What part of USS Arizona exploded catastrophically during the Pearl Harbor attack?

The forward magazine of USS Arizona exploded catastrophically during the Pearl Harbor attack.

On the morning of December 7, 1941, a Japanese armor-piercing bomb struck the battleship near its forward ammunition magazines. The resulting explosion ignited stored powder and fuel, tearing through the ship and killing 1,177 officers and crewmen. Arizona suffered such extensive damage that it was never returned to service.

The wreck remains on the harbor bottom, and the USS Arizona Memorial spans the ship without touching it. Oil that still seeps from the wreck is often called the ship’s “black tears,” although the flow is limited and varies over time.

A common mix-up is to identify Arizona simply as a ship sunk by bomb damage. The decisive event was the magazine explosion, which produced the enormous fireball and structural destruction that distinguish Arizona’s fate from the damage suffered by other battleships at Pearl Harbor.