Here lies the wreck of the battleship USS Arizona. During the attack on Pearl Harbor, 1,177 officers and crewmen tragically lost their lives aboard this ship when an armor piercing bomb hit her forward magazines. The explosion was so deadly that the Arizona accounted for 49% of total American casualties during the attack. Until September 11, 2001, no attack on American soil was deadlier than Pearl Harbor.

On the day of the attack, the Arizona was 26 years old and had already served in World War I. In the 20s and 30s, she had cruised through a period of relative peace.

But, as the Japanese Empire spread across the Pacific, the US Navy moved the Pacific Fleet’s home port from California to Hawaii. Tensions only escalated from there until that fateful day at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

The video above contains footage from the moment the Arizona’s magazine exploded. From the time the ship’s air raid sirens went off at 7:55am to the final explosion at 8:06am, the crew had roughly 10 minutes to react. Can you imagine trying to get ready for battle in such a short amount of time?

In these 10 minutes, Rear Admiral Isaac C. Kidd, the commander of Battleship Division One, rushed up to the bridge of the Arizona to counteract the attack. However, even he was not safe, and he perished in the explosion. He was the highest ranking casualty at Pearl Harbor, and the first U.S. Navy flag officer killed in action during World War II.

With Admiral Kidd and other high ranking officers down, Lieutenant Commander Samuel G. Fuqua, who was the ship’s Damage Control Officer and first lieutenant, became the Arizona’s highest ranking officer. Early in the attack, he had been knocked unconscious by a bomb at the ship’s stern, but once he came to, he led the firefighting and rescue efforts. These actions earned him the Medal of Honor, the highest American military decoration.

Yet, even as the crew tended to the Arizona, the attack continued until about 9:45am. When the dust finally settled, the losses were severe. Of the 2,403 American casualties at Pearl Harbor, those who had died on the Arizona accounted for 49% of them. Of the the 1,512 crew members on the Arizona, only 335 survived the attack. That’s only 22% of the original crew.

The damage to the USS Arizona was so extreme that it was the only battleship at Pearl Harbor that the US Navy never recovered. Even the other battleships that had sunk or capsized were refloated and/or returned to service. Instead, the ship was eventually turned into a memorial run by the National Park Service.

To this day, the wreck of the USS Arizona remains at the bottom of Pearl Harbor, and it still leaks oil, which bubbles up to the surface. This seemingly infinite oil slick is known as the “tears of the Arizona”.

The wreck is a solemn reminder of the harsh realities of war. World War II was the deadliest military conflict in history, and 70-80 million people died during the war. By the end of the war, 3% of the world’s population was gone.