speaker 1: yesterday, december 7th, 1941,a date which will live in infamy. the united states of america was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forcesof the empire of japan. nearly 2,400 americans lost their lives that morning, and of those,almost half perished in the flaming inferno of the uss arizona. today, more than 60 yearslater, visitors to the arizona memorial are still haunted by the thought of nearly 1,000bodies entombed in the wreck of the ship below them. yet it was for this reason that we builtthe memorial in the first place. to remember those that lost their lives that day. to rememberpearl harbor. japan's game became crystal clear today. their desire was war. war withthe united states. the peace talks now appear to be appear to have been just a subterfuge.as soon as word of the attack was taken to
the president, mr. roosevelt ordered the armyand navy to execute all previously prepared plans for the defense of the united states.kathy billings: "goodbye, mama, i'm off to yokahama for the red, white, and blue. mycountry and you. goodbye, mama, i'm off to yokahama just to ..."speaker 1: shock turned to indignation, then rage, and finally a steely determination towage total war. the slogan was "remember pearl harbor". the greatest single loss of lifeat pearl harbor, and in united states naval history, came when the arizona's munitionsexploded. in an instant, more than 1,000 sailors were killed. the blast from the arizona blewmen off the decks of surrounding ships, and threw tons of debris across the harbor. thefire burned for 3 days, blanketing the harbor
with clouds of thick, black smoke. the destructionwas complete. divers began exploring the wreckage of the ship within a week. it was a challengingtask. initially, 105 bodies were recovered, but the grizzly task of finding and removingbodies was both hazardous and demoralizing to the salvage group. the assignment was dropped.the u.s. navy declared the remaining bodies buried at sea. the united states was now atwar, and the priority was to salvage ships that could be repaired. the arizona was notamong them. the attack on pearl harbor not only heralded the entrance of the united statesinto world war ii, but it was a turning point in our nation's history, and a terrible reminderof america's unpreparedness. at the end of the war, the arizona settleddeep into the mud of pearl harbor, but it
was never totally forgotten. suggestions fora war memorial began as early as 1943, but there was no successful campaign for a formalstructure. perhaps the wounds from the december attack were still too fresh. but the originalcall to "remember pearl harbor" still echoed in the minds of many people, and in 1950,admiral arthur radford, commander in-chief of the pacific fleet, ordered a flag poleto be erected over the sunken battleship. on the 9th anniversary of the attack, admiralradford placed a commemorative plaque at the base of the flagpole. president eisenhowerfinally approved the creation of a war memorial in 1958. with the combination of private donationsand the $150,000 appropriated by the u.s. congress, the construction of a true memorialbegan in 1960. the uss arizona memorial was
officially dedicated in 1962. the architectof the memorial, alfred price, explained his design when he wrote "wherein the structuresags in the center, but stands strong and vigorous in the ends, expresses initial defeatand ultimate victory. the overall effect is one of serenity, to permit the individualto contemplate their own innermost feelings." pearl harbor and every trace of the americanforces that defended it are now imbued with an almost religious significance, and todaythe uss arizona has become an international shrine.kathy billings: during the '70s, the visitation to the memorial started to increase, and visitorsstood in long, hot, sunny lines, and it was decided at that time that a visitor centerwas needed so that visitors could be oriented
to the memorial. congress decided to appropriatefunds with the caveat that the national park service would operate the visitor center andthe visitor tours to the memorial, so in 1980, when the visitor center was opened, the nationalpark service took stewardship of the uss arizona memorial, and operating the visitor center.speaker 1: humans seem to possess an inherent need to confront their own mortality, andthe desire to visit the graves of fallen heroes is strong. each year, nearly 1.5 million peoplefrom all over the world visit the arizona memorial. to get to uss arizona, the visitorsmust take a short ferry ride across the harbor. but behind the hustle and bustle of runninga national memorial, the national park service is involved in critical scientific work todetermine the condition of the arizona. in
1981, the superintendent for the newly createduss arizona memorial contacted dan lenihan of the national park service submerged resourcescenter regarding a survey of the battleship. lenihan visited pearl harbor and was intriguedby the challenge of mapping and photo-documenting the 608-foot american icon.dan lenihan: you're looking at a 34,000 ton ship. it's composed of primarily steel, andall kinds of composite materials. it's sitting on a harbor bottom, and not only is it sittingon the bottom of the harbor, it's partially posed to air, it's partially in the mud, andthe rest of it's in varying depths of the water. this is an electrolytic soup, in whichit's reacting in all kinds of strange and bizarre ways.speaker 1: in 1983, the submerged resources
center began what would become a more than20-year research partnership with the arizona memorial. working with the local park staffand the navy diving community at pearl harbor, the submerged resources center began a 10-dayreconnaissance operation to determine the feasibility of mapping the arizona. this investigationled to a full scale mapping operation in the summer of 1984. in a little over a month,divers from the park service and the navy's mobile diving and salvage unit #1, loggedover 1400 dives, laying base lines, and running measuring tapes. archaeologists used thousandsof government-issued mechanical pencils to sketch the entire ship, and eventually theycreated a series of detailed line-drawings. the archaeologists also took hours of underwatervideo, and hundreds of underwater photographs
