Honoring Those Who Stood and Fought

Part of the role of honor,

USS Arizona Memorial

Copyright © 2020

by Ralph F. Couey

There are places in the world where great battles were fought and people died.  These places are visited by those who came after, seeking a connection to the past. Almost always in these places there exists an air of respectful silence, almost as if people were listening for the sounds of voices from the departed.  Gettysburg is such a place, as is the Flight 93 National Monument.  But the place where I've heard that loud silence clearest is aboard the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor.

Arizona was the thirty-ninth battleship constructed for the U. S. Navy.  Her keel was laid down in March 2013 and the ship was launched about a year later.  Her main battery consisted of twelve 14-inch guns allotted to four triple turrets.  She weighed in at just under 30,000 tons and had a top speed of 21 knots.  Arizona was modified in 1929 and by 1941 was one of the most powerful ships afloat, a full member of the battleline of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.  Had she ever been called upon to perform her designed function, there is little doubt that she and her crew would have comported themselves admirably.  

Warships are designed to put to sea and stay there for extended periods of time.  There they are maneuverable and able to take the fight to whatever enemy presents itself.  But for Arizona and her steel-clad sisters, their first action caught them tied to a quay, boilers cold, guns silent.  

On a bright, sunny, and peaceful Sunday morning in early December 1941, 340 Japanese carrier aircraft broke the quiet of that morning.  At 7:55 AM, they swung into their attacks.  Within minutes, eight battleships and numerous other vessels were sinking and burning.  In those first few minutes, 10 Japanese bombers flew over Battleship 39.  They were carrying armor-piercing shells weighing some 1,800 pounds converted for air drops.  Arizona was hit by four bombs, the first three doing slight damage.  The fourth hit the ship on the starboard side beside turret number one.  What happened next is still open to conjecture.  The popular notion is that the bomb penetrated the armor deck near turret 2 and detonated in a space where black powder was stored, contrary to regulations.  There are other suppositions, but what was important was the result.  Seven seconds after the shell hit, Arizona erupted in an explosion that could only be called volcanic.  The ship rose in the water, broke in half, and sank immediately.  She burned for two days.

1,179 sailors and marines were dead.

In many ways, the catastrophic death of Arizona became the symbol of all the tragedies that happened that day.  So complete was her destruction, that, alone of all her sisters, she remained, sunk into the harbor floor a few yards from Ford Island.  So powerful was that symbol that the Navy never officially decommissioned her.  In 1950, CINCPAC Admiral Arthur Radford instituted the tradition of continuing to raise the American flag above the wreck each morning.  In 1962, a beautiful white arched memorial was built, arching over the remains of ship and crew.  Today, the Arizona Memorial is the most visited location in Hawai'i, no small accomplishment in the beauty of a tropical paradise.

As her aging survivors have passed from this life, many of their ashes have been interred within the ship, shipmates rejoined in death.  Their names are then added to the roster engraved into the white marble of the memorial.  

The Memorial has long been an emotional touchstone for me.  I was a regular visitor when I was a sailor stationed here in the 1980's.  Since then, whenever I was back in the islands, I made it a point to pay homage to the courage of this crew.  In the minds of every service member lies a question.  If thrust into combat, how will I respond?  When those men left the ship for liberty Saturday afternoon, and when they returned and fell into their bunks, war was the furthest thing from their minds.  The country was at peace.  Yes, the Germans and Japanese were fighting, but that seemed a long ways off.  Even among the Navy leadership, the idea that Japan could send a task force across the Pacific and punch our Navy in the face seemed ludicrous.  And yet, that's exactly what happened.  

For me, what was and still is remarkable was the speed at which those young men, most in their late teens and early 20's shifted from peace to war.  Japanese pilots, who were dishing out terrible punishment from above, were surprised at how quickly bullets and shells began rising from the stricken ships.  Men whose only combat experience consisted of bar fights responded with the elan of veterans.  Some were blown overboard by explosions, only to swim back to their ships.  Sailors still returning from Saturday night liberty grabbed whatever transport available to return to their ships.  There were numerous acts of incredible bravery that day.  15 Medals of Honor were awarded, four posthumously.  And once the attack ended, all hands turned to with a will to rescue, treat, and account for their shipmates.  That forthright response carried forward for the next three years and nine months, and the war started by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor was concluded victoriously aboard another battleship, USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay

Standing on the Memorial, I look at the engraved marble, carefully reading each name. This is important, that I honor each individual.  It's easy to lose those names when the death toll is so high.  Behind every name is a person with a life, in many cases cut tragically short.  They had parents, siblings, friends at home and aboard ship, all who would have to carry on with a exquisitely painful hole in their hearts.

But there was no hesitation, no hiding, no running away.  The call was sounded and they answered that call.

Others survived that day and joined the March westward.  Some lives would end in places nobody had ever heard of before.  Some would survive all the way to that day in September 1945 when the killing finally ended.  Heroes all.

I wonder sometimes if we are the same kind of people today.  If our backs were against the wall, would we stand and fight?  

I stand silently before those names, and I silently thank them.  I honor their courage and sacrifice.

And I will never forget.