Got a letter from Ed Stone, Secretary/Treasurer of the Pyro Association with these interesting additional facts about AE-1:
I was aboard AE-1 as an RM3 on 12-7-41 when the Japs attacked. An armor-piercing bomb, made from old USN 14" surplus projectiles from WW 1 which had been purchased by Japan was used against us. We had one of those bombs miss the Pyro by twelve feet at the West Loch Ammo Dock. It completely penetrated the concrete dock before exploding...One of the bombs went through the #3 turret of the USS Tennessee, broke open and burned. We brought those bomb pieces back to the States for BuOrd to examine. A large chunk of this bomb had Jap Ordnance and USN 1918 ORD markings on it. This has been confirmed by the USN and most of the personnel aboard the AE-1 saw the pieces brought back to the ship for shipment.
Another piece of luck was the Japs hit us on the 7th and didn't delay til the 8th. We were scheduled to be alongside the USS Nevada by 8am on the 8th to start working the new ammo we had for the Nevada.
We unloaded all ammo at West Loch and left for |Mare Island on 12-12-41. Five hours out of Pearl, we were under an enemy sub attack and two "fish" were fired at us. One grazed the port side while we were evading.
*Thnaks for the info, Edward.