For the first time, the US Parks Service has allowed underwater robots mounted with cameras inside the Arizona, the battleship resting only 40 feet below the surface of Pearl Harbor.

The USS Arizona, one of the first ships attacked by Japanese forces, took a direct hit and was sunk by a 1,760pound bomb, the bomb hit the USS Arizona in its forward magazines that sent the ship, according to witnesses 15 to 20 foot in the air before breaking in two. The USS Arizona lost 1177 men that day more than half the final death toll of the attack.
The USS Arizona now stands as the site of the Memorial to these servicemen, mostly 17,18 and 19-year-olds who lost their lives during the Sunday morning surprise attack. National Geographic’s unique access to this hallowed gravesite provides the first ever look inside the Arizona – a shrine that represents a potential environmental time bomb as its store of an estimated half a million gallons of oil seeps into the sensitive waters of Pearl Harbor.

National Geographic went inside using a remote camera for the first ever pictures inside the ship. Using ARGUS a sophisticated deep-water imaging vehicle with three pivoting video cameras, lights, an electronic still camera and a scanning sonar system that uses sound waves to search the ocean depths for shipwrecks or other objects. ARGUS sends images of what it "sees" on the ocean bottom to its tether ship, as far as 9,000 feet above on the surface.