World War II
The Pennsylvanias were both present during Japan's 7 December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. Arizona suffered a catastrophic detonation of the forward powder magazines when a bomb from a Hiryū Nakajima B5N "Kate" bomber hit between and to port of Turrets No. 1 and 2, resulting in the most dramatic and costly casualty of the raid. Arizona sank after a massive explosion that destroyed the forward part of the ship.
Pennsylvania was only lightly damaged, and she served in the Pacific throughout World War II. Fitted with a new secondary battery of twin-mounted 5-inch (127 mm) 38-caliber guns in late 1942, she supported many amphibious invasions and was present during the world's last battle between big-gun warships, the Battle of Surigao Strait on 25 October 1944. A torpedo hit in August 1945 damaged her propulsion beyond economical repair, wrecking three out of four shafts. With other obsolete battleships, Pennsylvania was a target of the Operation Crossroads atomic bomb test in 1946 and was scuttled at sea two years later.
Read more about this topic: Pennsylvania Class Battleship
Famous quotes containing the words world war, world and/or war:
“My mother learned that she was carrying me at about the same time the Second World War was declared; with the family talent for magic realism, she once told me she had been to the doctor’s on the very day.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)
“The only way to give finality to the world is to give it consciousness.”
—Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936)
“War and culture, those are the two poles of Europe, her heaven and hell, her glory and shame, and they cannot be separated from one another. When one comes to an end, the other will end also and one cannot end without the other. The fact that no war has broken out in Europe for fifty years is connected in some mysterious way with the fact that for fifty years no new Picasso has appeared either.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)