Pearl Harbor Memorial

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In Hawaii, underwater archaeologists have long been concerned about the wreckage of the U.S.S. Arizona, sunk during the attack on Pearl Harbor. Get a rare close-up look at the wreckage.


More than six decades after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the USS Arizona still lies where she sank with her full cargo of sailors. Most of their bodies have never been recovered. Her superstructures were removed during the war, only the mount on her No. 3 gun turret remains above the surface.

The Arizona was built nearly a century ago, she has spent more than half that time underwater. Dec 7th, 1941, it was ten minutes after eight in the morning; a motion-picture camera captured the moment of impact. In that instant, more than 1,000 crewmen died.

The National Park Service which is responsible for maintaining the USS Arizona Memorial periodically checks on her condition, her passageways and hatches, her fourteen-inch guns. The interior of the ship is too dangerous for divers, so it's never been investigated by the Park Service until now. With the help of a tiny remotely operated vehicle made available by National Geographic, workers get their first glimpse of Arizona's condition since she went down. The initial survey reveals that corrosion is worse than expected. That may foreshadow an ecological disaster because of something happening deep inside the ship. The Arizona has been leaking about a quart of oil every day since she sank. But the Park Service is worried that the remaining bunker could give way at any moment.

\"Current estimates are that there is approximately half a million gallons possibly in the bunkers on the aft section of the ship, and so, with current technology, can we get to those bunkers, and what's happening with the metal on the hull and the internal portions of the ship. And so that's what we are trying to do is find out is there a way that we can contain that oil .

The problem is complicated by the ship's designation as a grave site, and by the oil's symbolic meaning.

Many visitors and survivors consider the oil to either be the tears of the ship or the ship is bleeding. We'll also be dealing with that emotional feelings that people have about the oil and the significance. It will be a balance between what protecting the ecosystem is all about and protecting this... the tomb, the shrine that this place symbolizes.


gun turret n.
炮塔
motion-picture adj.
电影的
hatch n.
An opening, as in the deck of a ship, in the roof or floor of a building, or in an aircraft.
入口，舱口建筑物屋顶或地板上的开口，如在船的甲板或飞机上
quart n.
A unit of volume or capacity in the U.S. Customary System, used in liquid measure, equal to