Inside the USS Arizona Memorial

This is the view north from the memorial, with the remains of the aft gun turret sticking out of the water.   The fires burned for 3 days, and the Vestal, a support ship moored next to the Arizona, was badly scorched but didn't sink.

You can look down onto the ship and see the top deck.   The superstructure was removed many years ago and unceremoniously dumped on Ford Island, where it was forgotten until very recently.   Also forgotten until recently is the fact that the forward main gun barrels are still in place.

The main focus of the memorial is this wall in the "shrine room" with the names of all 1177 men who died on the Arizona as a result of the attack.   Over half the people who died at Pearl Harbor died on the Arizona, and more men died on the Arizona than on any other America ship before or since.   About 900 of them are still entombed within the wreck, and deceased survivors often have their ashes scattered on the ship.

There's even someone on the list with the same name as myself, which is not a common name in New Zealand, though I've seen it a bit more often here in the States.

My family name even turns up on the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC, and on a memorial commemorating the war dead in Okinawa, Japan.