Open portholes reveal the ship’s
sediment-filled interior cabins, seen here with a sink, vanity, light fixture and desk
of them. The hull would have to be riddled with excavations to defuel it and many would give way––a true disaster unlike the worrisome leaking we deal with now.
Public Connection A lot has changed over the three decades since my first dives on Arizona. The SRC still plays an active role in assisting the WWII Valor in the Pacific National Monument with the science, management and interpretation of the submerged battleship. SRC underwater photographer Brett Seymour, wet behind the ears when he first joined the team, is now Deputy Chief. He has spearheaded an SRC partnership with the Advance Imaging and Visualization Laboratory at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution that produced an immersive underwater 3D documentary that puts the viewer on the decks of Arizona.
Currently, the NPS is partnering in a digital re-mapping effort that utilizes sonar, laser scanning and photogrammetry to create a virtual 3D model of Arizona, as it turns 100 since being commissioned. This techno-wizardry will make the battered icon available at kiosks, portable media devices and the web in forward-looking effort to connect the public to an incomparable WWII touchstone. There will never be a substitute for visiting the site as two million do each year, but some have neither the financial resources nor physical stamina for the trip to Hawaii. During my most recent dive on
the memorial with Brett in 2011 producing the 3D film, I swam under the viewing well—a hole in the memorial floor where visitors can observe the wreck below. During our original mapping ventures decades ago, I would occasionally
Left: USS
Arizona’s teak deck is largely
intact and visible in several areas on the stern of the battleship
seclude myself to watch visitors peer at the corroded ship below. As people stared down at Arizona, I stared back from where I couldn’t easily be seen…except by kids who see everything. I remember a young boy three decades ago pointing at me, telling his mom that a man was down there. She explained me away. “There are many men down there but none you can see, darling.” That was before the Challenger
disaster, the fall of the Berlin Wall and way before the Twin Towers came down… that kid is now probably mid to late-30s. This time, I swam over to look for him––a silly gesture. There was of course, no one. But I fantasized him standing there now with his own son. I imagined the kid saying, “Dad, there’s an old guy with a white beard down there.” His father replies, “I know, he’s been there for quite a while now.”
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