70 Years Ago Today: Remembering the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor

Stand With Arizona ^ | 12-07-2011 | John Hill

[DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis]

Arizona in the 30s

The memorial

Wall of Names

Still leaking oil

[Eric in the Ozarks]

We visited the Arizona memorial a year ago.
Fifty feet away as we approached the memorial, I could recognize the whiff of N6 fuel oil.

[ErnBatavia]

I urge all visitors to the Memorial to walk across the parking area to the under-publicized USS Bowfin Submarine and Museum.......true hands-on as to what these guys had to endure on their missions.

[GonzoGOP]

One of the most stirring things i have ever felt was when I took a tour of the USS Missouri at Pearl Harbor. My sons and I had toured the Arizona memorial earlier. Standing next to the surrender plaque and looking back at the Arizona's memorial from the place where the war ended makes you think.

[Oatka]

Pics of the day after HERE.

Also the USS Oklahoma which suffered 429 casualties - many of them trapped in the overturned hull.

[Biggirl]

Called the weeping of oil and its sigh.

[gandalftb]

As I sailed out of port last year on the USS Bonhomme Richard, the ship’s company, as available assembled on the flight deck. As we passed the memorials, all saluted and there was complete silence.

What really amazed me, seeing it for the first time was the still-standing aircraft control tower. It is pockmarked with bullet holes from the attack. It has never been repaired or painted over. I was told that it is a grim reminder to every sailor and Marine to be ever vigilant and never forget.

My Dad was on the USS Phoenix, forward watch, when the attack started. Semper fi to them all.

[Biggirl]

Called the weeping of oil and its sigh.

[Biggirl]

The Mizzou ship living in retirement, the finish of WW 2 across from where it all started.

[Pamlico]

Wow! My dad was also on the USS Phoenix during the attack. He spent most of the war with her. He said they just sat there for the first 30 minutes waiting for the boilers to develope enough steam so they could get underway. Fortunately as a cruiser, they were not targeted by the Japs.

[M1903A1]

The after turrets and ammunition from the stern magazines were salvaged for reuse.

I like to think that, at the Battle of Surigao Strait on the night of October 25th 1944, at least one of Arizona’s surviving sisters from Battleship Row fired some of those shells at Japanese warships.

[fallujah-nuker]

My Dad was on the USS Phoenix, forward watch, when the attack started. Semper fi to them all.

Transferred to Argentina after the war and renamed General Belgrano, and sunk by a British submarine during the 1982 Falklands War. Last ship at Pearl Harbor to be sunk in combat.

[fallujah-nuker]

I like to think that, at the Battle of Surigao Strait on the night of October 25th 1944, at least one of Arizona’s surviving sisters from Battleship Row fired some of those shells at Japanese warships.

Five of them were, West Virginia, Maryland, Tennessee, California and Pennsylvania. Also the USS Phoenix was present. I've always thought that the surrender should have been signed aboard one of the Battleships that was at Pearl Harbor.

[Boonie]

We had a majority of men who loved America at that time...Men who were brave enough and honorable enough to STAND for America...Not so sure today...I miss them each and every one....

[GATOR NAVY]

If you get a chance, see Here Comes the Navy with James Cagney and Pat O'Brien. It's a 1934 movie with awesome peacetime footage of Arizona. It's particularly sobering knowing her not too distance future fate. I don't know if it is out on DVD but TCM shows it occasionally.

[LiveFree99]

I once worked with someone whose uncle was on the Arizona on December 7th. The uncle was on deck for Sunday mass and so was able to escape with his life.

[ClubCaved]

According to what a History Channel special told me, any Arizona survivor can — if he chooses — be cremated when he dies and the Navy will have a scuba diver safely deposit the remains on the wreck so the man can rejoin his shipmates. There can’t be many of them left now to make that choice.

[M1903A1]

Some time ago I read that the Navy has steel salvaged from the Arizona’s superstructure in storage, and family members of a deceased Arizona survivor can take home a piece of the ship as a memento.

[Boonie]

30 Arizona survivors have chosen to rejoin their shipmates in this manner so far...