One of the most humiliating images of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was the exposed hull of the USS Oklahoma, a once-proud battleship that had capsized.

Shipyard workers frantically pried open parts of the hull to free trapped survivors, but their heroic efforts couldn't save 429 sailors and Marines who perished in the Oklahoma's flooded compartments.

The loss of life was second only to the battleship USS Arizona. Yet, to the chagrin of those who survived the Oklahoma, the memory of these fallen men was overshadowed by other national memorials to Dec. 7, 1941.

Nothing marks the spot where the crew of the "Okie" died.

That will change tomorrow afternoon on Ford Island. Navy and National Park Service officials, the governor of Oklahoma and former crewmen from the battleship will break ground for the USS Oklahoma Memorial.

The Oklahoma is the only battleship from the attack without a memorial somewhere, said Tucker McHugh, a retired commander in the Navy Reserves and co-chair of the group building the memorial — the USS Oklahoma Memorial Committee.

"That's a shameful oversight, and we are trying to correct that," said McHugh, a 62-year-old banker from Edmond, Okla.

Although the Navy still must approve the final design, the memorial will sit on a 3,750-square-foot plot of land just outside the entrance to Foxtrot 5 Pier, home to the USS Missouri Memorial. As envisioned by the committee, the memorial will list the names of the fallen on granite slabs cut and processed in Oklahoma, McHugh said.

The committee has only raised $260,000 of its $750,000 budget, but organizers are confident they will raise the rest of the money by January and dedicate the memorial on the 2007 anniversary of the attack.

Their optimism has a painfully obvious motivator: The survivors are in their 80s.

"There are only 105 survivors remaining, and they are dying at a rate of 25 a year," said Greg Slavonic, a 57-year-old retired Navy rear admiral from Oklahoma City. "We would very much like to have survivors alive to see this memorial. That is the sense of urgency on our part. We feel that with the groundbreaking, this is a significant milestone for this project."

The memorial project got started in 2000 and no one involved thought it would take this long, Slavonic said. Initially, the Navy did not want the memorial on Ford Island, he said.

"Their feeling was that if we let one of the ships build a memorial — and there were over 100 in Pearl Harbor that day — that would open up Pandora's box," he said. "Other ships would want to have memorials. Our counterpoint was: What's your point? To us that sounded like a great idea."

It took the Oklahoma congressional delegation to get things moving, however. Congress approved legislation in May 2005 ordering the Navy to find space on Ford Island for a memorial to be maintained by the National Park Service.

Oklahomans have gotten behind the effort, donating much of the money raised so far.

"It's a matter of pride in their state," McHugh said. "It is the state's namesake ship."

On the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, the Oklahoma was moored at Foxtrot 5, outside of the USS Maryland and exposed to the brunt of nine deadly Japanese torpedoes. Because the ship was set for an inspection the following day, the hatches to its watertight compartments were all open.

With its hull gashed in the attack, the battleship quickly flooded and rolled over in less than 12 minutes.

Among the dead were six sets of brothers and two sailors who earned the Medal of Honor.

Eventually recovered, the majority of the Oklahoma casualties were unidentifiable and buried as unknowns at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Punchbowl.

The Oklahoma memorial will be built as close to the location of the stricken battleship as possible, McHugh said.

"Some of the men swam to shore and came ashore right where the memorial is going to be, and we view that as hallowed ground," he said. "Some men died there."

The shipyard's tie to the Oklahoma is huge, said shipyard spokesman Kerry Gershaneck. The men of Shop 11, which still exists, risked their lives to free trapped crewmen, even as the attack continued around them. Guided by banging inside the ship, they eventually freed 32 men who were forever dubbed "the cut-outs."

Shipyard workers would right the Oklahoma, but it was decommissioned and sold for scrap in 1947. It sank while under tow to the West Coast.

Someone had kept the aft wheel, though, and it has been at the shipyard ever since, Gershaneck said.

"It is living heritage here," he said. "It is important to us."

The attention this week will doubtless warm the hearts of Paul Goodyear's aging fellow Oklahoma shipmates.

"Our battle lasted only 11 and a half minutes," said the 88-year-old resident of Casa Grande, Ariz. "There was something in that 11 and a half minutes that bonded all those kids into a camaraderie that no one can understand — including ourselves."

And families who have felt the pang of loss for 65 years will rest a bit easier, said Goodyear, who will attend the groundbreaking.

"It is going to be a relief to each and every sailor, but I think the most healing balm will be for the brothers and sisters and grandchildren of these kids," he said. "I hope it is a closure."

Reach Mike Gordon at mgordon@honoluluadvertiser.com.