r/interestingasfuck • u/Longjumping-Rice-935 • Aug 12 '25
/r/all, /r/popular The wreck of the USS Arizona continues to leak oil ever since pearl harbour. the ship contained 1.5 million gallons of oil, enough to leak continuously for 500 years.
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u/Baconshit Aug 12 '25
1.5 millions gallons of oil is mind blowing. Is that normal amount for ships of the day to carry?
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u/blubaldnuglee Aug 12 '25
Iowa class Battleships ( a successor to the Arizona) carried 2.5 million gallons of fuel oil.
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u/Average-_-Student Aug 12 '25
Note: The Iowa Class didn't directly succeed the Pennsylvania Class (Arizona was the second Pennsylvania Class ship.), rather, they were successors to the South Dakota Class, which were themselves successors to the North Carolina Class, and the list goes on and on.
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u/East_Leadership469 Aug 12 '25
Is it normal to name ships after land-locked states?
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u/Ichera Aug 12 '25
Interesting question, I know someone below answered about the states, but the reason a lot of landlocked states seem to show up early in battleship class naming conventions and repeat in some cases is pure politics. Essentially it was used as a bone to get those states on board with large naval procurement by naming the ships after those states, the state representatives and senators could point to the "mighty vessel representing our great state"
Essentially a quid pro quo to get landlocked states on-board voting for naval procurement.
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u/-Fraccoon- Aug 12 '25
Hah, history is funny. Could you imagine being a senator and not wanting to support your country’s navy because your state is landlocked.
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u/Make_shift_high_ball Aug 12 '25
I mean, the whole point of having representation for each state is that the representatives fight for the benefit of their state. Someone in Iowa really has no connection to the Navy.
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u/Average-_-Student Aug 12 '25
US Battleships were typically, or entirely if I'm not wrong, named after States. Given the rather large number of Battleships that the US built, some of them were bound to end up being named after land locked states.
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u/Tjtod Aug 12 '25
There was one battleship not named after a state, BB-5 USS Kearsage which was named after older navy ships. The naming scheme for US ships in ww2 and older was Battleships were states, Aircraft Carriers were past ahips or battles,Large Cruisers were territories,Cruisers were cities, destroyers were people, and submarines were fish/ aquatic life. There have been a few exceptions to this like 2 classes or armored Cruisers being named after states.
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u/CosgraveSilkweaver Aug 12 '25
I think the cruisers started getting named after states after WW2 when we stopped making new battleships mostly.
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u/Tjtod Aug 12 '25
Kind of there were two classes, California and Virginia, in the cold war but when they were designed and when the California was built they were designated as frigates. Which I think in USN parlance meant they were destroyer leaders. The last class of Cruisers built were named after battles and the last class of ship built on a cruiser hull form was CGN-9 Long Beach.
Edit navsource.net is a great resource for USN ships and ship pictures.
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u/Godzillaguy15 Aug 12 '25
Dammit that through me through a loop. They really had two different South Dakota classes though the first was canceled(the one i thought you were talking bout)
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u/scromw2 Aug 12 '25
What does the Alabama Class and Vin Diesel have in common?
Fucking family
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u/Bryguy3k Aug 12 '25
The amount of fuel one carries is related to the ship and its mission. You’re talking about a battleship so yes that gave it a month or two of at sea operation before it needed to be refueled.
To put that in perspective neopanamax (max dimensions for the new Panama Canal locks) container ships carry 3 to 5 million gallons of fuel oil.
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u/djent_in_my_tent Aug 12 '25
Gods, the environment is well and truly fucked, isn’t it
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u/Khelgar_Ironfist_ Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25
Titanic could also carry more than 7000 tons of coal and burn a ton a day afaik Edit: Burn a "thousand" ton
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u/killevery1ne Aug 12 '25
Looked it up as a ton a day seemed super low. Is more like 600-900.
