HONOLULU -- Seventy-four years ago, minutes before their attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese bombers strategically bombed a seaplane base at the nearby Kaneohe Naval Air Station at Kaneohe Bay , on the other side of the Hawaiian island of Oahu.

Dozens of long-range patrol bombers that were on the ground or moored in the bay were damaged, sunken or destroyed.

Only three Catalina PBY Flying Boats, which were out on patrol during the attack , were fit for service by the end of the raid, according to the Naval History and Heritage Command.

Nobody really knows what happened during that particular attack, Hans Van Tilburg, a maritime archeologist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, told The Huffington Post. "We know that some men lost their lives out on the bay that day, but we dont even know how many planes were out there [in the water]."

For more than seven decades, the sunken planes have been largely undisturbed in their watery graves. Persistent murky waters have made it virtually impossible to photograph the wreckage -- until now.