USS Arizona BB-39

[101ABN]

As a boy growing up in Phoenix in the 1950's, I was in awe of the USS Arizona Display that was a perennial featured attraction at the State Fair.

The exhibit included the Arizona's silver service and a collection of photographs of her history, the most dramatic being the famous image of her powder magazines exploding after a direct hit by an armor piercing bomb. The purpose of the exhibit was to raise money to build the memorial now visited by millions of tourists annually.

To this day, I am proud that each year I set aside a portion of my "midway money" and reverently put it in the jar in memory of the Silent Crew still interred in her hull.

The exhibit taught me, at a tender age, that freedom is not free.

This is my small tribute to the Arizona, BB-39 and her Silent Crew in expression of my undying gratitude for that lesson.

USS Arizona BB-39

Pennsylvania class Battleship

Length: 608 feet
Beam: 106 feet, 2 inches
Draft: 28 feet, 10 inches
Displacement: 34,207 tons
Speed: 21 knots


Armament: Twelve 14" guns; twenty-two 5" guns; four 3" guns; two 21" torpedo tubes

Launched: June 19, 1915
New York Navy Yard, Brooklyn, New York
Commissioned: October 17, 1916

Sunk: December 7 1941
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.



As America knew her...







As the enemy saw her...



Death from the skies, 0805 Hrs 12/7/1941





Her eternal rest...



Her Silent Crew...may they rest in peace.



USS Arizona Webpage
www.ussarizona.org/

Great Pearl Harbor site.

www.rivervet.com/pearl_harbor.htm

NEVER AGAIN!

[101ABN]

!

[dustdevil28]

Thanks for this post.

Rest in Peace Shipmates.

-DD

[Sailor]

When I was on staff at Great Lakes I worked with a gent who had been stationed aboard USS Vestal that day. He remembered well the day and the magazine explosion that could easily taken Vestal as well. He said they had barely cleared moorings from alongside Arizona when she exploded. Vestal suffered fires and shrapnel damage but stayed in the fight.

I don't recall if he was injured or not, I'm sure he's gone now.

Rest in Peace shipmate.

[peterd]

My wife's uncle was collecting bodies of death sailors on that day plus couple other days. He never talked about it. I cannot blame him.

[Sailor]

Neither can I Pete.

[tankcommander]

Had a friend who passed away a couple of years ago, he was at Schofield Barracks.

After the attack he walked guard duty along the waterfront, and had to listen to the tapping from the men trapped in the Oklahoma. Tapping that grew less, and less every day untill it stopped about a week later.

[101ABN]

To the top

[101ABN]

Great read from 1991 by a Park Service archaeologist about diving on the Arizona.

www.naturalhistorymag.com/picks-from-the-past/271443/the-arizona-revisited

[Sailor]

I agree 101, an excellent article. Thank you for sharing.

[101ABN]

Bump

[tankcommander]

"Praise the Lord, and pass the ammunition"

~ Chaplain Howell M. Forgy, Sunday Dec. 7 1941