Pennsylvania-class battleship.
L/B/D:
608 × 106.3 × 28.8 (185.3m × 32.4m × 8.8m). Tons:
36,567 disp. Hull:
steel. Comp.:
915-1,358. Arm.:
12 × 14 (3 × 4), 22 × 5, 4 × 3. Armor:
13.5 belt, 4 deck. Mach.:
geared turbines, 31,500 shp, 4 screws; 21 kts. Built:
New York Navy Yard, Brooklyn; 1916.
USS Arizona was one of two Pennsylvania -class dreadnought battleships built during World War I. Because of the scarcity of fuel oil in Britain, she was unable to serve in Europe and her first wartime service was spent patrolling the East Coast. With Woodrow Wilson's flotilla en route to the ill-fated Versailles peace conference, Arizona was later dispatched to the Mediterranean. In May 1919, the ship provided protection for U.S. interests during the Greek invasion of Smyrna. Returning to home waters, Arizona spent most of the 1920s attached to the Pacific Fleet at San Pedro. A modernization program in 1930-31 saw the removal of her original tripod masts and the addition of antitorpedo blisters. In 1938-39, she was flagship of Rear Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander of Battleship Division 1.
In April 1940, Arizona was part of the fleet sent to Pearl Harbor as a forward deterrent to Japanese expansion in the Pacific. As fate would have it, she became one of the first U.S. casualties of Japanese aggression. On December 7, 1941, USS Arizona was one of seven battleships moored along Battleship Row on the southeast shore of Ford Island. (Her sister ship Pennsylvania was in dry-dock.) At 0755, the first waves of carrier planes—81 fighters, 135 dive bombers, 104 high-level bombers, and 40 torpedo planes from 6 aircraft carriers—roared overhead. About one minute into the raid an armor-piercing bomb exploded in her forward magazine and Arizona became the first ship sunk in the attack. Although the ship settled quickly, trapping many of her crew below decks, Arizona was not abandoned until 1032. The final death toll was 1,103 officers and crew out of 1,358 aboard, including Captain Franklin Van Valkenburgh and Rear Admiral Isaac C. Kidd, Commander of Battleship Division 1, both of whom were killed in the initial explosion. Although Fleet Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto's audacious attack mauled the U.S. fleet severely, the three Pacific-based aircraft carriers
USS Enterprise
Lexington and
Saratoga were at sea and formed the nucleus of the huge armada that would finally defeat Japan three and a half years later.
Although USS Arizona was officially listed as sunk by enemy action, the ship was never formally decommissioned. Since 1950, the national ensign has been raised on the ship every day as on any other commissioned ship in the Navy. In 1962, the Arizona Memorial, a white bridge spanning the hull of the sunken ship, was opened and dedicated as a national shrine.
Delgado, "Recovering the Past of USS Arizona." Stillwell, Battleship "Arizona."
