Steel From the USS Arizona

This piece of steel comes from the USS Arizona. Yes, THEE USS Arizona. Don't worry, no one went underwater and hacked off a chunk of the ship and gave it to us. This is from the super structure that was above water after it sank. It was decided to just cut the top off and put the scrap pile on Ford Island. It was left there until the end of the war when there was time to deal with it. At that point the decision to scrap it was difficult because it was, after all, the USS Arizona. So it was left there for over 70 years because no one knew what to do with it. In the 2000s a program was created to allows schools and museums obtain a piece of the USS Arizona so long as they permanently display the piece with honor and in a way that it commemorates the ship and those lost.  In 2020, Mr. Rude started the process with the U.S. Navy to obtain the piece. We were notified on September 23rd, 2020, that we were getting the piece. It arrived the first week of October.