THE STORY OF THE BATTLESHIP ARIZONA

When the Japanese attack force retired from Hawaiian waters on December 7, 1941, the U.S. Navy counted 2,008 dead and missing, more than three times its combined loss in two previous wars-the Spanish-American War and World War I. Most of these dead and missing became casualties during the first half hour of that swift attack. More than half of them went down with the hardest hit of the 94 ships in harbor that day, the battleship ARIZONA. Her 1,102 dead remain entombed within her where she settled into the mud of Pearl Harbor. Their ship, with her decks partly exposed today, is one of America's most solemn shrines, a monument to one of America's most tragic defeats.

The ARIZONA was authorized by Congress on March 4, 1913, the day Woodrow Wilson was inaugurated President. Her keel was laid in March 1914 and she was launched at the Brooklyn Navy yard on June 19, 1915.

Sponsor of the 32,000-ton battleship was Miss Esther Ross of Prescott, Arizona. In christening the ARIZONA before a crowd of 75,000 she broke two bottles over the ship's bow, one of champagne, the other of water from the Roosevelt Dam on the Salt River in Arizona.

The ship was commissioned in October 1916, six months before the U.S. entered World War I.

Two groups of U.S. battleships were sent to Europe during that war. Six battlewagons crossed the Atlantic in November 1917 to reinforce the British fleet, in case of another battle with the Kaiser's high seas fleet like that at Jutland in May 1916. The second group of three ships was sent over late in the war to guard against the possibility of swift German battlecruisers escaping into the Atlantic as commerce raiders.

The remaining U.S. battleships were based at Hampton Roads, Virginia, where they were used in training and held in reserve in case of need. The ARIZONA was with this group until August 1918 when she too crossed the Atlantic to operate in European waters the last two months of the war.

On December 12, 1918, the ARIZONA met the transport GEORGE WASHINGTON off the French coast and escorted it into port. President Wilson was going to Europe aboard the transport to see that a treaty was signed which would guarantee peace for all time. The failure of his mission, of course, culminated at Pearl Harbor with the awful destruction of the battleship which saw him safely debarked in France.

The ARIZONA returned to New York on Christmas day 1918 and the following spring was dispatched to a Near East trouble spot. In May 1919 the Greeks landed in Turkey and began the three-year Greco-Turkish war. The ARIZONA for a time acted as home for American refugees stranded at the Turkish port of Smyrna on the Mediterranean.

Meanwhile, the American fleet was redeployed. For some years Germany had been the potential enemy for naval planners but her fleet was scuttled at Scapa Flow in June 1919. In the Far East Japan was putting a scare into the U.S. by her obviously aggressive designs in Siberia, then under joint Allied occupation. The result was that the post-war U.S. fleet of 29 battleships was divided in two. Fourteen were sent into the Pacific in the summer of 1919. They operated out of the Los Angeles-Long Beach-San Diego area until mid-1939 when Pearl Harbor became their major base. The ARIZONA remained for a time as one of 15 ships in the Atlantic fleet.

But the U.S. was not to boast 29 battleships for long. The Washington treaty of 1922 was the first of several international agreements to reduce armaments, notably naval armaments.

Though the Washington treaty allowed no new battleships before 1931, the U.S. in 1927 began modernizing its old ones, a few at a time. The turn of the ARIZONA came in 1929 when she went into the Norfolk Navy yard for a face-lifting. Her 14-inch guns were raised to give added range. Her 3-inch anti-aircraft guns were replaced by 5inchers. Her coal-burning boilers were replaced with those burning oil. Protection against mines was added with a thin outer shell called a "blister" and her cage-type masts gave way to new tripod masts.

It was a sleeker ARIZONA which embarked President Herbert Hoover in 1931 on a Caribbean tour to Puerto Rico and other West Indies islands. Upon Hoover's return she joined the Pacific fleet with which she served until sunk by the Japanese.

Each spring in those years between world wars the Navy held its War Games, either in the eastern Pacific or the Caribbean. During these maneuvers, in which the ARIZONAARIZONA took part, the U.S. demonstrated that carriers could be used to project fire power deep into an enemy's territory. But the Japanese seemed to profit most by this concept of seaborne air power. By 1941 the Japanese had ten aircraft carriers, the U.S. only five. The attack on Pearl Harbor was, of course, the first time a carrier task force was used in war.

