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. (Dec.)
