In each of the three centuries of its existence, the United States' Navy has produced an icon: in the eighteenth century it was the Constitution ["Old Ironsides"]; in the nineteenth it was the Maine; and in our own time it has been the Arizona. Constitution has survived to astound with her longevity whereas the fame of the other two was caused by the violent manner of their loss; although both disasters resulted in the declaration of war, Arizona's story is still fresh enough to provoke continuing controversy and her wreck site has become a place of pilgrimage for countless U.S. Navy veterans. Named - like all U.S. battleships - for a state in the Union, Arizona was the second of two "Pennsylvania" class vessels ordered just before the outbreak of the Great War. Laid down in New York Navy Yard at Brooklyn on 16th March 1914, she was launched on 19th June 1915 and finally completed on 17th October 1917. There was no particular urgency to finish her as the United States remained neutral until April 1917 and, even though American public opinion gradually turned towards war, it was obvious that the conflict in Europe was so land-based as to require little or no U.S. naval involvement.
Displacing 31,400 tons (32,567 tons fully loaded), Arizona measured 608 feet in length with a 97 foot beam, and her steel hull was protected by a 13in. belt of armour with 4in. plating on deck. With a main armament of 12-14in. guns grouped into threes on four massive turrets, her subsidiary weapons comprised 22-5in. and 4-3in. guns in addition to 2-21in. submerged torpedo tubes. Powered by 4-shaft Parsons' geared turbines fired from twelve Babcock & Wilcox boilers, her engines could generate 31,500shp. to drive her at 21 knots maximum or give her a range of 8,000 nautical miles when cruising at 10 knots. Commissioned with a full crew of 915 officers and men, the shortage of heavy fuel oil in Britain due to the Royal Navy's own requirements kept Arizona away from European waters during what remained of the War and she spent the time patrolling off the Eastern seaboard. When the Armistice was signed in November 1918, she was one of the flotilla which accompanied President Wilson's mission to France for the ensuing peace conference and thereafter went into the Mediterranean. In May 1919, she provided protection for U.S. interests during the Greek invasion of Smyrna before returning to home waters where she would remain. Spending most of the 1920's attached to the Pacific Fleet based at San Diego, she underwent modernisation in 1930-31 which saw the removal of her tripod masts and the addition of anti-torpedo blisters. In 1938-39, she served as flagship to Rear-Admiral Chester Nimitz, Comander of Battleship Division 1, and in April 1940 formd part of the fleet sent to Pearl Harbour to act as a forward deterrent to any Japanese expansion in the Pacific.
Relations between the United States and Japan had deteriorated throughout 1941 to a point where Japan had decided to seize the initiative and mount a massive airstrike against the major U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbour in the Hawaiian Islands. A force of six Japanese aircraft carriers had approached the area in secret and launched the attack early on the morning of Sunday 7th December 1941. Arizona was one of seven capital ships moored in 'Battleship Row', on the south-eastern shore of Ford Island, whilst her sister Pennsylvania lay in the nearby dry-dock. Without warning or any formal declaration of war, the initial wave of carrier planes burst upon the scene at 7.55am and, barely one minute into the attack, Arizona was hit by an armour-piercing bomb which exploded in her forward magazine. The first casualty of the raid and mortally wounded by the the explosion of her ammunition, Arizona began to settle almost immediately, trapping many men below decks. In the panic and confusion which followed, 1,103 officers and crew out of 1,358 aboard lost their lives, the dead including Captain Valkenburgh, Arizona's commander, and Rear-Admiral Kidd, Nimitz's successor to the command of Battleship Division 1. The battleship Oklahoma was also sunk and six others crippled but all were ultimately repaired and returned to active service except Arizona whose damage was too great. She was never formally decommissioned however and in 1962, the Arizona Memorial, a white bridge spanning the submerged hull, was opened and dedicated a national shrine which continues to attract large numbers of visitors each year.