USS Arizona Exhibit – See It Now Through December 2022
FMHA opened this exhibit for two primary purposes. First, to unveil this unique relic from the Battleship USS Arizona and secondly to honor the more than 100 Delaware service men known to have been at Pearl Harbor, specifically 22 among them whose heroic actions were of special note. We also recognize family members, presently residents of Delaware, whose relatives were at Pearl Harbor.
ATTACK
The Japanese attack commenced around 0755, Sunday 7 December 1941. At about 0815 a single bomb dropped from a Japanese aircraft struck the Arizona’s forward deck near turret two. It penetrated deeply into the ship, where it detonated and set off the ship’s ammunition stores. The resultant explosion was cataclysmic. In an instant 1177 sailors and marines were killed outright or trapped within the sinking ship. She settled keel down in about 40 feet of water, her main deck awash. The explosion completely demolished the forward section of the ship, with the two forward turrets and a portion of the superstructure collapsing into the hull. Fires aboard the Arizona burned for three days before dying out.
After extensive study by the Navy following the attack, it was determined that the ship was too badly damaged to repair. The Arizona was struck from the Naval Register on December 1, 1942. Some of her main armament was salvaged and repurposed as shore batteries elsewhere in Hawaii and on another battleship. The Navy then cut away most of the wreckage that remained above the water line, leaving the sunken hull, containing the bodies of 900 or more of her crew on the bottom of Pearl Harbor. The wreckage removed from the Arizona was transported to a remote location within the Pearl Harbor Naval Base and deposited there, where much of it remains to this day. By October 1943 most of the structure above the waterline had disappeared.
SUBSEQUENT ACTIVITY
The idea of constructing a monument to the Arizona and her dead dates back to the post war years.
In 1951, on orders of Admiral Arthur Radford, Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet, the Navy constructed a wooden platform on a small piece of the wreckage which remained above the waterline. A flagpole was installed and the custom of raising and lowering the flag over the sunken hull commenced.
In 1958, President Eisenhower approved a memorial to be constructed at the wreck site. Funds were raised, including proceeds from a concert at Pearl Harbor by Elvis Presley. The newly constructed USS Arizona Memorial opened in 1962. The platform authorized by ADM Radford was removed to make way for the new construction, along with some of the wreckage upon which it was mounted. We were informed the relic on exhibit came from that site, which was formerly a portion of the ship’s aft deck house.
RELICS PROGRAM
Over the years, the Navy received many requests for pieces of the cut-away wreckage for display in museums or use at memorials. The Navy was unable to respond favorably to these requests because no legal mechanism existed to permit this kind of disposition.
Finally, in 1995, Congress authorized the Navy to donate portions of the wreckage to approved entities, subject to stringent conditions. The donation and transfer of the relic must take place at no cost to the government. The relic may not be sold, traded or otherwise used for profit. It must be treated with the respect that a fragment of a war grave should be shown.
In October 2018, the FMHA Board voted to petition the Navy for a fragment of the Arizona wreckage to be displayed at the Fort Miles Museum. We asked for the largest available piece, as we envisioned that the relic would someday be placed in close proximity to another large Fort Miles Museum artifact – the 16-inch gun barrel on display just outside the main entrance to the Museum. After an effort of nearly two years led by FMHA Board member Cliff Geisler, the relic, weighing over 650 pounds and measuring roughly 11 feet in length, arrived at Fort Miles.
BOOKENDS
As noted, among the other artifacts on display at the Fort Miles Museum is a 16-inch gun barrel taken from the USS Missouri, the last battleship ever built for the US Navy. After an illustrious service life, the Missouri was decommissioned, and in 1998, she found her “forever home” as a museum ship, moored at Pearl Harbor only a few hundred yards from the wreck and memorial of the USS Arizona. Perhaps the Missouri’s most significant claim to fame is that Japan surrendered on her deck, in September 1945, ending World War II. The historical symmetry is unmistakable (and deliberately planned) with the enshrinement of this iconic American battleship where WWII ended only a few hundred yards from a battleship sunk on the first day of that war.
In 2011, after an exhaustive search for a 16-inch gun barrel similar to the ones once positioned at Fort Miles, FMHA President Gary Wray located multiple barrels in rough storage at two naval installations. The barrels, taken from battleships, had lain undisturbed for years after their removal from those vessels. They were in within days of being cut up and scrapped. In fact, upon acquisition, it was noted there were markings on the barrel now on display showing where the cuts were to be made.
After a great deal of research, Dr. Wray established that several of the barrels were actually in place aboard the USS Missouri on the day Japan surrendered. One of the barrels, the middle gun of turret 1, is now in enshrined outside this Museum. It may be said that WWII ended almost literally in the shadow of the Fort Miles Museum barrel. With the addition of the USS Arizona relic, the historic “Bookends” now in Pearl Harbor have been recreated, on a smaller scale, here at Fort Miles. Please consider visiting this free exhibit – we believe you will not be disappointed!
Premier Sponsors
Crystal Trust
Welfare Foundation
The Christian and Julie Hudson Family Foundation
Special Recognition to
Draper Media for 2022 Media Support
Gold Sponsors
Raymond Book & Associates, CPAs
Crestlea Foundation
Delaware Humanities
Dogfish Head Brewery
John & Sally Freeman
Harvard Business Services
IG Burton & Co., Inc.
Nickel Electrical Companies
Steve & Deborah Dignan
Sodel Concepts
Silver Sponsors
American Legion Post #17
American Legion Riders Post #166
Artisans’ Bank
Atlantic Concrete
Clean Cut Pavers and Pools
Fitzgerald/Keith Fund
George, Miles & Buhr LLC
Graulich Builders
Irish Eyes Restaurants
William Manthorpe
Pauls Family Foundation
Jim & Nancy Pierce
Bill & Joanne Reilly
John & Doris Rudibaugh
Russ Palmer Builders
Sussex County Council
David & Rebecca Tam
The Brush Factory on Kings
Brock Vinton
Lorraine & Steve Walker Fund
In-Kind Donors
Corrado Construction
FedEx
Abraxus Hudson
Heidi Lowe
Marta Nammack
