Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Seventy years after Pearl Harbor, USS Arizona still cries

On December 7, 1941, the USS Arizona was sunk by Japanese aircraft during the attack on Pearl Harbor

Seventy years after Pearl Harbor, you can see the oil still leaking from the wreck of the USS Arizona, the giant battleship sunk by Japanese aircraft, something that for many represents the tears of thousands of sailors who went down with the ship in that day of "infamy".

On December 7, 1941, early in the morning, Japan awakened the "sleeping giant" American bombing the Pacific Fleet anchored in Hawaii. In two hours, about 20 ships were sunk or damaged and 164 planes destroyed. Denouncing "a date that will forever be marked in history as a day of infamy," President Franklin Roosevelt declared war on Japan, changing the course of World War II at a time when many people expected the country to escape the conflict

2,400 of the Americans who died at Pearl Harbor, nearly half, exactly 1177, were killed in a matter of seconds aboard the USS Arizona when a bomb detonated the ship's munitions depot, causing a conflagration that burned for three days . Today, the ruins are still visible, one of the towers rusted beyond the surface, with an American flag hoisted. Every day, hundreds of visitors came to watche a memorial in the form of a bridge over the wreckage.