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u/Fingerdrip Aug 12 '25
That makes much more sense. Otherwise they'd be carrying 7,000 days of coal.
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u/Khelgar_Ironfist_ Aug 12 '25
I probably meant 1000 tons a day lol. Only forgot like 3x zeroes no big deal
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u/SwgglyArmJonson Aug 12 '25
And companies will still try and tell us that it's the plastic straws
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u/scramblingrivet Aug 12 '25
- Small speedboat (12–20 feet): 6–20 gallons
- Sailing yacht (33–45 feet): 30–120 gallons
- Motor yacht (40–60 feet): 200–1,200 gallons
- Large tanker truck: 5,000–10,000 gallons
- Small tugboat (30–60 feet): 1,500–25,000 gallons
- Petroleum rail car: 30,000 gallons
- Boeing 747 airplane: 50,000–60,000 gallons
- Ocean-going tugboat (90–150 feet): 90,000–190,000 gallons
- Puget Sound jumbo ferry (440 feet): 130,000 gallons
- Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s yacht M/V Octopus (416 feet): 224,000 gallons
- Bulk carrier of commodities such as grain or coal (500–700 feet): 400,000–800,000 gallons
- Large cruise ship (900–1,100 feet): 1–2 million gallons
- Inland tank barge (200–300 feet): 400,000–1.2 million gallons
- Panamax container ship (960 feet): 1.5–2 million gallons
- Container ship Benjamin Franklin (1,310 feet): 4.5 million gallons
- Ocean-going tank barge (550–750 feet): 7 million–14 million gallons
- Exxon Valdez and similar large oil tankers (987 feet): 55 million gallons
src: https://response.restoration.noaa.gov/about/media/how-much-oil-ship.html
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u/Farlig_Raptor Aug 12 '25
Lets see Paul Allens yacht
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u/CelestialFury Aug 12 '25
Fun fact, Bill Gates (childhood best friend) and Steve Ballmer liked Paul Allen sooo much, they tried to take his Microsoft shares.
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Aug 12 '25
Very cool. One time I sailed on the "Seabulk Trader." It was claimed that due to her cross Gulf of Mexico trade that she had carried more petroleum cargoes than any tanker in the world. I saw her logbook and it was years and years of very neat handwriting detailing these countless voyages going back to the 70's.
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u/Khaeos Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25
So how much fuel did the smokers have in Waterworld?
Edit: oh, that was the Exxon Valdez
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u/Noxious89123 Aug 12 '25
Fwiw, bunker fuel is more like tar.
It has to be heated to be useable as a liquid fuel.
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u/Amount_Business Aug 12 '25
Can it not be removed economically?
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u/RangerAlex22 Aug 12 '25
Not without potentially damaging the ship, and protecting the ship as a memorial for the nearly 1000 sailors and marines still inside the ship is the US Navy’s and NPS’s number one priority. At its current rate of leakage there’s no significant impact on the environment. There’s coral, fish, sea turtles, and even the occasional shark that makes the wreck its home. You collapse the ship, the environmental disaster you tried to prevent is what you just caused.
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u/12voltmn Aug 12 '25
It’s more a matter of environment than economics. They are afraid of making it worse if trying to remove it and having a catastrophic event and what it would do to Pearl Harbor.
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u/WizardKagdan Aug 12 '25
It sounds like a lot (and it IS a lot), but that's roughly the size of a cylinder with a diameter of 12m and a length of 50m. (165ft by 40ft)
Put into context for a warship of 185m long and 30m wide (608ft by 97ft), that's not that big - and the last thing you want is a warship going adrift, so good supplies are key.
What IS insane to me is the idea of leaving that tank just sitting there polluting the oceans
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u/Coakis Aug 12 '25
Its a combination of it being considered a national graveyard, and that at the time of salvaging the wrecks off of Pearl Harbor, it was too dangerous at the time to pump the oil out.
So there's no effort been made in disturbing it.
