On the morning of June 19, 1915, teenager Esther Ross fiddled with
anxiety as a naval officer showed her the steps to christen a battleship.
It was the Prohibition era, and the man pointed at two bottles,
one filled with wine and the other with water. He then turned to the prow of a gigantic ship
covered with red fabric, a vessel soon to take her place as the mightiest battleship in the world.
The impressive beast known as Battleship 39 was one of America's first oil-fueled ships,
the epitome of naval power and technological superiority.
However, this legendary vessel would never get to fire her guns in battle,
and her modernity would ultimately be her demise.
The Mightiest Ship
On March 14, 1914, hundreds of New Yorkers gathered outside the city's Navy Yard gates,
hoping to catch a glimpse of the workers laying the keel of a Pennsylvania-class battleship,
the largest ever built.
At the time, this battleship was a naval symbol of the United States Navy's modernity and power,
as the organization had just decided to upgrade the vessel, powering it with oil.
Ships with this characteristic could release energy faster and more efficiently.
The fuel would be moved onto and around the vessel with machinery pumps and pipes rather than the
slow and laborious work of coal stokers working day and night to shovel the chunks by hand.
Thus far, the vessel was only known as Battleship 39, and most people assumed she would be named USS
North Carolina, as it was the home state of then-Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels.
As noon approached, a nearby ship fired 17 rounds to signal the arrival
of the officer who would preside over the official birth of the Navy's newest ship.
Everyone looked around for Daniels, but he was unable to attend.
The crowd then laid eyes on the highest-ranking dignitary in the area
sent in his place. It was 32-year-old Assistant Navy Secretary Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Pennsylvania Class
In the town of Nogales on the other side of the country,
Mayor Leander W. Mix read the news of the keel laying for the Navy's newest battleship.
Although Mix had already read the rumors about her being named North Carolina,
he saw no reason why the vessel couldn't be named after the newest State in the Union,
his beloved two-year-old Arizona.
By then, the politician had made a name for himself and had a long list
of well-established friends and allies, among other well-connected leaders in the country.
He then started lobbying the Navy and Congress
until he convinced them that Battleship 39 should be named USS Arizona.
The Pennsylvania-class battleships were meant to significantly improve upon their predecessor,
the Nevada class. At the time of their construction, USS Pennsylvania and USS
Arizona were the largest battleships ever made for the United States Navy.
The ships were 608 feet long, with a beam of 97 feet at the waterline. Each carried twelve
14-inch 45-caliber guns in triple turrets, as well as twenty-two 5-inch 51-caliber guns.
Despite USS Arizona’s impressive armory, twelve water-tube boilers and four shafts
turned the warship into a slow, lumbering beast, with a top speed of only 21 knots.
The battleship was launched on June 19, 1915,
only fifteen months after her keel-laying, and commissioned into the Navy on October 17,
1916, with Captain John McDonald in charge of the 1,730-person complement.
After departing New York the following month for her shakedown cruise down south,
the ship tested all her primary and secondary batteries, as well as other critical equipment.
However, she got stuck in repairs at the naval yard for the remainder of the year
and until early 1917.
Hollywood and the President Come Calling
World War 1 began three days after USS Arizona departed the naval yard,
but engine problems kept her stateside throughout the earlier months of the conflict.
Once repaired, she spent the remainder of the war as a training ship.
One month after the fighting ended with an armistice in late 1918,
the battleship joined a considerable fleet to escort President Woodrow Wilson
on his journey to the Paris Peace Conference.
Arizona's role during the next two decades would mostly consist of routine training exercises,
as the US Navy sought to perfect their most essential capabilities.
Still, the vessel would become somewhat famous after its appearance in the 1934 film
‘Here Comes the Navy’ starring James Cagney, which had plenty of on-board location shots.
Then, by the time the late 1930s rolled around, the vessel joined the rest of
the Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor as a deterrent to Japanese imperialism.
