It was determined she could not be salvaged, and instead, her surviving superstructure was taken down in 1942 while her main armament was salvaged and used for coastal defense batteries. Navy warships that were sunk or damaged during the attack on Pearl Harbor, Arizona did not return to duty.
In the late 1930s, she was largely used for training exercises and had been sent with the rest of the Pacific Fleet from California to Pearl Harbor as a deterrent to Japanese imperialism. They were essentially slow, lumbering beasts.īB-39 underwent a comprehensive modernization effort from 1929-31, much of which can actually be seen in the 1934 film Here Comes the Navy, which starred James Cagney. However, the twelve water-tube boilers and four shafts gave the warships a top speed of just twenty-one knots. Each carried twelve 14-inch/45 caliber guns in triple turrets, as well as twenty-two 5-inch/51 caliber guns.
They were 608 feet long and had a beam of 97 feet at the waterline.
The Pennsylvania-class was meant to greatly improve upon the Nevada-class – and the vessels were the largest U.S. Here is a short history of the iconic battleship:Ĭommissioned in 1916, the battleship remained stateside during the First World War but was one of several warships that escorted President Woodrow Wilson to the Paris Peace Conference in the summer of 1919. She was, however, the second and last of Pennsylvania-class of “super-dreadnoughts” built for the United States Navy in the early 20th century. The destruction of USS Arizona was a devastating blow for the United States given the tremendous loss of life, and no doubt the Japanese saw her destruction as a victory the truth is that the warship was rather antiquated at the time. Kidd, Commander Battleship Division One, and the ship’s Commanding Officer, Captain Franklin Van Valkenburgh. The massive explosions that followed have never been fully explained – and many theories abound – but it caused a fire that burned furiously for more than two days.Ī total of 1,177 officers and crewmen were killed, including Rear Admiral Isaac C. She was struck by several bombs, which caused damage to her aft and midship sections. The warship had been moored inboard of the repair ship Vestal (AR-4) on that fateful Sunday morning in December. More than thirty sailors who survived the attack had chosen the site as their final resting place. Navy sailors who served on the battleship USS Arizona (BB-39) to have their ashes scattered over the wreck site – a way for them to be reunited with those crew members who were lost when the ship was sunk on December 7, 1941. It has been common practice in recent years for U.S.
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