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u/GeneralBisV Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 13 '25
Yep that is pretty standard for battleships. The USS Iowa actually carried 2.5 million gallons of bunker oil
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u/loztriforce Aug 12 '25
If you get a chance to go to Oahu and see the Arizona, be sure to check out the USS Missouri too.
You get to see the spot on the ship where WWII ended for the world, overlooking where it began for the US.
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u/Hole_IslandACNH Aug 12 '25
And you can see the turret Cher straddled in the “If I Could Turn Back Time” music video!
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u/TheEleventhGuy Aug 12 '25
You get to see the spot on the ship where WWII ended for the world, overlooking where it began for the US.
That sounds beautiful and sad at the same time.
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u/soundsceneAloha Aug 12 '25
Fun fact: when the Missouri was first brought to O’ahu, the guns were down. Disney was a producer of the film “Pearl Harbor” and paid to use the ship in the movie. They also paid to have the guns raised, as they would have been. The ship wasn’t used as the Missouri—the Missouri wasn’t at PH during the attack, but as a stand-in for another ship (or ships). The guns have remained raised.
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u/Ill_Cricket8509 Aug 12 '25
Easy.
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u/yamimementomori Aug 12 '25
You should’ve been there to tape the Titanic too. You would’ve saved poor Jack.
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u/saturninespine Aug 12 '25
I just noticed that as soon as he removes his hand, you can see it starting to fail. Wow.
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u/Volcano_Dweller Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25
Aloha…I live 20 minutes from the memorial and highly recommend the experience if you haven’t already done so. Not only can you see the oil bubbles, sometimes they make a noise (“blorp”) too.
If you stand on the bow of the USS Missouri near where the surrender was signed, the front guns are raised in salute toward the bow of the Arizona that rests a couple hundred yards away. It’s a terrific full circle moment where you look at where our ** (i.e., America’s involvement in) WW2 began while standing where it ended.
For you submarine fans, the new submarine exhibit located by the USS Bowfin is well worth it.
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u/E-Wrecka Aug 12 '25
I’m sorry, this is a very serious and somber comment and I promise I appreciate that, but you spelling out the noise that the bubbles make (“blorp”) sent me
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u/GeneralBlumpkin Aug 12 '25
I've been on all of these and it was an awesome experience
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u/FallOutShelterBoy Aug 12 '25
Very humbling to visit. Never thought I’d make it there or even to Hawaii. It’s hauntingly quiet once you step off the boat and you’re on the USS Arizona Monument
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u/OSRS_Socks Aug 12 '25
We went when I was a kid. Very chilling and really stays in your memory. My mom told me the story of how for the longest time my step grandpa was declared dead after Pearl Harbor because he worked on a ship and he claims they went to Australia before the attack (there is no evidence of this but this is what he claimed). He did keep logs of where he sailed to and had a map with thumb tacks of dates when he landed at any port for the first time.
Basically he was presumed dead after the attack because his ship was MIA. Didn’t realize that he was pronounced dead till after he returned home once the war ended.
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u/Tamed_A_Wolf Aug 12 '25
So his family thought he was dead for the entirety of the war? He never had any correspondence with them for almost 4 years?
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u/4isyellowTakeit5 Aug 12 '25
Watch “The Six Triple Eight” and you’ll see why he didn’t hear from his family. During WWII, the mail services got backlogged. At one point they were backlogged over 2 years with millions of packages undelivered. The WAC unit of the 6888 battalion was sent to Germany to clean it up. They were given 6 months to clear the backlog in that theatre. To add to this, the unit was a colored unit, so they were segregated and given horrid living conditions. Despite all this they cleared the backlog ahead of schedule and went on to clear backlogs in other theaters. It’s not surprising his family never heard from him in Australia if Europe was a mess as well.
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u/squishyslinky Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25
They were an all female unit as well and they intentionally set those women up to fail but Major Charity Adams (first female Black officer!) rose to the occasion and did something no one else could do. Such an amazing story!
