The USS Arizona Mall Memorial on the University of Arizona campus serves as a quiet, solemn display in honor of the ship and the 1,177 people who went down with it in the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
At sunrise on Tuesday, 80 years after the attack, the memorial came to life in a ceremony hosted in by the UArizona Naval ROTC Program and the USS Arizona Reunion Association.
The ceremony included a presentation by the NROTC color guard, and about 100 uniformed NROTC midshipmen stood in formation. Attendees heard remarks from Col. Kevin A. Norton, UArizona NROTC commanding officer and professor of naval science; Cdr. Michael Clees, UArizona NROTC executive officer; and Andrew Desautel, national secretary for the USS Arizona Reunion Association.
The event closed with a ringing of NROTC's Berger/Campbell Memorial Bell in remembrance of the 1,177 people – including eight Arizonans – killed aboard the USS Arizona. There were 337 survivors of the attack.
The USS Arizona Mall Memorial, which runs the length of the west end of the University of Arizona Mall between Old Main and the Joseph Wood Krutch Garden, froms a full-scale outline of the deck of the ship. It was installed in 2016.
The university's Student Union Memorial Center, just steps away from the USS Arizona Mall Memorial, also houses a key artifact from the ship: one of the two original bells salvaged in 1941. In order to preserve the bell, it is no longer rung.