In a sense, the torpedoes that sank one of the battleships in Pearl Harbor were meant for a ship that wasn’t there. The USS West Virginia (BB-48), most heavily damaged of the battlewagons to be salvaged later, would have left a week earlier for a West Coast overhaul, but an engineering casualty detained her relief. At the time of the Japanese attack, the Colorado (BB-45) was still at the Puget Sound Navy Yard, Bremerton, Washington.
The 18-year-old Colorado, one of the youngest of the prewar battleships, had reached Bremerton for overhaul on 3 August 1941. Repair work included refitting part of the 16-inch battery, installation of fire-control and surface-search radar, rewinding one of the main electric propulsion motors, and replacement of two 5-inch/51s with 20-mm. Oerlikons. A week after arriving, the Colorado was joined in the yard by HMS Warspite which had suffered a severe mauling by the German Luftwaffe in the Mediterranean and was to be repaired under provision of the Lend-Lease Act.
With her overhaul completed, the Colorado was scheduled to depart 13 November and arrive at Pearl Harbor to relieve the West Virginia on the 29th, more than a week before the Japanese attack. But a blower had been improperly installed, and during post-repair trials, the rewound electric drive motor overheated and caught fire. Before the trouble was corrected, the war had started, and it was decided to add antitorpedo blisters to the ship’s hull. It’s likely that the decision was reached as a result of the success of Japanese torpedoes against the old battleships in Pearl Harbor.
The men of the Colorado reacted to the news of the Pearl Harbor attack with "a feeling of helplessness and frustration,” according to a former member of her crew. Without ammunition for the antiaircraft batteries and incapable of getting under way because of repair work in progress, the ship would have been unable to engage an invading force or even defend herself if attacked at her pier.
The exact time news of the Hawaiian attack reached the Colorado cannot be recalled. The war diary of the destroyer Gilmer (DD-233), at sea off Puget Sound, recorded receipt of a dispatch from the Commander-in-Chief, U. S. Fleet at 1103 (0833 Hawaii time). The 13th Naval District Headquarters in Seattle must have received the same message) for at 1130 the commandant sent the following:
"ALL ACTIVITIES ASSUME JAPAN HOSTILE X TAKE STATIONS AND ACTIONS IN ACCORDANCE WITH WPL-46”
Officers and men of the Colorado who were billeted ashore during off-duty hours were summoned back to the ship on the double and informed of the Japanese attack. Condition II watches were set on the antiaircraft batteries, although no ammunition for these guns was brought aboard until about 1600. The ship and Navy yard were darkened that night and on succeeding nights while a general blackout of the area was in effect.
Like the Colorado, the Warspite was without an air defense capability when word of the Pearl Harbor attack was received. Essential parts of her antiaircraft batteries were quickly returned from shops ashore. The guns were reassembled and test-fired within 24 hours. Although no longer enjoying the sanctuary of a neutral port and now threatened by a new enemy in the Pacific, the British battleship nevertheless continued regular leave and liberty for all hands. The practice was observed with resentment by men standing duty four-on and four-off on board the Colorado.
Had an air attack on Bremerton and the Navy yard occurred simultaneously with the one on Hawaii, it could not have failed because there was virtually nothing to oppose it. The only land defenses were forts—little changed since the turn of the century—on the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Columbia River. A few miscellaneous Army aircraft were scattered around the state's air bases, and the 13th Naval district had a "striking force" of five World War I-vintage destroyers. Located on Sinclair Inlet, only 75 miles from the coast, Bremerton would have been within easy striking distance for carrier-borne planes.
While an air raid seemed the greatest threat to vessels in the Navy yard, the possibility of an enemy submarine penetrating to launch a torpedo attack could not be overlooked, and protection was quickly improvised for the important ships in the yard. The exploit of a German submarine two years earlier justified this precaution. HMS Royal Oak, a battleship at anchor in the British naval base at Scapa Flow, had been sunk by torpedoes after the U-47 had negotiated a "narrow, tide-swept channel," a disturbingly accurate description of Rich Passage leading into Sinclair Inlet.
Almost immediately, it appeared that Bremerton !night become involved in hostilities. On 8 December, the destroyer Fox (DD-234), patrolling off the Washington coast, received a dispatch from the Commandant, 13th Naval District, which warned that bombing of the Navy yard was believed imminent. Following so closely on the Pearl Harbor attack, the warning was an indication that there was more than one Japanese fleet at sea. Although the force that attacked Hawaii had never been sighted and its whereabouts and destination were unknown, it could hardly have reached a position to threaten the Pacific Northwest 24 hours later.
As defenses were hastily mobilized at the beginning of the war, protection for the Navy yard received highest priority. After several tense days marked by frequent false reports of unidentified planes approaching, men on board the Colorado could breathe a little easier when antiaircraft guns and smoke generators began appearing around the yard and barrage balloons floated overhead. The Navy published a warning that "any aircraft flying over naval stations, except air stations, will be regarded as hostile and fired upon without warning."
Not until long after the Colorado left Bremerton in February 1942 did it become known that she had never been in any danger there. Other than a few submarines that operated sporadically along the West Coast in the early months of the war, no Japanese warship ventured into the area between Hawaii and the West Coast. And there is no record of an enemy submarine venturing into the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
The Colorado didn't get into actual combat until November 1943 at Tarawa. As the war progressed, some of her crewmen wryly lamented the fact that she hadn't been at Pearl Harbor during the attack. The battlewagons which had been there were given substantially improved antiaircraft guns at the same time their damages were being repaired. With no repairs needed, the Colorado continued throughout the war with an antiquated secondary battery that was virtually useless against enemy aircraft.