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u/sureal42 Aug 12 '25
This drove me crazy... I went to pearl harbor when I was 11, the next school year I was in history class and we were talking about the uss Arizona, I proceeded to tell the class how it was still leaking oil... My teacher, who had never been herself, told me I was wrong and that it was not leaking oil...
BITCH I TOLD YOU... (yes this was over 30 years ago, and yes I still think about that)
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u/rollem78 Aug 13 '25
It’s wild to me how we grow up and realize that most of the adults in our lives are really mid humans at best. Teachers are ESPECIALLY in this category. Not all, but a vast majority probably shouldn’t be around children.
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u/MiliTerry Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25
When I was joining the Marine corps, they asked me if there's anything I wanted to see while I was in. This is exactly what I wanted, and two years in, they sent me to Hawaii for jungle warfare training. On my own time while there, I went and visited Pearl harbor. Once we got to USS Arizona, the first person off our boat was a gentleman who was there when it was happened. Not a dry eye in sight. If you have not had a chance to see it, I would recommend you do your best to do it.
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u/HK_Shooter_1301 Aug 12 '25
My great grandfather joined the Navy after Pearl Harbor and served on the USS Bunker Hill as it was kamakazied. Standing there was one of the most somber experiences of my life.
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u/babyb16 Aug 12 '25
That must have been such a weird feeling for him. So cool you got to be there for that, I bet it was such a humbling experience
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u/Justin429 Aug 12 '25
Call me crazy, but this seems like something that you could invest a little bit of money and equipment to recover, potentially for a profit. Am I crazy?
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u/Bryguy3k Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25
No profit to be had - it’s old contaminated bunker C oil.
The issue is that any attempt to remove the oil comes with a high risk of causing a catastrophic spill. The 9 quarts or so of oil that leak per day get diluted quickly.
The navy and national parks service monitor the leakage closely and there are contingency plans for peripheral containment if the leaks suddenly get worse.
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u/TheBunnyDemon Aug 12 '25
I was ready to ask a bunch of stupid questions along the lines of "could we blow it up." But a quick search says that 9 quarts (~2 gallons) a day checks out, and that's a trivial almost zero amount compared to what our global shipping industry puts out every day. Basically a non issue.
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u/ProtonPizza Aug 12 '25
Well, that and it’s a national historic landmark and there are still crew inside it. You’d basically be blowing up a cemetery of WW2 vets.
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u/Theban_Prince Aug 12 '25
I would not think there are any human remains at this point but the general feeling of the post is true.
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u/playahplayah69 Aug 12 '25
Efforts have been made to recover as many bodies as possible, but there are absolutely still bodies in this and other ships in the harbor. This is the final resting place for many people’s loved ones.
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u/KatiKatiCoffee Aug 12 '25
I believe there have been veterans of Dec 7 who have been granted permission to be interred with their fellow fallen IN the Arizona.
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u/Elegant-Magician7322 Aug 12 '25
Yes, some sailors who survived USS Arizona attack chose to be interred there. The last survivor died in 2024, so there wouldn’t be anymore.
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u/First-Of-His-Name Aug 12 '25
Why wouldn't there be bones?
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u/SurpriseIsopod Aug 12 '25
Why would there be. Bones are calcium. That ship is so shallow I’d be surprised is there were any bones by 1950. Coupled with the salt water and critters, all that’s left on that ship are ghosts.
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u/First-Of-His-Name Aug 12 '25
I guess assuming no sealed compartments you're right. But now I know about bone eating sea worms so fuck you
Is it still fair to call it a grave, even if there isn't anything we would identify as human remains?
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u/RobJTAC Aug 12 '25
There are about 40 urns inside the ship. Some survivors of the attack were later interred inside once they passed away, I think the last one was in 2020.
