The USS Arizona Memorial, located at Pearl Harbor in the City and County of Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, marks the resting place of 1,102 of the 1,177 sailors killed on the USS Arizona during the Attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 by Japanese imperial forces and commemorates the events of that day. The attack on Pearl Harbor and the island of Oʻahu was the action that led to United States involvement in World War II. The memorial, dedicated in 1962 and visited by more than one million people annually, spans the sunken hull of the battleship without touching it.
Since it opened in 1980, the National Park Service has operated the USS Arizona Memorial Visitor Center associated with the memorial. Historical information about the attack, boat access to the memorial, and general visitor services are available at the center. The sunken remains of the battleship were declared a National Historic Landmark on 5 May 1989.
There are three main parts to the national memorial: entry, assembly room, and shrine. The central assembly room features seven large open windows on either wall and ceiling, to commemorate the date of the attack. The total number of windows is 21, symbolically representing a 21 gun salute or 21 Marines standing at eternal parade rest over the tomb of the fallen.
To this day, oil can still be seen rising from the wreckage to the surface of the water. The oil seeping is sometimes referred to as "the tears of the Arizona" or "black tears." It also contains an opening in the floor overlooking the sunken decks. It is from this opening that visitors come to pay their respects by tossing flowers (and lei, in the past) in honor of the fallen sailors.
Lei are no longer permitted to be tossed into the water, as the string poses a hazard to sea-life. Visitors can leave a lei on guardrails located in front of the names of the fallen. One of the three 19,585 pound anchors of the Arizona is displayed at the entrance of the visitor center.
(One of the other two is at the Arizona State Capitol in Phoenix.) One of the two ship's bells is in the visitor center. (Its twin is in the clock tower of the Student Memorial Center at the University of Arizona in Tucson.)