The USS Arizona was laid down on March 16, 1914, launched on June 19, 1915, and commissioned on October 17, 1916. She departed New York on November 16 for shakedown training off the Virginia Capes. Within months, the United States entered WW1. The Arizona operated out of Norfolk throughout the War, serving as a gunnery training ship and patrolling the waters of the eastern seaboard. She served as part of the honor escort convoying President Woodrow Wilson to the Paris Peace Conference in December of 1918. In 1929 she was in Norfolk Naval Shipyard for modernization and was re-commissioned in 1931. Over the next decade, Ariizona operated with the Battle Fleet out of San Pedro, California after transfer to the US Pacific Fleet. In 1941 She was deployed to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii along with the other Battleships in her Division because of the increasing tensions with Japan in the Pacific. On the morning of December 7, 1941, at 07:55 A.M., the Japanese Navy launched a full airborne attack from 6 Fleet carriers on the US Fleet moored in Pearl Harbor. At approximately 8:15 A.M. the Arizona was struck by an Armor piercing 1000 lb. bomb which penetrated her forward magazines, dropped by a horizontal bomber. The resulting explosion had catastropic results as the magazines detonated, destroying the ship and creating massive fires. She sank immediately at her mooring, with 1,177 of her 1517 man crew lost. The ship was never raised and the sunken hull became the final resting place for her heroic crew. A permanent Memorial was built over the hull and Dedicated on Memorial Day, 1962. It has become the most revered of any in the US Navy and is visiited by thousands each year.