The path to a national memorial was neither quick nor simple. Robert Ripley, of Ripley's Believe It or Not! fame, pushed for a permanent tribute after visiting Pearl Harbor in 1942, writing letters to the Navy's Bureau of Yards and Docks. His idea was shelved for cost. Admiral Arthur W. Radford attached a flag to Arizona's severed mainmast in 1950 and lobbied Congress for funding, only to be denied twice because of Korean War budgets. The Navy placed a ten-foot basalt stone and plaque over the midship deckhouse on December 7, 1955, but a true national memorial did not gain presidential approval until 1958, when Eisenhower signed enabling legislation requiring the $500,000 project be privately funded. The money came from an unlikely coalition: $95,000 raised after a This Is Your Life television segment featuring Medal of Honor recipient Samuel G. Fuqua, $64,000 from a 1961 Elvis Presley benefit concert that would be his last live performance until 1968, and $40,000 from the sale of Revell plastic model kits of the Arizona.

Austrian-born architect Alfred Preis designed the memorial as a 184-foot bridge floating above the sunken hull without resting on it. Its profile -- two peaks at each end connected by a deliberate sag through the center -- drew early ridicule; critics called it a "squashed milk carton." Preis had something more considered in mind. The sagging center, he explained, represents initial defeat; the strong, rising ends embody ultimate victory. "Overtones of sadness have been omitted," he wrote, "to permit the individual to contemplate his own personal responses." The central assembly room features seven large open windows on each wall and in the ceiling. An opening in the floor allows visitors to look down onto Arizona's submerged decks, where flowers can be dropped into the water above the fallen. Leis were once tossed into the harbor, but because the string endangered sea life, they are now draped over guardrails instead.

At the far end of the memorial, a marble wall bears the name of every crew member killed aboard Arizona, protected behind velvet ropes. Salt water vapor eats at the stone, causing stains and erosion that forced full replacements in 1984 and again in 2014. To the left of the main wall, a smaller plaque lists roughly thirty survivors who later chose to rejoin their shipmates. Any Arizona survivor -- or a family member acting on their behalf -- could have ashes interred within the wreck by Navy divers, placed inside the barbette of Turret No. 4. Lou Conter, the last living survivor of the Arizona, died in April 2024 at the age of 102. One of the ship's 19,585-pound anchors sits at the visitor center entrance. Her bell hangs inside. The American flag flies from a pole attached to the severed mainmast -- a tribute unbroken since Admiral Radford's first raising in 1950.

In 1999, the Navy towed the battleship USS Missouri from the west coast to Pearl Harbor and berthed her behind and in line with the Arizona, perpendicular to the memorial. On Missouri's quarterdeck in Tokyo Bay, Japan had surrendered to General Douglas MacArthur and Admiral Chester Nimitz on September 2, 1945, ending the war that Arizona's destruction had begun. The pairing was potent symbolism, but Arizona Memorial staff worried the massive battleship would overshadow the smaller structure. To prevent this, Missouri was set well back, positioned so that military ceremonies on her aft decks could not see the memorial. Her bow was pointed toward Arizona -- a deliberate gesture conveying that Missouri now watches over the fallen. The arrangement worked: rather than competing for attention, the two ships frame the American experience of the war, beginning and end separated by a few hundred yards of harbor water.

Every United States Navy, Coast Guard, and Merchant Marine vessel entering Pearl Harbor honors a tradition called manning the rails. Personnel stand at attention along their ship's guardrails and salute the USS Arizona Memorial as they glide past. More than a million civilians visit the memorial annually, though ferry reservations often fill weeks in advance. Before boarding the Navy-operated shuttle for the short crossing, visitors watch a 23-minute documentary about the attack. The memorial was closed from May 2018 to September 2019 after structural cracks appeared, though boat tours around the wreck and Battleship Row continued. Since its formal dedication on Memorial Day 1962, every sitting U.S. president has made a pilgrimage to the memorial, scattering flowers above the hull. In December 2016, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe became the first leader of Japan to visit the site, 75 years after the attack -- a reciprocal gesture following President Obama's visit to Hiroshima earlier that same year.