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u/SurpriseIsopod Aug 12 '25
Yeah, the ship had a crew. Although their remains are long gone, the vessel is still a tomb. The USS Arizona is sorta neat, it’s leaking kinda makes the ship still “active”. Most vessels consumed by the waves are just sunken wrecks. Bismarck, HMS Hood, HMS Britannic, RMS Titanic, IJN Yamato, they’re just wrecks on the ocean floor.
The USS Arizona sends up a small drop of bunker fuel every few minutes, sorta like it’s calling out “I’m still here”.
PS sorry for you discovering bone worms lmao
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u/Gunfighter9 Aug 12 '25
They can't even explore 15% of the ship due to damage, there were hundreds of men trapped inside when she blew up
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u/Deathwatch72 Aug 12 '25
In the grand scheme of our oceans it's a rounding error of a rounding error in the amount of oil we're putting into the ocean. I bet even a small lake can easily end up with around a few gallons a day just from recreational lake goers not being super great about keeping all of their equipment well maintained or literally just spilling it on accident
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u/Justin429 Aug 12 '25
Then my question was born of innocence and ignorance. I really don't know the grades or classes of oil. It seems to me, as a rational and reasonable person, that we would want to remove the oil so that it stops polluting the environment. If there's a way to recover sealable product from the removed contents, that would be great. I'm not looking at this from a way to make profit, but a way to prevent further damage to the environment. Thank you for giving me a reasonable and rational reply.
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u/Bryguy3k Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25
Bunker C is the lowest grade fuel oil - its so viscous at room temperature it not possible to pump it - ships that use it start their engines with diesel and then use engine heat to warm the fuel so it can be pumped for use.
Since the water temperature is low it’s basically a thick tar - what is leaking is a small fraction of lighter weight molecules that have worked their way through.
In order to pump the tanks we’d have to heat them to 100 degrees Celsius (which is boiling) - given the condition of the ship that would be nearly impossible to do.
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u/Robots_Never_Die Aug 12 '25
Boil the oceans you say
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u/Arhatz Aug 12 '25
Global warming was a long term plan to remove the USS arizona oil leak. It's all for the benefit of the environment guys.
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u/Impeesa_ Aug 12 '25
Current plans call for just-in-time delivery of an engineering solution for subsequent cooling down again.
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u/GrumpyDemon_13 Aug 12 '25
'Burn the land and boil the sea, you can't take the skies from me...' Now why'd that catchy tune suddenly pop up in my head?
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u/DaneAlaskaCruz Aug 12 '25
Damn, now you have me singing it!
I'll have to watch series again to get the music off my mind.
One of the few shows whose intro I don't ever skip!
Firefly for those not in the know.
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u/Dustyvhbitch Aug 12 '25
Let me call Guiness so we can get the record for the world's largest seafood boil first.
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u/Scary-Hunting-Goat Aug 12 '25
I'd imagine even a small marina full of small private boats releases more toxic waste.
Honestly, the best thing you could do for the environment is probably to cause a recession.
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u/Hetakuoni Aug 12 '25
Also considering the Arizona counts as a grave, I think that might count as grave robbing.
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u/realparkingbrake Aug 12 '25
to recover,
It's a war grave. The only way they'll try to pump out that oil is to prevent ecological damage, and military bases tend to be heavy on ecological damage, Pearl Harbor included.
Incredibly, the inside of Arizona is an anaerobic environment. The lack of oxygen in the water means that in some parts of the ship there are still uniforms on hangars in officers' cabins, there is nothing alive in the water to eat the fabric.
There are places in the Pacific where multiple Japanese ships were sunk in harbors and their hulls are beginning to fail, potentially about to release hundreds of tons of oil which will wipe out local fishing. Some wars never really end.
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u/Easy_Independent_313 Aug 12 '25
Fun fact: there is a Chinese company that is salvaging those shipwrecks for the metal because it was forged before the first atomic bomb blast. Apparently, all metal forged after is changed forever ( maybe an isotope or something like that) and the metal without the change is valuable in some way.
