Pearl Harbor (USS Arizona Memorial)

On the morning of December 7, 1941, Japanese aircraft launched a surprise attack on the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The assault killed about 2,400 Americans and drew the United States into World War II. Among the ships lost was the battleship USS Arizona, which exploded and sank with 1,177 of her crew.

The USS Arizona Memorial, dedicated in 1962, spans the sunken hull without touching it, honoring the more than 900 crew members still entombed within. It is one of the most visited and solemn historic sites in the country.

With tensions rising in the Pacific, Japan sought to cripple the U.S. fleet in a single blow. Just before 8 a.m. on December 7, 1941, waves of Japanese aircraft struck the ships moored at Pearl Harbor and the airfields around Oahu, catching the base largely by surprise.

The battleship USS Arizona was hit by bombs that detonated her forward magazine; she exploded and sank within minutes, killing 1,177 of her crew — nearly half of all the Americans who died that day. In all, the attack sank or damaged numerous ships and destroyed scores of aircraft. President Franklin D. Roosevelt called it “a date which will live in infamy,” and the United States declared war the next day.

In the years after the war, a movement grew to memorialize the Arizona and her crew. The white memorial, designed by architect Alfred Preis, was dedicated in 1962 and built to straddle the sunken battleship. Today it is administered as part of the National Park Service's Pearl Harbor National Memorial, in partnership with the U.S. Navy.