From the May 21, 2022, Reporter by Kimberly K. Fu.
A sliver of this famous warship arrived in Vacaville, California, on May 18 and soon will be exhibited at the Rowland Freedom Center in town.
Years ago, Paul Mirisch, the center's general manager, watched a documentary about the USS Arizona and learned that the battleship had been dismantled and most of it left in a heap at Hospital Point in Pearl Harbor. He later found out that the Navy allowed museums and veterans organizations to apply for pieces of it.
He sent in an application and hoped for the best. "It was a shot in the dark," Paul remembered. "We were pleasantly surprised."
They got a piece of the ship. Various documentation came with the weighty salvaged artifact. It is a square of metal burnished by heat, likely from the explosion that doomed the ship, featuring a small circular bump in the middle that probably is a nut that once held a bolt.
It will be placed in the WW II area of the museum which features a picture of the Arizona on fire, a Japanese flag found in the cockpit of a downed Japanese Zero, a Japanese headband and news coverage of the attack.
Ultimately, the Arizona piece will be placed in a glass box with a hole at the top to allow people to reach in and feel the metal.
--GreGen
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