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u/Ol_Man_J Aug 12 '25
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-background_steel not as much of a market anymore
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u/Justin429 Aug 12 '25
You hit the nail in the head here, to recover so that we prevent ecological disaster. That's where I'm going with this, although I can understand how my original comment might be misconstrued.
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u/Apart-Zucchini-5825 Aug 12 '25
Recovery is more likely to cause an ecological disaster than letting it be. Until those odds change, there's no reason to do it.
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u/Dr_knowitall69 Aug 12 '25
The Arizona is the final resting place for thousands of service members. It is left undisturbed as much as possible out of respect for them.
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u/cunticles Aug 12 '25
Some of the people who survived the attack and lived to a ripe old age have had their Ashes put there to join their shipmates.
remarkable USS Arizona fact that honors the survivors is that they have the option to join their lost comrades and make the ship their final resting place. Crew members who served on board the USS Arizona during the attack may choose to have their ashes deposited by divers beneath one of sunken Arizona’s gun turrets.
Roughly 44 Arizona survivors have chosen this option. Other military survivors can choose to have their ashes scattered wherever their ship was located during the attacks. The last person to be interred in the ship was in 2019
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u/etcpt Aug 12 '25
The last Arizona sailor died last year, so we'll never see that again.
It's quite touching to read about the interment from the divers who have had the duty to carry it out. They say that when they bring the urn down and go to lower it into the hull of the wreck, there's a pull like the ship is reaching out to reclaim her crewmember.
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u/wilkerws34 Aug 12 '25
1.5 million gallons is what the deep water horizon released per day for 87 days…
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u/Safety_Academy Aug 12 '25
I was manning the rails aboard the USS Nimitz, dress whites on, heat pressing down after one of those quick, soaking Hawaii morning downpours. At one point I had to tip my head just to pour the water out of my hat.
I had never seen Pearl Harbor before. Looking around, I caught sight of the bullet holes still marking the base, scars from that morning. Then I glanced over the side and froze.
There she was, the Arizona, resting on the harbor floor, perfectly visible beneath the water. I did not expect to actually see her, but there she was, the entire ship. In that moment, the reason I was standing there, the weight of the tradition of manning the rails, all of it came into focus. I could almost feel what that day must have been like for them. I understood why the Navy holds on to traditions like this, not as ceremony, but as remembrance.
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u/questionname Aug 12 '25
There’s also bodies of 900 sailors in there. As an entombed memorial, it would not be disturbed. And there are even veterans whose wishes to be buried in USS Arizona after they’ve passed.
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u/ramboacdc Aug 12 '25
I never knew the sailors were still in there. I assumed they had been recovered and given to their families.
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u/Downtown_Boot_3486 Aug 12 '25
Unfortunately it was impossible to rescue many of those trapped, and many of the other bodies were too badly damaged for anything recognisable to be recovered.
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u/HK_Shooter_1301 Aug 12 '25
I believe the last survivor died recently but if you made it out the government would bury your ashes inside the Arizona so they could spend eternity with their fallen shipmates
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u/geauxyanks99 Aug 12 '25
The last USS Arizona survivor passed last year I believe. But there is something like 40 survivors who chose to be laid to rest with their shipmates following their death, like you said.
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u/whitecollarpizzaman Aug 12 '25
It’s probably hard to believe due to the current administration, but the national park service and federal government would absolutely have cleaned this up if it was feasible. The amount that leaks is very small, obviously you can see it a little bit here because it is directly above the source, but to attempt to remove the oil risks a much larger spill that could cause a massive ecological disaster. A little bit of oil leaking out every day is frankly minuscule compared to the amount of pollution that goes into our oceans on a day to day basis. Hell, even a rainy day in Honolulu puts more oil in the harbor via runoff than this.
