USS Arizona (BB-39)

USS Arizona was the second and last of the Pennsylvania class of battleships built for the United States Navy in the mid-1910s. Named in honor of the 48th state’s recent admission into the union and commissioned in 1916, the ship remained stateside during World War I. She was sent to Turkey in 1919 at the beginning of the Greco-Turkish War to represent American interests for several months. In April 1940, she and the rest of the Pacific Fleet were transferred from California to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, as a deterrent to Japanese imperialism. On 7 December 1941, Arizona was hit by Japanese torpedo bombers that dropped armor-piercing bombs during the attack on Pearl Harbor. After one of their bombs detonated in a magazine, she

About USS Arizona (BB-39) in brief

Summary USS Arizona (BB-39)USS Arizona was the second and last of the Pennsylvania class of battleships built for the United States Navy in the mid-1910s. Named in honor of the 48th state’s recent admission into the union and commissioned in 1916, the ship remained stateside during World War I. She was sent to Turkey in 1919 at the beginning of the Greco-Turkish War to represent American interests for several months. In April 1940, she and the rest of the Pacific Fleet were transferred from California to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, as a deterrent to Japanese imperialism. On 7 December 1941, Arizona was hit by Japanese torpedo bombers that dropped armor-piercing bombs during the attack on Pearl Harbor. After one of their bombs detonated in a magazine, she exploded violently and sank, with the loss of 1,177 officers and crewmen. The wreck still lies at the bottom of Pearl Harbor beneath the USS Arizona Memorial, which straddles but does not touch the ship’s hull. The Pennsylvania-class ships were significantly larger than their predecessors, the Nevada class. Arizona carried twelve 45-caliber 14-inch guns in triple gun turrets. The ship had four direct-drive Parsons steam turbine sets, each of which drove a propeller 12 feet 1. 5 inches in diameter. She displaced 29,158 long tons at standard and 31,917 long tons at deep load. Her crew numbered 56 officers and 1,031 enlisted men as built. She had a metacentric height of 7.

82 feet atDeep load and a beam of 97 feet , and a draft of 29 feet 3 inches atdeep load. At full capacity, she could steam at a speed of 12 knots for an estimated 7,552 nautical miles with a clean bottom. She also carried two 21-inch torpedo tubes and 24 torpedoes for them. The gun turrets were numbered from I to IV from front to rear. The guns could not elevate independently and were limited to a maximum elevation of +15° which gave them a maximum range of 21,000 yards. The ship carried 100 shells for each gun. The other pair was added shortly afterward on top of Turret III. At 20,050 feet, they were the most important areas of water-or-nothing armoring of the Nevada-class design. At 50,050 yards, they provided 230 rounds of ammunition for the ship, and they were provided with 230 rounds for the torpedo boats. They were designed to normally carry 1,548 long tons of fuel oil, but had a maximum capacity of 2,305 long tons. She was designed to reach 21.5 knots during a full-power trial in September 1924. The turbines achieved a total of 34,000 shaft horsepower, but achieved only 33,376 shp during Arizona’s sea trials, when she met her designed speed of 21 knots. She had four 300-kilowatt turbo generators. They proved to be very reliable and proved the hull’s hull could not be worked in heavy seas. In July 1934, she was featured in a James Cagney film, Here Comes the Navy.