Qualla: USS Arizona Memorial

USS Arizona Memorial: Introduction

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cristo Vlahos, CC BY-SA 3.0. Oil still seeps from the wreck. More than eighty years after a Japanese bomb detonated the forward magazine of USS Arizona, killing 1,177 of her crew in minutes, small dark drops continue to surface above the sunken hull, spreading across the water in iridescent films that visitors call the "tears of the Arizona." The battleship leaks roughly a quart of fuel oil each day, a quiet insistence that this is no abstraction but a ship -- with 1,102 of her dead still aboard, lying in the silt of Pearl Harbor exactly where they fell on the morning that drew the United States into the Second World War.

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Image: Cristo Vlahos | CC BY-SA 3.0

USS Arizona Memorial: Two Decades of False Starts

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stan Shebs, CC BY-SA 3.0. The path to a national memorial was neither quick nor simple. Robert Ripley, of Ripley's Believe It or Not! fame, pushed for a permanent tribute after visiting Pearl Harbor in 1942, writing letters to the Navy's Bureau of Yards and Docks. His idea was shelved for cost. Admiral Ar...

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Image: Stan Shebs | CC BY-SA 3.0

USS Arizona Memorial: A Bridge That Does Not Touch the Ship

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit National Museum of the U.S. Navy, Public domain. Austrian-born architect Alfred Preis designed the memorial as a 184-foot bridge floating above the sunken hull without resting on it. Its profile -- two peaks at each end connected by a deliberate sag through the center -- drew early ridicule; critics called it a "squashed milk c...

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Image: National Museum of the U.S. Navy | Public domain

USS Arizona Memorial: Names in Marble

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit SCFoxJD, CC BY-SA 4.0. At the far end of the memorial, a marble wall bears the name of every crew member killed aboard Arizona, protected behind velvet ropes. Salt water vapor eats at the stone, causing stains and erosion that forced full replacements in 1984 and again in 2014. To the left of the main ...

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Image: SCFoxJD | CC BY-SA 4.0

USS Arizona Memorial: Missouri Stands Watch

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cristo Vlahos, CC BY-SA 3.0. In 1999, the Navy towed the battleship USS Missouri from the west coast to Pearl Harbor and berthed her behind and in line with the Arizona, perpendicular to the memorial. On Missouri's quarterdeck in Tokyo Bay, Japan had surrendered to General Douglas MacArthur and Admiral Chest...

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Image: Cristo Vlahos | CC BY-SA 3.0

USS Arizona Memorial: Manning the Rails

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rwminix, CC BY-SA 3.0. Every United States Navy, Coast Guard, and Merchant Marine vessel entering Pearl Harbor honors a tradition called manning the rails. Personnel stand at attention along their ship's guardrails and salute the USS Arizona Memorial as they glide past. More than a million civilians vi...

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Image: Rwminix | CC BY-SA 3.0