for the final illustrations necessary to createa detailed model depicting the current state of arizona. kathy billings took over as thesuperintendent of the uss arizona memorial in 1995. she immediately understood the complexityof the arizona, not only as a symbol of america's heritage, but also as a management issue.the question of what was there had already been answered by years of mapping operationswith the submerged resources center. a new question, equally compelling, now presenteditself. what is the likelihood of metal corrosion leading to a structural collapse in a battleshipthat has been submerged as much as 60 years? as much as half a million gallons of oil arestill contained in the ship's submerged bunkers. for decades, this oil has leaked out, dropby drop. but if the hull collapsed and large
amounts of oil were to spill, it could turninto a major environmental crisis. to complicate this scientific question, the history andsymbolism of the arizona provided another challenge in the preservation of the battleship.dan lenihan: almost immediately with the research we're faced with an interesting dilemma. thequestion of which is most respectful to the american icon? the war grave. it's tangiblethe feelings of people that come out to that ship. you're know you're dealing with somethingthat's really next to the american spirit. right next to the soul, and something youhave to know being careful when you're making decisions. do you take on the problem head-onof entering it, researching it, trying to understand it. is it more respectful to completelyback off? not do anything? these are the kinds
of things we had to wrestle with before wecould start that process. speaker 1: thanks to recent development intechnology, scientists working with the national park service are able to keep a close tabof what's happening with the ship. in the last few years, the arizona memorial has establishedcritical partnerships that provide both the expertise and the equipment necessary to dothis job. larry murphy: we have many partnerships withacademic institutions and with other agencies. companies that produce scientific instrumentationthat we need for collection of a specific data, and a lot of these techniques weren'teven available a year or two ago, and we are taking these, applying them in a differentway, and very often the corporate partner
will end up with a product, or an approach,or an application that they had not realized before, and it expands their market. it'smutually beneficial for both park service and with private partners.bob christ: we have a 500 semi-line resolution camera, that's a very high resolution ccd,broadcast quality that has a rotation that goes up almost straight up and straight down.you got lights on each side, as well as rear-facing lights here, and a camera. once you make thestructure penetration, and you go into the structure, you'll want to back back out ofthe structure. it's best to see behind you to see if you're hooked on anything.speaker 1: the fall of 2000 led the arizona memorial and the submerged resources centerto a partnership with the national geographic
society, that provided the first interiorimages of the arizona since the completion of salvage dives in the 1940s.matt russell: we're using the videoray rrv for systematic inventory of cabins and passagewaysin the arizona. we're using this remote technology for a couple of reasons. number 1, out ofsafety, because it would be very hazardous to put divers into the ship, and number 2,out of respect, because of the ship's status as a war grave.speaker 1: respect for those entombed within a ship has resulted in a long-standing policyagainst divers penetrating the arizona or the utah. for the first time since 1941, scientistsand park officials are getting a view from deep within the ship's interior. knowing thatnearly 1,000 bodies still rest within the
wreck of the arizona, these scientists getan eerie feeling as they monitor the videoray's journey thorough the ship's many cabins. butthis interior exploration is essential for the comprehensive study of arizona's environment.matt russell: i noticed that the growth that covers everything on the third decks, on theselower decks, is really thick and soft. it's kind of fluffy. it's a tan-colored substancethat covers everything. when you get closer with the rov, it really stirs it up prettyheavily. in the overheads, there's also oil that we're noticing, but it looks kind ofgranular, and it's formed into stalactites that are hanging off the overhead. they seemto cover the overheads pretty much continuously with these stalactites hanging down. giveus another 5 feet of slack.
scientist 2: roger that, more slack.speaker 1: another accomplishment from this survey was a systematic inventory and evaluationof interior spaces accessible to the rov. researchers geo-rectified original ship plans,and then digitized them into a geographic information system. today, archaeologistscan track the progress of the rov and make detailed observations of each cabin.larry murphy: we have selected 8 principle points, and 35 secondary points on the sitethat we have mapped to a 3 dimensional circle of error of less than a centimeter. as theship changes over time, we can revisit and reoccupy these positions, and we can get avector of change. we know which way the site is moving, what's happening to it. we canget both rate and direction.
matt russell: another way that we're monitoringthe ship's structural integrity is with a very low-tech method of using crack monitors.we've epoxied plastic devices over these cracks in various parts of the arizona's structure,and we can go back periodically and monitor these devices and see how they've changed.if the cracks widen or get smaller, then these instruments epoxied around the crack willshow us that. speaker 1: archaeologists from the submergedresources center have been working with metallurgists from the university of nebraska in lincolnto determine the decay rate of the ship's hull.matt russell: one of the most important way that we're doing this is by measuring thecorrosion rate on the exterior of the hull.
