On March 16, 1914 the New York Navy Yard laid down the keel to begin construction of battleship number 39, which would later be named Arizona (Original speculation was that the ship would be named the North Carolina, the home state of Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels). The Pennsylvania class (consisting of the Arizona and the Pennsylvania) formed the next step of the US Navy's response to the naval arms race that had begun in 1906 when the Royal Navy completed the HMS Dreadnought. The ship was launched on June 19, 1915. Miss Esther Ross, of Prescott, christened the ship, along with the traditional champagne, with a bottle of the first water to pass over the spillway of Roosevelt Dam, which was completed in 1911 but which took until April 15, 1915 to fill. Construction continued on the floating hull and the ship was commissioned on October 17, 1916.
During 1917 residents of Arizona organized a state-wide fund raising effort to pay for a silver service to present to the Arizona.
Arizona experienced considerable problems with her engines during her trials, to the extent that the blades were striped from one her turbines, requiring months in dry dock to replace. The work was finished in March 1917, and the Arizona served with the Atlantic Fleet as a gunnery training ship during World War I. Coal was more plentiful than oil in Great Britain during the war, and the modern oil fired boilers on the Arizona prevented her from joining the other U.S. battleships serving with the British Grand Fleet.
The majority of the crew members were either killed by the explosion and fire or were trapped by the rapid sinking of the ship. Many of the survivors displayed remarkable courage in assisting their shipmates to safety. Lieutenant Commander Samuel G. Fuqua was awarded the Medal of Honor for his role in leading the rescue of other survivors. It was also awarded posthumously to Rear Admiral Isaac Kidd and Captain Franklin Van Valkenburgh. 1,177 of the crew died on the ship.
During the following months and years of World War II, the destruction of the Arizona came to symbolize the reason the U.S. was fighting, as in this poster showing the ship's collapsing foremast silhouetted against the explosion of the ship's magazines. As recounted by William Manchester:
"Remember Pearl Harbor" became an American shibboleth and the title of the country's most popular war song, but it was the loss of that great ship which seared the minds of navy men. Six months later, when naval Lieutenant Wilmer E. Gallaher turned the nose of his Dauntless dive-bomber down toward the Akagi off Midway, the memory of that volcanic eruption in Pearl Harbor, which he had witnessed, flashed across his mind. As the Akagi blew up, he exulted: "Arizona, I remember you!" 1
After the attack the ship was left resting on the bottom with the deck just awash. In the days and weeks following, efforts were made to recover the bodies of the crew and the ship's records. Eventually further recovery of bodies became fruitless, and the bodies of at least 900 crewmen remained in the ship. During 1942 salvage work to recover as much of the ship as was practical began. The masts and superstructure were removed for scrap and the two turrets aft were salvaged for use at shore batteries on Hawaii. The forward part of the ship had received the most damage, and only the guns of turret two were removed while turret one was left in place. On December 1, 1942 the ship was stricken from the registry of U.S. Navy vessels.
In the years immediately following the end of World War II, the wreck was largely ignored. In 1950 the tradition of raising and lowering the colors over the ship daily was started, and momentum gradually began to build toward providing a memorial for the ship and those who died on her. In 1958 legislation was passed authorizing the Navy to erect a memorial and allowing it to accept donations toward that goal. Among the many noteworthy contributions were several generous ones from Hawaii's legislature and a 1961 concert by Elvis Presley. In 1960 construction began and the memorial was dedicated on Memorial Day, 1962. In 1980 a visitor's center on shore was opened and the Navy turned the operation of the memorial over to the National Park Service. During the 1980's, the Park Service conducted a detailed survey of the sunken Arizona and other sites of historical interest related to the Pearl Harbor attack.
1. Manchester, William. Goodbye, darkness (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1980), 42
Further historical information about the Arizona is available
on-line at the entry for
BB-39 in the
of American Naval Fighting Ships
Haze Gray & Underway - Naval History and Photography
by Andrew C. Toppan),
USS Arizona : general data from
the Airzona Memorial Museum Association Web site
and as part of the Park Service's survey, Submerged
Cultural Resources Study USS Arizona Memorial and Pearl Harbor National
Historic Landmark (part of the UA Library's USS Arizona
For a comprehensive account of the Arizona, consult Paul Stillwell's excellent book, Battleship Arizona .
Embedded Off-site links:
Medal of Honor is from the U.S. Army's Center of Military History.
1,177 of the crew died is from the USS Arizona Memorial Web pages of the National Park Service.
Avenge December 7 (poster) is from the National Archives and Record Administration.
the country's most popular war song is from Pearl Harbor : Remembered by Don Schaaf
Akagi is from the Naval Historical Center.
Return to the USS Arizona home page