Pearl Harbor: Oil-stained USS Arizona flag to be shown

PHOENIX — Dark blotches stain an American flag encapsulated in a display glass case at the Arizona State Capitol Museum.

Officials said it's those imperfections — on the otherwise perfect flag — that illustrate the item's significance.

Those stains are oil-fuel spatter from the USS Arizona, which was bombed at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii more than seven decades ago.

Museum officials plan to unveil the flag, along with a relic of the Arizona ship, at the Arizona Capitol Museum in Phoenix to a private audience on Dec. 6 and to the public on Dec. 7.

The flag belonged to one of the boats parked on the USS Arizona's deck on Dec. 7, 1941, when the Japanese air attack destroyed 19 Navy ships, according to published reports.

If people ask why officials would display a blemished flag, Alice Duckworth, Arizona Capitol Museum collections manager, has answers.

"If we clean this flag, we destroy part of its history," Duckworth said. "We take away its experience."

"It's kind of like (how) many people have plastic surgery: It makes a change. For some people, it makes it better. But for some people, it takes away their life experiences. In the case of this oil, the dirt that it collected, that is not cleanup. It is a part of the history."

Flag takes a journey

It's a mystery how the flag was salvaged from the USS Arizona, Duckworth said. The flag is not the larger Old Glory attached to the ship, she said.

The flag belonged to one of the boats parked on the USS Arizona's deck — commanded by either Rear Adm. Isaac Campbell Kidd or Capt. Van Valkenberg, she said.

A yellow letter dated May 30, 1942, showed the flag was transferred to a veterans group in Hawaii.

Joseph W. Dowdy, a tugboat operator, gave the flag to the Department of Hawaii's American Legion. He wrote a letter: "This flag went down on the battleship USS Arizona on Dec. 7. Some personal friends of mine who were saved after the Dec. 7 raid were on the salvage crew. Through the personal friendship of one of the salvage crew, the flag was presented to me."

The veterans group in Hawaii turned the flag over to the American Legion in Phoenix in the late 1980s. The Arizona veterans group locked the flag in a vault in its office.

The group later donated the flag to the state because, "We owe it to the people of Arizona to make this available," Ron Murphy, a state historian for the American Legion in Arizona, told a Sun City newspaper in 1990.

The Sun City newspaper showed a textile conservator, who repairs and restores textiles such as historic tapestries, worked on the flag at about this time. The wool flag was dated to 1934, according to the conservator.

The flag was first displayed in the Executive Towerat the state Capitol for four months in the early 1990s, then it moved to the museum, where it stayed until 1995. The museum put it to rest for nearly 18 years, Duckworth said.

Flag returns for public view

Justin Painter, the state museum's associate who helps with exhibits, saw the flag and inquired about its background last fall. He and another helper heard the story.

"We looked at each other stunned," Painter said. "This flag was on the USS ship when it sank."

The Arizona Capitol Museum also has a relic of the USS Arizona with an American flag that belongs to the Salt River-Pima Maricopa Community.

The idea is to return the tribe's flag and replace it with the USS Arizona flag, Painter said.