Just A Car Guy: a singularly unique Navy logbook of the Mar 1941-June 1942 timeframe, for Pearl Harbor, containing the initial descriptions of ships after the Dec 7th attack has been made public, it was ignored in private possession since the 1970s, contents unknown

Wednesday, August 20, 2025

a singularly unique Navy logbook of the Mar 1941-June 1942 timeframe, for Pearl Harbor, containing the initial descriptions of ships after the Dec 7th attack has been made public, it was ignored in private possession since the 1970s, contents unknown

it was plucked from a trash bin in the 1970s at the old Norton Air Force Base in San Bernardino, found in a bin kept because it looked interesting. Permission was asked for, and given, to have it, and it remained in private possession until the owner's death in 2000, her son then inherited it.

“In the last few years, I’ve moved here, moved there, it’s just been in a box,” the new owner told The Post. “I hadn’t really looked at it.”

the “Log Book, U.S. Navy Yard Pearl Harbor,” simply documented ships movements in and out of the port, Dec. 5, 1941, for example, records the arrival of the battleships Arizona and Oklahoma.

A fully digitized copy of the logbook is available online. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/552663772 page 286 and 287 are for Dec 7th.