Just thinking about it but why wasn’t one of the new fast battleships being built renamed Arizona in honor of the original getting roughly handled at Pearl Harbor? Precedent was set when they renamed one of the new Essex carriers after the recently sunk Yorktown while under construction. Ideas, input, comments….
South Dakota Indiana Massachusetts Alabama Iowa Missouri New Jersey Wisconsin You can check DANFS for a possible renaming.
I’m not talking about renaming it now but back during the war before some of the newly constructed BBs were commissioned.
Only Wisconsin & Missouri would qualify, as all others had already been christened and launched, the Essex class that were renamed, were do so prior to christening & launching.
Good information. Most (all?) of the names of ships lost in WWII were reused, but it had not occurred to me to relate it to christening dates. It is considered bad luck by sailors to change the name of a ship once formally given. Arizona was not stricken from the Navy Register until December 1, 1942, so her name would not have been available until then.
Seven WWI-era battleships under construction were cancelled under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty. Ironically one of them was the Washington, planned fourth ship of the Colorado class. She had been launched and was sunk as a target to study the effects of various weapons. The name Washington had belonged to one of the "Big Ten" armored cruisers of the early 1900s, which were considered prestigious enough to rate state names. However the growth of the Navy got to the point where every state name had been used, so non-battleships began to be renamed for prominent cities in their respective states. Others were Pennsylvania, California, Tennessee, Colorado, West Virginia, and Maryland. Also cancelled were six ships of the South Dakota class. South Dakota, North Carolina, and Montana were the last of the "Big Ten" cruisers. Indiana, Massachusetts, and Iowa, three of our four oldest battleships, were renamed Coast Defense Battleships 1, 2, and 4; the famous Oregon got to keep her name as a museum ship. Six of these seven names reappeared as battleships in WWII; Montana would have been the lead ship of the next class. Montana is the only battleship name assigned and cancelled twice and the only one of the lower 48 states never to have an active battleship named for it. Alabama, New Jersey, Missouri, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Kentucky were battleships of the pre-dreadnought era. Perhaps their congressmen were on the right committees. p.s. another little quirk just occurred to me, both of the planned Montanas would have carried twelve 16"/50-caliber guns.
I'm going to take a W.A.G here and rely on my own feelings, but the ARIZONA is/(was) not only a Shrine but an iconic symbol of the U.S.A. to come back Stronger, Harder and with Unrestrained Resolve. The USS Arizona's name is sacrosanct to one event and the inevitable outcome. No other ship deserves the distinction.
