“The Japanese Sneak Attack on Pearl Harbor”. Charcoal and chalk by Commander Griffith Bailey Coale, USNR, Official U.S. Navy Combat Artist, 1944.
Courtesy of the U.S. Navy Art Center, Washington, D.C. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. (click to big up)
From NHHC:
This artwork shows the destruction wrought on ships of the U.S. Pacific Fleet attacked in their berths by scores of enemy torpedo planes, horizontal and dive bombers on December 7, 1941.
At the extreme left is the stern of the cruiser Helena, while the battleship Nevada steams past and three geysers, caused by near bomb misses, surround her. In the immediate foreground is the capsizing minelayer Oglala.
The battleship to the rear of the Oglala is the California, which has already settled. At the right, the hull of the capzized Oklahoma can be seen in front of the Maryland; the West Virginia in front of the Tennessee; and the Arizona settling astern of the Vestal …, seen at the extreme right.
The artist put this whole scene together for the first time in the early summer of 1944, from 1010 Dock, in Pearl Harbor, where he was ordered for this duty. Coale worked under the guidance of Admiral William R. Furlong, Commandant of the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard, who stepped from his flagship, the Oglala, as she capsized.” (quoted from the original Combat Art description).