The USS Arizona - Hardcover

Jasper, Joy Waldron; Delgado, James P.; Adams, Jim

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312286902 ISBN 13: 9780312286903

Publisher: Truman Talley Books, 2001

Synopsis

"Remember the Arizona!" was the battle cry of American sailors stationed in the Pacific during World War II. The mighty warship, which was bombed at Pearl Harbor by the Japanese on December 7, 1941, became and remains to this day a symbol and rallying point for America's sudden entrance into war.

Here, using eyewitness accounts of the bombing and the sinking, the authors narrate the compelling history of the USS Arizona before, during, and after the attack, and describe the Arizona Memorial's legacy today. This engrossing book includes sixteen pages of photographs and extensive interviews with sailors who survived Imperial Japan's attack. The USS Arizona, published on December 7, 2001, the sixtieth anniversary of the surprise attack, is the only full-length book on the great ship and its beautiful resting place.

About this title

About the Author

Joy Waldron Jasper is an investigative journalist and a magazine feature writer. She is the coauthor of The Lighthouses of Delaware Bay and River and is currently researching her next book. She lives in western Massachusetts.

James P. Delgado is a noted underwater archaeologist and historian who has dived on many wrecks, including the USS Arizona and Admiral Yamamoto's flagship, Nagato. He is the executive director of the Vancouver Maritime Museum and lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Jim Adams, following a career in the Marine Corps, joined the National Park Service and became the cultural resources manager at the USS Arizona Memorial. Presently assigned to Biscayne National Park in Florida, he is writing a biography about his late father, the journalist Val Adams, who survived the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Reviews

Adult/High School-A sensitive and respectful portrait of the battleship Arizona in peacetime, in war, and as a "symbol of American loss and American courage." The introduction relates how each author was drawn to the ship's story. Jasper is an investigative journalist who devoted nearly a decade to locating and interviewing Arizona survivors; Delgado is a maritime archaeologist; and Adams, a retired U.S. Marine, son of an Arizona survivor, and an accomplished diver affiliated with the National Park Service's stewardship of the memorial. The battleship's history is traced from the 1914 keel laying in the Brooklyn Navy Yard through the fateful events of December 7, 1941, continues with the establishment of the memorial in 1962, and concludes with present-day underwater monitoring of the site to assess corrosion and structural stability. Key chapters draw on remembrances of survivors to sketch the routines of shipboard life in Pearl Harbor before the attack. GQ drills, inspections, gunnery practice, holystoning the teakwood deck, camaraderie among turret crew members, and more are all recalled by the men who were then 18- to 20-year-old sailors from hometowns across America. The generation-defining events of December 7th are told with restrained emotion as each man narrates his tale of survival on a day when 1177 of his shipmates perished. The authors' intent to acknowledge the many levels of heroism on that day and to preserve the heritage are finely achieved.
Lynn Nutwell, Fairfax City Regional Library, VA
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Coming out in time for the 60th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, this book tells the full story of the battleship Arizona, arguably one of America's most well-known ships. Of the ship's crew that fateful December 7, 1941, 1,177 died when the ship exploded following a fatal bomb hit that detonated the ship's ammunition magazines (crew names are all included in a grim appendix). Only 289 survived, and that number gets fewer each year. The authors have all dived on the wreck; Adams, the cultural resources manager at the Arizona Memorial for several years, is the son of an Arizona survivor. Jasper, Delgado and Adams trace the history of the Arizona, from her launching in 1915, through her extensive cruises in the Atlantic and Pacific, to the chaos after Japanese airplanes sounded the death knell of America's battleship fleet. Extensive interviews with 10 survivors of the Japanese attack are the core, and given how few survivors remain, it is a plethora. They were stationed in different parts of the ship, so provide a comprehensive view of the ship's final hours. While many previous books dwelled on technical data and argued about how the ship exploded, this book provides the human story of the tragedy in a most compelling way. 16 pages of photos not seen by PW.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

In this timely tribute to America's now-second greatest domestic tragedy, the authors come to their task from three different perspectives--Jasper is a journalist, James P. Delgado is an archaeologist, and Jim Adams is the son of a survivor of the USS Arizona and for several years the cultural resources manager of the Arizona Memorial. The result is an investigative treasure of interviews that provides eyewitness accounts of the bombing that happened six decades ago. The authors were also part of a select group of individuals allowed to dive down to the ruins of the ship, an experience they describe as feeling "like an intrusion, a violation of privacy." The interviews offer many poignant moments, such as when one crew member describes the last weekend before the December 7 attack as so routine that he and his mates had no clue that anything was about to happen: "We were as happy as larks." A well-related tribute to a ship "that never died, and of the men who never forgot." Allen Weakland
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Truman Talley Books
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0312286902
• ISBN 13: 9780312286903
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288