During the year 1941 Japan, on the one hand, was negotiating in Washington for a settlement of the tense Far East situation and, on the other hand, was planning her attack on the most important U.S. Pacific base. What Japan failed to gain by negotiation she was determined to gain by war. Her Pearl Harbor attacking force had orders to turn back anytime up to midnight, December 6th, if it was notified that negotiations in Washington had succeeded. Japan's main objective was not to conquer the Hawaiian Islands or make a landing on the west coast, but to seize the oil, rubber, tin and other riches of southeast Asia. The major military force standing in her way was the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Her attack on Pearl Harbor was designed, not to knock out the naval base, but to destroy that fleet which she knew would be there from observations of her over-staffed consulate in Hawaii.

The task force left Japanese ports between November 10th and 18th. It took a course across the Pacific half way between the Aleutians and Midway Island, off the travelled sea lanes and under the cover of bad weather.

The force was built around six carriers, a formidable array even today. Supporting the flat-tops were two battleships, two cruisers, eleven destroyers, three submarines and eight supply ships and tankers-a total of 32 ships.

The night before the attack, about 9:00 p.m. Hawaiian time, the force reached a point 490 miles north of Oahu. It left the supply ships behind and charged due south at a speed of 26 knots.

At 6:15 a.m. the force was about 250 miles due north of Oahu and, still undetected, it launched its first wave of planes. There were 360 planes used in the assault, 190 in the first wave.

Pearl Harbor is on the south shore of Oahu, seven miles west of Honolulu. It contains 6½ square miles of navigable water. In the middle is Ford Island, once a sugar field but by 1941 a major naval air station where the planes of incoming carriers were landed.

Fortunately there were no carriers in the harbor that morning. Of the 94 combat and auxiliary ships, eight were battleships. And seven of these were moored in "Battleship Row" along the southeast shore of Ford Island. Across the channel in drydock was the eighth, the PENNSYLVANIA. These eight were the prize target of the Japanese.

Ninety per cent of the enlisted men were aboard their ships at Pearl Harbor that morning, and 60 per cent of the officers. The headlines for some time had spoken of the danger of war. But somehow no one believed the Japanese would dare attack America. If the attack came it would doubtless come in Southeast Asia.

Aboard the ARIZONA were 1,553 officers and men, including the commander of the battleship division one, Rear Admiral Isaac C. Kidd, and the ship's skipper, Captain Franklin Van Valkenburgh. She was moored just forward of the NEVADA, the last ship in Battleship Row. Alongside the ARIZONA, on the side opposite from Ford Island, was moored the repair ship VESTAL.

The first bomb to fall landed on the south end of Ford Island at 7:55. Before the ARIZONA's crew realized what was happening, one and perhaps two torpedoes struck their ship, missing the smaller VESTAL alongside.

General quarters sounded. Men were ordered to their battle stations and the 25-year-old battleship began the first and last battle of her life.

The damage control officer aboard the ARIZONA was 42-year-old Lieutenant Commander Samuel G. Fuqua. He called the ship to general quarters when enemy planes were sighted and rushed to the quarterdeck. There he was stunned and knocked down by the explosion of a large bomb which penetrated several decks and set off a fire. As soon as he regained consciousness, Fuqua began to direct fire fighting and the rescue of the wounded.

A total of seven bombs hit the ARIZONA from her bow to stern. One hit the boat deck. Another hit the after turrets and four more hit the midship section between the bridge and after mast. One bomb, a divebomber's dream, went right down the stack. But the most damaging of all was the armor-piercing bomb which penetrated the deck near the second turret. Below were ammunition spaces con-taining 14-inch shells and cordite charges in silk bags. Before these magazines could be flooded, the bomb had dropped into them and exploded. Ships all over the harbor, and enemy planes in the air, saw the ARIZONA's magazines explode. Flames and men rose hundreds of feet into the air, the men's bodies falling to the deck burned and broken. The ship rose out of the water, shuddered and settled down by the bow rapidly. Oil poured into the harbor and black smoke billowed into the sky as the oil caught fire. Wounded and burned men began pouring out of the ship onto the quarterdeck.

