when you think of the ships lost in the attack on pearl harbor undoubtedly the uss arizona and uss oklahoma come to mind both ships were total loss to the navy but there was also a third total loss that day the uss utah which is often referred to as the forgotten battleship of pearl harbor her rusted remains are still present in the harbor partially submerged off the coast of ford island since the island is still an active military base and no tour shuttles offer service to the other side of the island uss utah remains relatively forgotten despite being less than a mile from the uss arizona the uss utah was launched as a florida class battleship in 1909 and commissioned two years later with the whole designation bb31 in 1931 she was demilitarized and converted into a target ship as part of the london naval treaty which limited the size of naval forces around the globe during the attack on december 7 1941 uss utah was struck by multiple japanese torpedoes by this time in her life utah had been designated ag-16 and was equipped with anti-aircraft guns for training but in terms of being useful at sea she was not the same battleship that had once protected pantry bay from german raiders so why was she targeted captain mitsuo fujita leader of the first wave of attacking aircraft at pearl harbor specifically ordered that the utah not be attacked while most of the pilots in the first wave followed orders not every single one of them was on the same page and utah was targeted in the case of mistaken identity in the midst of the fray one of the pilots thought she was an active battleship and fired upon her this set off a chain reaction as immediately after five more torpedoes were launched against utah one of them hit its target and another missed hitting the neighboring uss raleigh the torpedoes may have been a strategic waste but they did do what they were intended to and they did sink the uss utah efforts were made to right the ship and bring her back into service but the effort was abandoned due to a cost to value ratio that could not justify further efforts she was drugged closer to shore and partially righted to 37 degrees before leaving her bee in 1944 a plaque was placed on her deck honoring the dead around that time in 1971 an official memorial was created nearby on the shore to commemorate the 58 officers and crew who were lost on december 7 1941.
more than just a memorial to the lives lost that day the uss utah is also a grave as she is the final resting place for 54 of her crew that did not make it off of the ship for this reason and more the uss utah deserves to be forgotten no more.