The USS Oklahoma

Activities

Join the Signal Corps

Battleships like the USS Oklahoma travel all over the world and need to be able to communicate over long distances. Battleships can also be very noisy, so they need to be able to communicate without words. The US Navy used Morse code for communicating on radio telegrams over long distances, and semaphore to communicate when it was too loud for talking.

Semaphore is communicating with flags, where the position of each flag represents a letter. Morse code uses sequences of long (dash) and short (dot) electronic "beeps" to represent letters.

Below are two alphabets. One is the Morse code alphabet and the other is the semaphore alphabet. Use these alphabets to craft your own message to the crew of the USS Oklahoma or translate the example message given below.

Sample message: "AIR RAID! AIR RAID! GENERAL QUARTERS! THIS IS NO DRILL!"

Semaphore
Illustration of the semaphore alphabet with yellow and red flags.

Morse Code
The alphabet in the dashes and dots of Morse code.


Propaganda


Propaganda is media that uses words, images, and/or music in order to motivate a group of people to think, feel, or act in a specific way. During World War II, the United States became very good at propaganda and used its messages to motivate the whole country to strive towards one goal: victory in World War II. Propaganda tends to use emotional arguments over logical ones ant to depict its audience as powerful and good and its targets as weak and evil.

Write a paragraph analyzing one of these four posters. While you do that, think about these questions to answer:

  1. Who is the audience?
  2. What is the subject of the art? Is there more than one subject?
  3. Is there a specific emotion that this poster is supposed to evoke?
  4. Does the poster depict anyone in a negative way? How does it do this?
  5. Is the poster's message effective? In other words, would it have made you want to join the war effort during World War II?
  6. Once you have finished writing your paragraph, design your own poster that uses the sinking of the USS Oklahoma to motivate an audience to join the war effort. Remember the questions you tried to answer in your paragraph and make sure others could answer the same questions about your poster.

After finishing your poster, think about a commercial, poster, song, etc., that you have seen. How is it similar to these four examples? How is it different?

Dramatic illustration of a sailor with a raised fist over a vignette of a sinking ship with the text: Avenge December 7

(Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

A tattered United States flag flying with the text: Remember December 7th!

(Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

A cartoon of a man slapping an Uncle Sam–like figure with the wording: Shall we let him get away with it? Let's keep 'em pulling for victory.

(Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

Illustration of a soldier playing the bugle against a backdrop of the United States flag with the text: These Colors Won't Run. Remember Pearl Harbor.

(Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.)