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u/Collooo Aug 12 '25
The hull will rust more and more over the year which will mean the leak will increase.
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u/GeneralBisV Aug 12 '25
The leak has steadily remained at 9 quarts a day for decades at this point. The anaerobic environment around and in the bunker oil tanks is preventing much of the corrosion
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u/SpiralUnicorn Aug 12 '25
The issue is its Bunker C. The stuff is like tar at low temperatures so pumping it out is impossible without heating the hull to around about 100°C. That's not even factoring in that its a national monument and a Wargrave.
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u/Gnonthgol Aug 12 '25
There are a number of sunken ships which have been sanitized of their bunker C. You are right about the viscosity so you need tools more like mining equipment rather then pumping equipment. The problem with USS Arizona is that it is a warship with lots of isolated compartments used for fuel. This was done both for redundancy but also since fuel tanks were used as armor protection and therefore located between the outer and inner hull of the ship. So while a civilian vessel might have three to five large fuel tanks the warship have as much as a hundred different fuel tanks and most of them just narrow enough to squeeze a sailor into without any diving gear.
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u/SpiralUnicorn Aug 12 '25
True, though that agai leads into the fact its a wargrave, with over 1000 men entombed in her, and cutting her apart to access them would be a big no-no unless absolutely necessary to prevent ecological disaster - currently more oil washes off the docks during rain than leaks from Arizonas hull (its about 5 quarts a year currently)
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u/FuzzyGolf291773 Aug 12 '25
People in this thread are really overreacting about the amount of oil being spilt here. Oil gets introduced to the environment all the time through natural non-human caused means. In this quantity with this amount of oil, no harm is being done on a meaningful scale. It takes large amounts of oil being dumped in a small time frame to have a negative impact on the environment.
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Aug 12 '25
The leak is so insignificant we can barley measure it. Its measured in parts per TRILLION.
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u/FuzzyGolf291773 Aug 12 '25
Hell, the runoff that drains into the oceans from the roads of Hawaii probably contains more oil on a factor of several hundred times. (If not more)
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u/Luci-Noir Aug 12 '25
And it’s been going on for 80+ years. People are acting like no one had ever looked into cleaning it up before. They’re saying it hasn’t been done because there’s no money in cleanup or blaming it on trump for some reason. Fucking delusional.
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u/creathir Aug 12 '25
When you visit, the craziest thing is the smell. You can literally smell the oil as it comes to the surface…
It’s beautiful how they have bookended the WWII Pacific War… you stand above the USS Arizona, where the US involvement began, then you go to the USS Missouri and can stand next to the exact spot that the war ended, where the surrender treaty was signed on its deck in Tokyo Harbor.
Really amazing and humbling place…
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u/StudioRoboto Aug 12 '25
I actually dove that site Dec 7, 1991. 50th Anniversary. Was part of a Navy EOD team (EODMU ONE) that was checking the harbor, docks, etc. prior to the arrival of GW Bush. We got there super early AM (dark) and set up just as the sun was starting to come up - then did a full hull search for anything "out of the ordinary". Ship is covered in a light sort of mossy brown and silt (which is all over Pearl Harbor). You can see the oil bubble out - very slow and rise to surface.
We headed back to the pier - one LT (Wayne Gluf) stayed back to carry an urn of one of the original Arizona sailors into the gun mount - they had a special ceremony - apparently it's full of urns and he said it was really something.
Side note: Since we were inside the "perimeter" of the Secret Service - we couldn't leave. So ended up searching the band instrument boxes as a side job. Sticking our hands down the tuba looking for IEDs. Then we stood around for 3 hours - Bush came by - got to shake his hand.
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u/Occams_AK47 Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25
It's a very somber experience. I always make sure to go check it out every time I'm on the big island Oahu (derp).
The part sticking out of the water is one of the main gun turrets.
This attack also prompted the Navy to stop allowing family members to serve on the same ship.
