Pennsylvania & Arizona.

This is coolbert:

Let it not be thought that the German alone during the Second World War [WW2] was the ONLY combatant to salvage guns from sunken warships for use as coastal artillery.

In the aftermath of Pearl Harbor and the sinking of the USS Arizona, the two aft [rearward] turrets and guns [3 large-bore guns per turret] were salvaged from the stricken warship and converted into coastal artillery.

One firing unit per turret, these positions referred to as: Battery Pennsylvania and Battery Arizona.

Turrets and guns both salvaged, em placed into firing positions, the commanding positions per turret a small fort unto itself. Large-bore naval guns turned over to the U.S. Army coastal artillery branch and put to good use.

Replete with powder room, projectile room, power room, tracking and control room, etc.

A massive enterprise the bulk of which was underground the guns and turret the only element of which was above ground and visible.

"The aft main gun turrets [two of them] were removed and reinstalled as United States Army Coast Artillery Corps Battery Arizona at Kahe Point on the west coast of Oahu and Battery Pennsylvania on the Mokapu Peninsula, covering Kaneohe Bay . . .  Battery Pennsylvania, fired its guns for the first and last time on V-J Day in August 1945 while training, while the nearby Battery Arizona was never completed.

"Constructed between 1943 and 1945, this underground coastal battery is located in the sea cliffs at Ulupa’u. During World War II, the battery housed a 14-inch gun turret salvaged from the rear of the USS Arizona"

One hundred years ago big-bore naval guns were an excellent means by which to judge the engineering expertise and technological capability of a nation. Those countries able to manufacture and mount on their warships big-bore guns of significant caliber considered world-class, all other nations NOT!!

"General - - Naval Guns are usually classified by 'caliber' (diameter of the bore), 'calibers' (length of the barrel described in multiples of the diameter of the bore)"

Those turrets and guns at that stage of the war more of a symbolic gesture than having real military value?

Coastal artillery once an important branch of the military now an anachronism gone forever?

coolbert.