we're doing this using a couple of differentmethods. we can measure the ph and the corrosion potential, which is also known as ecor, andthose parameters help us to gauge the rate of corrosion that's taking place.donald l. johns: the important issue here is that the readings are internally ... whati call internally consistent. that means when we're taking whatever reading it is, and wecompare it with the reading before it, that it's the relative reading, and just thinkabout the differences in the situation we have here in doing this research, in thislarge-scale laboratory, compared to what we have in the lab. we have a 3-foot probe inthe lab, we got these nice shells to work from.larry murphy: the nice thing about that too
is i really like coming to the conclusionshand-on on the ship as opposed to laboratory models. we've ... every time we get involvedwith laboratory models, we usually come up with excuses as to why some variable couldn'tbecome covered. speaker 1: it is critical for the long-termpreservation of the uss arizona that scientists have a clear idea of where and when a particularpart of the ship may expect to disintegrate. matt russell: the first step what we're goingto do is we're going to measure the ph and then the ecor at the surface. after that,you drill to the first predetermined depth, which is approximately 11mm, with the squareend mill. after that, i will do a ph and an ecor measurement again. we repeat the processto 17 ph ecor again, then finally without
the drill go all the way to the steel. we'reessentially going to feel for what's happening to the steel on this vessel.speaker 1: archaeologists measure concretion thickness at regular intervals. to get tothe actual steel hole of the ship, these divers have to drill through a thick layer of endcrustacean. the scientists also have to characterize the type of corrosion taking place in orderto determine a baseline rate of deterioration. dan lenihan: no one has really confrontedthe problems of managing a site that's 85 years old. it's been submerged in sea watersfor 60 years, after being subjected to a horrific and catastrophic explosion that sank it. wehave to have this kind of information in order to make sound management decisions over thelong term, and for its preservation, interpretation,
and care.speaker 1: observations suggest that even layers of hard biological growth create low-oxygenconditions at the metal surface, and this reduces the corrosion rate to far below whatwould occur on exposed surfaces. researchers also believe that the corrosion rate is significantlylower below the mud compared to the exposed portions of the ship.john d. makinso: you're going to write it down, you're going to take the reading, andi will do the depth, okay? sometimes, like yesterday, or the day before yesterday whenwe were drilling, we got 10mm before we hit metal. other times, we go 30-40mm before wehit metal. dan lenihan: 30-40?john d. makinso: yeah. to the concretion.
the concretion varies, and we're finding adifference between that, so we're getting good data.speaker 1: for the united states, the attack on pearl harbor is perhaps the most pivotalmoment in the 20th century, and the event will always hold a special place in americanhistory. unlike most memorials, the arizona itself remains largely unchanged, but thedevastation wrought by japanese bombs is still evident beneath the placid waters of pearlharbor. john d. makinso: this site is a symbol ofwhat the sacrifices we have made as a country for our freedom and democracy. it's a symbolof what it costs. if we're not alert. there aren't very many places in our country thathave been invaded by another country in a
war situation. this is one of the few of them,and remembering that is going to be very important for future generations.speaker 1: to many americans, the uss arizona and its memorial will always reflect the basictruths of how we perceive and deal with war. currently, the national park service's submergedresources center, and the uss arizona memorial, are continuing their multidisciplinary researchon the arizona. the very same question first addressed in the mid-1980s remains. what ishappening to this sacred american icon after more than half a century in the waters ofpearl harbor? after years of research, the national park service is now able to ask criticalquestions involving many scientific disciplines. perhaps years more will be required to answerthem.
dan lenihan: i'd say it's been 20 years nowthat i've been diving that ship. it means as much to me going into it tomorrow as itwould 20 years ago for the first time. it's an intimate way of touching the past, touchingthe ... my father's generation, and it's been an enormous privilege to work on this site.kathy billings: when i'm out there, i often think about what those men would think withme being ... diving in that ship. if they could look wherever they are, and look down,and think about what we're doing, what would they think? that goes through my mind is "whatwould they think about what we are doing?" i think that's been a lot of my managementdecisions is if i were one of them, what would be my decision? it's a very powerful place.speaker 1: the uss arizona continues to serve
as a war grave for its crew, and in recentyears, many survivors that passed away chose to entomb their ashes in the remains of thesunken battleship. for the survivors of the attack on pearl harbor, and for the familiesof those who died that day, the arizona is a place to come to confront the past and perhapsto come to terms with it. whatever the perception, the arizona is a symbol, and the ultimatesignificance of the vessel and its memorial lies in the ability to be all things to allpeople. for a home video copy on dvd, call 1-800-426-8243.
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