The USS Arizona Memorial, at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii, marks the resting place of 1,102 of the 1,177 sailors and Marines killed on USS Arizona during the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and commemorates the events of that day. The attack on Pearl Harbor led to the United States’ involvement in World War II.
The memorial, built in 1962, is visited by more than two million people annually. Accessible only by boat, it straddles the sunken hull of the battleship without touching it. Historical information about the attack, shuttle boats to and from the memorial, and general visitor services are available at the associated USS Arizona Memorial Visitor Center, which opened in 1980 and is operated by the National Park Service. The battleship’s sunken remains were declared a National Historic Landmark on May 5, 1989. The USS Arizona Memorial is one of several sites in Hawaii that are part of the Pearl Harbor National Memorial.
The national memorial was designed by Honolulu architect Alfred Preis, who was detained at Sand Island at the start of the war as an enemy of the country, because of his Austrian birth. The United States Navy specified the memorial be in the form of a bridge floating above the ship and accommodating 200 people. The 184-foot-long (56 m) structure has two peaks at each end connected by a sag in the center of the structure. Critics initially called the design a “squashed milk carton”. The architecture of the USS Arizona Memorial is explained by Preis as, “Wherein the structure sags in the center but stands strong and vigorous at the ends, expresses initial defeat and ultimate victory … The overall effect is one of serenity. Overtones of sadness have been omitted, to permit the individual to contemplate his own personal responses … his innermost feelings.”
The national memorial has three main parts: entry, assembly room, and shrine. The central assembly room features seven large open windows on either wall and ceiling, to commemorate the date of the attack. There are rumors that the 21 windows symbolically represent a 21-gun salute or 21 Marines standing at eternal parade rest over the tomb of the fallen, but guides at the site have confirmed that this was not the architect’s intention. The memorial also has an opening in the floor overlooking the sunken decks. It is from this opening that visitors can pay their respects by tossing flowers in honor of the fallen sailors. In the past, leis were tossed in the water, but because string from leis poses a hazard to sea life, leis now are placed on guardrails in front of the names of the fallen. One of Arizonas three 19,585-pound (8,884 kg) anchors is displayed at the visitor center’s entrance. One of the other two is at the Arizona State Capitol in Phoenix. One of the two ship’s bells is in the visitor center. Its twin is in the clock tower of the Student Memorial Center at the University of Arizona in Tucson. The shrine at the far end is a marble wall that bears the names of all those killed on Arizona, protected behind velvet ropes. To the left of the main wall is a small plaque which bears the names of thirty or so crew members who survived the 1941 sinking. Any surviving crew members of Arizona (or their families on their behalf) can have their ashes interred within the wreck by U.S. Navy divers.
