From its captain on the bridge to three young sailors below deck, the USS West Virginia was engulfed in heroism and tragedy when six Japanese torpedoes crippled and sank the battleship, killing 106 of its men.

Standing on the ship’s bridge after the attack’s first wave, Capt. Mervyn S. Bennion, commanding officer of the West Virginia, was hit by fragments of a bomb strike on the nearby USS Tennessee. Though mortally wounded, Bennion continued to command his ship through the ongoing attack before succumbing to his wounds.

He was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor “for conspicuous devotion to duty, extraordinary courage, and complete disregard of his own life, above and beyond the call of duty.” The medal’s citation continued, “he strongly protested against being carried from the bridge. … Using one arm to hold his wounds closed, he bled to death while still commanding his crew.”

According to naval historical records, Bennion went down with his ship as it settled on the harbor bottom in about 40 feet of water. Mess attendant Doris “Dorie” Miller aided the wounded captain and also manned a machine gun under heavy fire; He would become the first African-American to be awarded the Navy Cross.

Lt. Claude V. Ricketts, who also attended to Bennion as he was dying, helped save the West Virginia from total destruction by leading efforts to counterflood the ship and keep it from toppling over. Even after the ship settled to the bottom of the harbor, he remained aboard to fight the fires raging topside.

After the fires were extinguished, the recovery effort continued for months, and the bodies of 70 men who had been trapped below deck were recovered. Among them were three young sailors — Ronald Endicott, 18, Clifford Olds, 20, and Louis Costin, 21 — who were trapped in a storeroom. Found with them was a calendar with red “X” marks for 16 days after Dec. 7, indicating one or more of them survived until at least Dec. 23.

It was known during the recovery effort that there were survivors trapped in the forward hull of the sunken ship. They could be heard tapping the hull to signal they were still alive. But the men could not be saved. Torches could not be used to cut into the hull because of the risk of fire and explosion from the oily water that surrounded the ship.

According to a Honolulu Advertiser story written more than 50 years later, the families of the three men were never formally told how they died. Instead, they were told all three died Dec. 7.

The ship was refloated months after the attack, repaired and returned to battle in the Pacific.

Sources include Naval History and Heritage Command, The Honolulu Advertiser and The New York Times.