When the attack began Rear Admiral Kidd started for the signal bridge. He paused long enough to help serve a machine gun which was not yet fully manned. That was the last glimpse any survivors had of him. He was killed when the magazines exploded right under the signal bridge, the first U.S. naval officer of flag rank to be killed in action. Captain Van Valkenburgh took his post on the navigation bridge just above and was killed in the same explosion. Both men were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor and each had a destroyer named after him.

The ship's band, 20 men with their leader, a musician Shortly after the attack, the Arizona was a mass of flames. This photograph was taken during the attack from a place on Ford Island. Despite the clouds of smoke arising from the battleship, anti-aircraft crews courageously stuck to their guns. first class, went to its battle station below where its members were to serve as ammunition passers. All were killed when the magazines blew up. Aboard the repair ship VESTAL alongside, the skipper was on the bridge in personal command of the 3-inch antiaircraft gun. The blast of the ARIZONA's forward magazines blew him overboard. But he swam back to his ship. The whole forward part of the ARIZONA was an inferno with oil afire on the water between the two ships. The VESTAL was burning from several bomb hits, was settling and taking on a list. Her skipper, Commander Cassin Young, was later awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for calmly moving his ship to safety, despite the shock of his harrowing experience.

There were 87 Marines aboard the ARIZONA. Only 13 survived.

One who did not survive was 2nd Lieutenant Carleton E. Somensen. His anti-aircraft gun kept firing until its ammunition was cut off by fires on deck and water below decks. He called for volunteers and led them below to carry ammunition to other batteries. Taking his Marines up the exposed ladder of the mainmast, he reached the searchlight platform when he was mortally wounded by a bomb. He died almost instantly. All this happened, remember, within the first half hour of the attack, the Japanese planes strafing the ship between bombings.

Lieutenant Commander Fuqua was still aboard and still alive. He continued to direct the evacuation of the wounded. He too was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor because, as his citation said, he "supervised the rescue of these men in such an amazingly calm and cool manner and with such excellent judgment that it inspired everyone who saw him and undoubtedly resulted in the saving of many lives."

There was no pressure in the fire mains, so Fuqua had his firefighters keep back the flames from the quarterdeck with carbon dioxide extinguishers so wounded could be picked up. Some of the ARIZONA's boats had pulled away from the oil spreading about the ship and they were standing by off the stern. Into these Fuqua placed many of the wounded to be carried to Ford Island. He sent two ensigns below to determine whether the admiral and captain were still alive. Both their cabins were

were waist deep in water and neither officer was there so Fuqua assumed they had gone to their stations on the bridge and been killed.

Astern of the ARIZONA, aboard the NEVADA, another lieutenant commander found himself the senior officer aboard. He ordered his ship to get underway, despite the fact the boilers did not have full power. The NEVADA began her gallant sortie down the harbor. Her gun crews shielded their ammunition with their own bodies as she passed the blazing ARIZONA. Attacked more fiercely than ever, there was danger the NEVADA might sink in the harbor entrance so she was ordered aground on the west shore of the harbor, another victim of the fierce battle.

In all. Lieutenant Commander Fuqua was the last to leave his ship.

The ARIZONA's keel had settled gently into the mud of Pearl Harbor. Smoke still billowed from her decks. And from her stern was still flying the Stars and Stripes. She has remained at the same spot ever since.

Immediately after the attack, the immense job of salvage began at Pearl Harbor. The ARIZONA's superstructure was cut away for scrap badly needed in the war effort. Her gun mounts were removed and erected in the hills of Oahu to guard against a possible Japanese invasion. Only her midship deck house remains exposed above the waters of Pearl Harbor, the iron decking still buckled and rivets still popped from the intense heat of December 7th.

About 9:00 o'clock Fuqua noted the ARIZONA's antiaircraft guns were out of action, the ship was burning from number three turret forward and was settling into the 40foot-deep harbor. As senior officer aboard he ordered abandon ship.