Pearl Harbor
On December 6, 1941, USS Arizona was loaded with 1.5 million gallons of oil fuel
in preparation for a mainland trip the following month.
However, the next morning, at 8:10am, a Japanese bomber dropped a 1,700-pound payload onto the
forward deck of the ship, igniting the oil preserves and causing a horrific explosion
that lifted the 33,000-ton ship out of the water, ripped it in half,
and took the lives of 1,177 sailors, including her last captain, Franklin Van Valkenburgh.
According to Jay Blount, a spokesman for the Pearl Harbor National memorial: [QUOTE]
"It wasn't the bomb itself that created the giant explosion. It was her own
ammunition — hundreds of thousands of pounds of ammunition, exploding all at the same time."
Almost half of the casualties from the Pearl Harbor attack belonged to the USS Arizona crew.
The ship burned for two and a half days after the initial attack, reaching temperatures as high as
8,000 degrees Fahrenheit, three times as hot as lava. M most of her parts were unsalvageable.
USS Arizona, the mighty battleship that never got to use her guns,
settled at the bottom of Pearl Harbor, where it still lies to this day.
On August 15, 1945, the day Imperial Japan surrendered,
one of the salvaged batteries from Arizona was fired in celebration for the first and only time.
The Unsung Hero
On the morning of December 7, Joe George, a boatswain's mate second
class aboard maintenance ship USS Vestal, was finishing his breakfast when he spotted
the first Japanese plane tearing across the sky and speeding towards their base.
George ran below deck as fast as he could.
Then, as the Japanese bombers dropped their loads on top of the vessels,
a bomb exploded inside Arizona, igniting all the ammunition stores.
After being knocked to the ground by the explosion, the sailors aboard
Vestal immediately followed protocol and cut their vessel loose from the damaged warship.
However, when a senior officer ordered George to cut the Vestal loose,
the sailor spotted six men still on the warship.
The men were injured and trapped on a tower,
pleading for help as fire and debris spread on the deck beneath them.
Completely disregarding his senior officer's orders, George threw a weighted heaving line
towards Arizona. After the sailors on the other side secured it, they began to crawl over to
the maintenance ship as the flames came closer and closer. Eventually they all reached Vestal safely.
Joe George was commended by his commanding officer following the vicious attack,
but he didn't receive any medals. The failure to follow direct orders seemed to stand in the way.
After surviving the war, George retired from the Navy in 1955, passing away in 1996.
Then, a few years later, the son of one of the men George saved
decided to take up the cause to lobby for a medal for the former boatswain.
Several Pearl Harbor survivors also joined the chorus, and even George’s daughter
supported them at one point. As a child, she had no idea about her father's deeds.
Finally, on the 76th anniversary of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 2017,
Secretary of the Navy Richard V. Spencer awarded the Bronze Star Medal for valor to
Chief Boatswain's Mate Joseph L. George for his heroic performance aboard USS Vestal.
The Tears of Arizona
Today, the wreck site of the legendary USS Arizona
is under the control and management of the National Park Service.
The project began in 1949 when the Pacific War Memorial Commission was
formed to establish a permanent tribute for all the lost lives.
Ten years later, President Dwight D. Eisenhower finally signed the legislation
to create a national memorial, and the commission began looking for funds.
The money to build the memorial came from both the public sector and private donors,
including 64,000 dollars from a benefit concert in March of 1961 featuring Elvis Presley,
who had recently finished his service with the United States Army.
After the Pearl Harbor attack and to this day, USS Arizona leaks close to a gallon of oil every day,
and the National Park Service estimates that half a million gallons remain inside her hull.
Some survivors of the attack referred to the leakage as the Black Tears of Arizona,
and there’s plenty of folklore around it. It is said that the ship will continue to cry
until the last remaining survivor passes away.
Throughout the decades, it has become a common practice for the United States Navy
sailors who served in USS Arizona to have their ashes scattered over the wrecking
site and be reunited with their fellow crew members that were lost too soon.
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