doing everything we can do to be ready. The work is intensive, continuous, and carefully planned. We never go to sea without being completely ready to move on to Singapore if need be, without further preparation. Most of our work we are not allowed to talk about off of the ship. I have spent 16 to 20 hours a day on the bridge for a week at a time, then a week of rest, then at it again.
"Our eyes are constantly trained Westward, and we keep the guns ready for instant use against aircraft or submarines whenever we are at sea. We have no intention of being caught napping."
On December 4, the battleship went to sea in company with USS Nevada (BB-36) and USS Oklahoma (BB-37) for night surface practice and, after conducting these gunnery exercises, returned to Pearl Harbor independently on the 6th to moor at berth F-7 alongside Ford Island.
More about Captain Valkenburgh.
. All of this is from Wikipedia.Quote:
Both Captain Valkenburgh and the embarked division commander, Rear Admiral Isaac C. Kidd, spent the next Saturday evening, December 6, on board. Suddenly, shortly before 08:00 on December 7, Japanese planes roared overhead, shattering the Sunday peace and punctuating it with the explosion of bombs and the staccato hammering of machine guns. Captain Valkenburgh ran from his cabin and arrived on the navigation bridge, where he immediately began to direct his ship's defense. A quartermaster in the pilot house asked if the captain wanted to go to the conning towera less-exposed position in view of the Japanese strafingbut Captain Valkenburgh adamantly refused and continued to man a telephone, fighting for his ship's life.
A violent explosion suddenly shook the ship, throwing the three occupants of the bridgeCaptain Valkenburgh, an ensign, and the quartermaster, to the deck, and blowing out all of the bridge windows completely. Dazed, battered and shaken, the ensign stumbled through the flames and smoke of the shattered bridge's interior and escaped, but Captain Valkenburgh and the quartermaster were never seen again. A continuing fire, fed by ammunition and oil, raged for two days until finally being extinguished on December 9. Despite a thorough search, Captain Valkenburgh's body was never found; all that was ever retrieved was his Annapolis class ring.
Captain Valkenburgh posthumously received the Medal of Honorthe citation reading in part: "for devotion to duty ... extraordinary courage, and the complete disregard of his own life."