Men leaped overboard to swim to Ford Island, a few hundred feet away. The families of officers and men living on the island came down to the water to help survivors ashore, many with eyelashes, clothes and skin burned off. Many were covered with oil, now inches thick around the ARIZONA. A Marine major, himself exhausted from swimming through the oily water, grabbed a corporal about to go down and brought him ashore. There were 289 survivorsDivers went down shortly after the attack to see about recovering the 1,102 men still aboard, eight of them from the the state of Arizona itself. But one of the divers had his air lines severed on the jagged metal in the dark depths of the ship, and he too was lost.

The cost of raising the ARIZONA was estimated at more than $2,000,000.

The decision was then made to let the battleship remain as a grave for her crew members.

During a solemn ceremony in March 1950 the Stars and Stripes were raised again over the ARIZONA. Every morning at 8:00 a detail goes out to the ARIZONA to raise the colors. Every evening at sunset it returns to lower them, like on any commissioned ship in the Navy. Ships entering Pearl Harbor usually pass the ARIZONA. The officer of the deck calls the crew to attention and all hands salute the ARIZONA's 1,102 dead, as they pass.

Every year just before Memorial Day a group of 20 children aged 10 to 12, selected from a Honolulu school, make a pilgrimage to the ARIZONA. They say a prayer and leave behind them the beautiful garlands of flowers called leis which they themselves have made.

Of these 20 different children who come each year, sometimes as many as 16 are of Japanese ancestry, with names like Yamashita, Tanaka and Yoshimura, for Hawaii numbers many persons of Japanese descent among its population. But to these children the destruction of the ARIZONA represents as tragic a defeat as it does to any other Americans. Their fathers worked in the Pearl Harbor shipyard during the war, repairing the ships damaged by the enemy. Or they fought in the much-decorated 442nd Regimental Combat Team in Italy.

MAY GOD MAKE HIS FAVOR TO SHINE UPON THEM AND GRANT THEM PEACE The Americans who take a boat trip to the ARIZONA each year number about 30,000. During World War II the phrase "Remember Pearl Harbor" inspired many to work and fight for the victory we finally gained. But one wonders how many remember Pearl Harbor today, how many of those thousands of visitors to the ARIZONA appreciate the lesson of that sudden attack.

Pearl Harbor itself is no longer an advance base. Our outermost defense line now lies thousands of miles west in the Pacific. But the danger of other Pearl Harbors elsewhere is no less today than it was in 1941 when we believed, somehow, the Japanese would never dare attack America.

A Frenchman visited Pearl Harbor several months ago. Standing on the deck of the ARIZONA, he looked about and said, "You know, it is very unusual that you Americans make such a shrine of this place. In France we have many monuments commemorating our victories. But none to remember our defeats."

BEAVER LIFT:

The article, "Beaver Lift" by Willis Peter-son in your May issue is worth the whole year's subscription!

■SEATS AT WIMBLEDON:

I think that the enclosed clipping from the London TIMES will be a pleasure to you. The attractions of Arizona obviously are apparent to some Londoners, too.

Because of Col. Zeller's thoughtfulness we were happy to see the Personal item in which some interested Englishman was willing to trade two fine seats at the great tennis tournament for our publication. We have written to Box H-983. If this offer remained unanswered by some American reader of The TIMES, we will see that our publication will be sent as a courtesy to Box H-983 through 1954.

BATTLE AT CIBECUE CREEK:

At my old home in Ohio there is carved on the family stone in the cemetery the name of Edward D. Livingston. He was an adventurous young man. He enlisted at Camp Apache, Arizona Territory, June 8, 1878 in Troop "D" 6th U. S. Cavalry and was killed in action by Indians on Cibien Creek, Arizona Territory on August 30, 1881. I take ARIZONA HIGHWAYS and it occurred to me that I might get some further information from that most interesting publication.

Where is Cibien Creek?

Is there a marker on the location of the engagement or perhaps a cemetery? Any other details that might be of interest would be appreciated.

Robert L. Denig Brig. Gen. U. S. Marine Corps (Ret) Virginia Beach, Virginia

Carr's command, were killed here in a fight with Apaches. Nock-aye-de-Klinney, Apache Medicine Man, was killed by the troops.

