by Patrick Boniface

Created on: June 04, 2009   Last Updated: June 06, 2009

The guides tell you, if you ask about the black spots of oil rising to the surface, that it's oil still being released from the ruptured fuel tanks almost seventy years after the USS Arizona was sunk. It gives you a moments pause to think how much oil was on board the great battleship as she rested peacefully on Sunday 7 December 1941 in the shallow anchorage of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. The guides go on to tell visitors about how she came to rest at the bottom of the anchorage after being hit repeatedly by Japanese bombs and torpedoes and of the one thousand one hundred and seventy seven souls lost within her vast steel hull.

USS Arizona was ordered as one of a pair of Pennsylvania class battleships from the New York Navy Yard shipyard. The first of her keel plates were laid down on the slipway on 16 March 1914 and she slid gracefully into the water fifteen months later on 19 June 1915. Final work was carried out on completing the ship which occurred upon her handing over to the US Navy on 17 October 1916. As completed the USS Arizona was a powerful warship with 12 14inch guns mounted in four turrets, two aft and two forward. The ships secondary armament comprised of 22 5inch, 4 3inch guns and 2 21inch torpedo tubes. On board her 32,000 ton displacement 915 men called the ship home.

USS Arizona joined the First World War too late to see active service but a year later was at Constantinople (now Istanbul) on 14 May 1919 and landed marines to guard the US Consulate during the Greek occupation of the Turkish Capital City. Throughout the 1930's USS Arizona was modernized and given extra underwater protection from torpedoes and extra accommodation.

When in December 1941 she was at Pearl Harbor she was crowded with extra personnel on board she was attacked by Japanese warplanes. The Japanese aircraft's main targets were the battleships and any aircraft carriers in harbor and one of the prize targets was the USS Arizona. Within minutes USS Arizona had been struck by no fewer than 8 armor piercing bombs and an aerial torpedo. The bombs found their way into the ships magazines and the resulting explosion ripped the ship into two shattered pieces. Quickly what remained of the once mighty battleship sank to the bottom of the shallow harbor.

Due to the shallowness of Pearl Harbor a great deal of the destroyed ship remained visible for many months before engineers stripped the remains back to just below the waterline. Today visitors can peer into the underwater remains from a special platform erected over the 1177 graves within the USS Arizona.

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