Pacific ships

Photos and the story

Arizona

Back to Arizona

ClassPennsylvania class
TypeBattleship (BB)
HullBB-39
BuilderNew York Navy Yard
Launched1915-06-19
Commissioned1916-10-17
FateSunk. A bomb detonated her forward magazines at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. She was not raised.
Armament (class)Four triple 14-inch turrets.

Laid down, displacement, length, beam, draft, speed, and complement are not stored for each hull, so this table leaves them out.

The armament line is the class drawing, not a measurement of this hull.

Arizona
Arizona (BB39) Port Bow, Underway - NARA - 5900075 - 1930.jpg. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

USS Arizona (BB-39) was a Pennsylvania-class battleship of the United States Navy. The New York Navy Yard built her.

She was launched on 19 June 1915. The Navy commissioned her on 17 October 1916, and she served as a battleship of that class.

On 7 December 1941 she was at Pearl Harbor during the Attack on Pearl Harbor. That morning a bomb struck her and detonated the forward magazines.

The explosion sank the ship. Arizona was a total loss, and the blast that destroyed her came from those magazines.

The bomb is left with an unknown source. The account does not assign it to one carrier or to one plane.

She was not raised. The hull stayed at Pearl Harbor, where the magazine detonation of 7 December 1941 had put her down.

From her commissioning in 1916 to that December morning she had been a finished battleship. A single bomb, by setting off the forward magazines, ended her, and the wreck remained where she sank.

Ships burning at Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1941. U.S. Navy combat film, National Archives NPC-1730. Public domain.