For Oklahoma, the whole side of the ship was nearly completely blown open, making it difficult to pinpoint individual detonations. Explosion effects overlapped. Some have asserted that additional torpedoes must have entered the ship through holes blasted by previous torpedoes. This did not occur. If a torpedo had penetrated into the ship though a hole blown by a previous torpedo, then the entire force of the explosion would have been contained inside the ship. The expanding gas bubble would have caused massive internal damage, to include lifting up the armored deck directly above the explosion, and warping belt armor plates out away from the ship instead of in an inward direction. No evidence of such damage was evident. Witnesses reported nine torpedo hits on West Virginia. The salvage engineers reduced this to seven: four deep hits amidships, two that hit above the ship’s belt armor as the ship listed, and a hit on the rudder.10 Allegations of a hit on Arizona are unsubstantiated. The Japanese did not claim any torpedo hits on Arizona.