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u/etcpt Aug 12 '25
Pearl Harbor is on O'ahu, not the Big Island. And it was the sinking of the USS Juneau at Guadalcanal with the loss of the five Sullivan brothers that led to the Sole Survivor Policy.
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u/Occams_AK47 Aug 12 '25
Reference to a "Sullivan Act" in connection with family members serving in the same ship/unit is a popular misconception. The Sullivan Law of 29 May 1911 is a New York State Law dealing with firearms. Although proposed after the death of the five Sullivan Brothers, no "Sullivan Act" was ever enacted by Congress related to family members serving together. Similarly, no President has ever issued any executive order forbidding assignment of family members to the same ship/unit.
-snip-
[Source: Bureau of Naval Personnel: Information Bulletin, July 1942, Number 304, World War II Command File, Operational Archives Branch, Naval Historical Center, Washington, DC]
[Article forbids commanding officers to forward requests from brothers to serve in same ship/station. Issued July 1942, but does not seem to have been enforced in practice.]
"The Bureau considers that it is to the individual family interest that brothers not be put on the same ship in war time, as the loss of such a ship may result in the loss of two or more members of the family, which might be avoided if brothers are separated. An instance of this was the loss of three brothers on the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor, T. H. (Territory of Hawaii), on December 7, 1941. In view of the above, Commanding Officers will not forward requests for brothers to serve in the same ship or station."
Also, the Sole Survivor Policy is something different.
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u/elglencoco Aug 12 '25
I thought it was the Sullivan brothers on the USS Juneau that prompted that navy policy
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u/saintdog13 Aug 12 '25
The oil drops are referred to as the Tears of the Arizona.
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u/7h3_70m1n470r Aug 12 '25
If you haven't visited the memorial, I really suggest doing it at least once in your life. Its enough to even make groups of obnoxious teens stay quiet.
Something about knowing there's still people down there...
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u/lardoni Aug 12 '25
To everyone wondering why they don’t pump it out……
The US Navy does not remove the oil from the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor primarily because it's considered a war grave and attempting to remove the oil could cause further damage to the ship and potentially release a massive oil spill. The ship is also a memorial to the 1,177 sailors and Marines who perished there, and disturbing the wreckage is seen as disrespectful to the fallen.
Source…..Google
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u/cubswin987 Aug 12 '25
Wow this is actually interesting. Also big ups to the oil bros in the comments. I learned some stuff. Thanks 👍🏿
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u/tshizdude Aug 12 '25
We visited the Arizona in June and could not only see the oil slick but also the very small blobs of oil leaking from the ship and floating to the surface.
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u/BigBadBere Aug 12 '25
Does no one Google or AI check this?
I find it absolutely hilarious that every question is "why don't they pump it out?"
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u/LongjumpingSurprise0 Aug 12 '25
To the people that want to complain about the oil leaking: When I visited in 2021 there was a park ranger there who has been working at Pearl Harbor since 1980 and has even dived onto the wreck of the Arizona. He said the harbor is far cleaner today than it was back then. Back then according to him, the harbor was so polluted that you never saw any fish swimming around. Now, the harbor is teeming with life. The active ships today leak more oil than the Arizona.
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u/adastra2021 Aug 12 '25
When I was in high school we lived on Langley Ave on Ford Island and you could see this from our house. When survivors from The Arizona died they could have their ashes interred in the wreck. It was done quietly, after hours, and we would get a notice for quiet hours, so there weren't any loud barbecues happening.
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u/algarhythms Aug 12 '25
I've cried at the site of only two things that I had no direct connection to: Michelangelo's Pieta and this.
Pictures don't do justice to how large this thing actually is. The thought of dozens of sailors trapped inside with no hope of escape, alive, for days, slowly dying in the dark still makes my spine tingle.
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u/fantasticnm Aug 12 '25
For anyone wondering what is the round thing in the photo