Memorials, Myths and Symbols (Part 2)

USS Arizona as a Naval Memorial

The concept of naval memorials is an ancient one. Naval memorials can be prizes of war: the flags, weapons or vessels of the enemy. War prizes, for the most part, have focused on the preservation of vessels as trophies. Octavian, following his victory over Antony and Cleopatra's fleet at Actium, erected a memorial on the hill overlooking the battle site adorned with the bronze rams from the prows of dozens of captured ships. Just as the Romans paraded captured generals and troops through the streets of Rome, other victors have exhibited the captured vessels of an enemy.

USS Bennington (CV-20) passes the wreck of USS Arizona on Memorial Day 1958. Bennington's crew has spelled out Arizona on the carrier's flight deck. U.S. Naval Historical Center photo U036055.

Although there are numerous naval memorials in the United States, USS Arizona is unique in being the nation's only major naval memorial vessel associated with disaster. Although destruction of the USS Maine propelled the nation into war in the last century, only pieces are displayed. Other sunken warships lie unmarked in the ocean, with plaques ashore, commemorating their memory, crews and loss. USS Arizona serves as a naval memorial in large part because of its accessibility. Admiral Kidd noted that the battleship is the only warship lost during World War II whose wreckage still remained in sight when the war was over; all the others went down in deep water and "their bones rest in unknown lands beneath the sea."  Utah also remained in sight at war's end, but not in the public eye. USS Arizona's extraordinary sacrifice, its unique national exposure, and its continued visibility after the war made it a unique naval memorial.

USS Arizona as a War Memorial

As early as during the war, the Navy discussed plans to make the Arizona's visible remains a war memorial. Even then, divergent views on a memorial's nature and purpose reflected the mythic quality of the ship and its symbolism. While ultimately the ship was to serve as a war grave, it was the primary interest of the U.S. Navy to memorialize the ship as a "Navy obligation to what had been one of the fleet's proudest ships and the sailors who went down with her."  The ship itself, while a naval memorial and war grave, is not the war memorial. That distinction belongs to the concrete arched structure that spans the sunken hulk but -- symbolically -- does not touch it. The sunken ship is the artifact and reminder of December 7, 1941. As such, it is a potent symbol that is enhanced and interpreted by the memorial structure. The 1962 memorial, supposedly dipping in the middle to symbolize the initial low point of U.S. fortunes after the attack and rising at both ends to symbolize the nation's rise to victory, is less a memorial to the Arizona than it is to the great experience of American World War II. Architect Alfred Preis

. . . viewed the United States as an essentially pacifistic nation, one that inevitably would sustain the first blow in any war. Once aroused by that shock, the nation could overcome virtually any obstacle to victory. Because of that characteristic, it was unavoidable -- even necessary, in Preis' view -- that this nation suffer the initial defeat at Pearl Harbor. He meant his design for the memorial to be a reminder to Americans of the inevitability of sustaining the initial defeat, of the potential for victory, and the sacrifices necessary to make the painful journey from defeat to victory

The war memorial's basic message meets Preis' intent. Arizona's loss serves as a vehicle for personal reflection on war's causes, conduct and results. When the shock and initial anger of December 7 had diminished, Arizona transmuted to a symbol of what could happen if the nation were again caught unaware. The battleship stood for the need for military preparedness, for not underestimating potential foes, for alertness, and for mutual understanding and respect.

USS Arizona as a War Grave

Flower petals dropped from the USS Arizona Memorial mingle with a sheen of oil seeping from the ship. Photo by Brett Seymour, NPS.

USS Arizona is a war grave, in addition to being a naval and war memorial. These values are closely interrelated and complementary. The greatest single loss of life at Pearl Harbor (and in United States naval history) came when the Arizona's munitions exploded, killing 1,177 of its crew. The collapse of the vessel's forward sections and the intense heat of the blast and the fires that followed made recovery of only a few bodies possible. Wartime priorities, the difficulty of salvaging the vessel and recovering the bodies resulted in most of the dead being left on board. The ship became a tomb for hundreds of its crew, and the men aboard were declared buried at sea. Now the ship serves on occasion as the burial site for survivors who in recent years have had their remains interred in the No. 4 turret's barbette.

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