"Hurley, interpreter at Apache, shortly after the fight, told the author that when Gen. Carr asked an Apache scout what they called the place, he replied, 'She-be-Ku,' meaning 'My house'; (she, 'my,' becue, 'house'). Carr ac-cepted this as a name for the place. Later the author secured substantially the same story from another Apache.

"Three White Mountain Apaches, Dandy Jim, Dead Shot, and Skippy, enlisted Indian Scouts who turned against troops at the fight, were tried for mutiny by military Court Martial at Fort Grant and hanged there, Mar. 3, 1882. Two others were sent to Alcatraz prison for life. Dead Shot's squaw hanged herself at San Carlos on the day of execution.

"Creek rises in northwest corner of Fort Apache Ind. Res. flows south into Salt river about 10 miles west of junction of White and Black rivers which form Salt. P. O. established here for Indian School, Mar. 18, 1910, Agnes W. Chambers, P. M."

As far as we can learn there is no marker there commemorating the battle.

LET'S GET UP TO DATE:

Your article in the May issue, ARIZONA HIGHWAYS, on the "Flying Farmers" was very interesting and brought back many pleasant memories of the three years I spent in Mohawk Valley.

I was present at the barbecue when the Flying Farmers stopped at Antelope Ranch during a cross country flight, picture page 26 of May issue, and certainly Wayne and his wife, Adel, and their family are grand hosts.

You also mentioned Ethelind and Harold Woodhouse as Flying Farmers from that area. They certainly are and very active ones and as grand a couple as one will ever meet. Speaking of the Woodhouses, whom I have known for several years and had the pleasure of flying with many times, I believe you are doing Ethelind an injustice. Your article states Wayne is president of the Arizona Flying Farmers. At the time these pictures were taken, at least some of them were taken three years ago, he was. But let's get up to date! Unless I am in error Ethelind is the current president of the Arizona Flying Farmers and the first woman ever to be elected to head that group, or any state group in the nation. She is also chairman of the 99'ers, an Arizona flying club strictly for women.

John Apfel Bagdad, Arizona

OPPOSITE PAGE "AUTUMN-OAK CREEK" BY BOB BRAD-SHAW.

The touch of autumn is felt in Oak Creek Canyon the last week in October and the first in November. Willows and cottonwoods add color to the landscape. Crown Graphic Camera, Ektar 4.7 lens, f.22 at 1/10th second, no filter, Ektachrome film.

RAIN SONNET

I don't want rain to be a common thing, Unnoticed, bothersome, a monotone, Or weary song the roof has learned to sing As to itself or to the house alone.

Let rain, as in this West, be an event-Phenomenon as sweet as holy prayer-A festival too soon begun and spent, A joyous celebration of the air.

For here it is the fool who stays indoors And never lets its sweetness touch his face, Who never drinks its moisture through his pores And hurries off to find a sheltered place.

I don't want rain to be a common thing But gift beyond the kindness of a king.

REEVE SPENCER KELLEY

REFLECTIONS

God designed lakes to mirror the sky, And wind to ruffle them as it goes by. He made them to catch the beams of the sun, And to lie silent when day is done. Lakes trap the image of each drifting cloud, And hold purple broodings when thunder is loud, Over their surface all moods have trod, Lakes eternally hold the reflections of God.

DELL AVON

HERE NOW

The moon is up-after the pouring down Of heavy rain: the stars are out Bright-eyed-examining the fading clouds Which linger over town: many a smile Replacing now many a frown: Proves yet again the silver lining is about.

GRACE MEREDITH

MEMORIES

The desert land is steeped with memories That walk abroad when the full moon is white, And ride the wind with mournful melodies; But sink to quiet rest when comes the light.

GRACE BARKER WILSON

NIGHT SCENE

Against The chimney throat, As black as velvet night, The sudden sparks are shooting stars Of fire.

VESTA NICKERSON LUKEI

NIGHT STORM

Lightning darts around the planets From Jupiter to Mars. It is just like a skier As it slaloms through the stars.

THELMA IRELAND

BACK COVER

Scene: near Sno Bowl, San Francisco Peaks. Time: early October. 4x5 Brand 17 View Camera with tripod, Ektachrome film, f.16 at 1/10th second. Due to low horizon line extreme use of rising front was made to avoid distortion to vertical parallel lines of the tree trunks.