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Text Box: 6 Text Box:  Rear Adm. Isaac C. Kidd Sr. Admiral Kidd was Among 1,177 Who Died Aboard His Flagship, Arizona, At Pearl Harbor When the smoke had cleared and the skies had quieted over the wreck of the USS Arizona (BB-39) on Dec. 7, 1941, all that remained of its one-time commander was his U.S. Naval Academy ring, fused to a pole. Rear Adm. Isaac Campbell Kidd Sr. was the highest-ranking service member killed on "the day that will live in infamy" and the first officer killed in action in the Pacific theater. Kidd earned his gold class ring on his Annapolis graduation day in 1906. Promoted to ensign in 1908, he embarked on a distinguished Navy career. After spending 1907-9 aboard the USS New Jersey (BB-16) for the "Great White Fleet" cruise, he continued serving on battleships, at the time the most important enforcers of maritime peace. Before World War I, Kidd served as an aide and then as an instructor at the Naval Academy (1916-17). During the war, he served aboard the USS New Mexico (BB-40). Further staff and battleship assignments followed, and Kidd was named captain of the port for the Panama Canal Zone in 1927. Soon after, he was promoted to the rank of captain and in 1935 was named commander of Destroyer Squadron ONE, Scouting Force. He attended the Naval War College and served on its staff before taking command of the Arizona. By 1941, Kidd had been promoted to rear admiral and was serving aboard his flagship, Arizona, as commander of Battleship Division ONE and chief of staff to the commander of Battleships, Battle Force. He was known to take a fatherly interest in the lives of his crew, who respected him as a "working admiral." Kidd, called "Cap" by family and friends, may have been engaging in his daily exercise at 7:55 a.m. on that fateful Sunday. Most of the sailors stationed on Oahu, "America’s Gibraltar," and aboard the ships in Pearl Harbor were either still asleep or at breakfast when the Japanese attack began. However, once the ship’s air raid alarm went off, he "immediately went to the bridge and as Commander Battleship Division ONE, courageously discharged his duties as Senior Officer Present Afloat," according to his Medal of Honor citation. No one will ever know exactly what Kidd was doing or thinking when his ship sustained the first of eight bomb hits. His Medal of Honor was awarded posthumously; the citation blames the explosion that ripped through the forward part of the Arizona for his death. Of the 1,400 aboard the Arizona when it was destroyed, 1,176 of them died that day with Kidd. ▪ Text Box: the war. They feel that their sacrifices are finally acknowledged." The museum occupies a 10,000-square-foot open-air space in a military town that many of the country's first Korean immigrants called home while working in Oahu's pineapple fields. Little about the place mirrors the grand museums that pay tribute to other groups. There are no interactive exhibits, no gift shops, no stunning displays. Regardless, Kopitke, 47, said the museum does not lack emotional impact for those who served in the Korean War. "I have veterans in here crying," he said. When the fighting ended in the summer of 1953, more than 33,000 Americans had been killed in the three-year war between North and South Korea. The Koreas were divided in 1945, and their border remains tightly sealed. There are 38 sections to the museum, symbolic because the war lasted 38 months and the 38th parallel divides the Koreas. The museum features such war memorabilia as a 58-foot-long mural of the Battle at Inchon; towering statues of South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and his war-era predecessor, Rhee Syng-man; a wartime jeep and dozens of photographs.  In the rear of the museum, a meditation area contains a simple wooden cross and soldier's helmet that recall the losses suffered.  By month's end, Kopitke hopes to have machinery on hand to engrave plaques with the names of the war's fallen soldiers, to be put up as families of the men visit. Meanwhile, another group has opened a small site - the Korean War Veterans National Museum & Library - at an outlet mall in Tuscola, Ill. Organizers plan to start construction on a larger facility next month.  ▪ Text Box: Photographed on the deck of his ship, circa 1939. Captain Kidd has inscribed the original print: "To my able gunnery officer and friend Commander Abercrombie. Sincerely, Isaac Campbell Kidd". Lieutenant Commander Laurence A. Abercrombie was assigned to Arizona during the latter part of Kidd's tour as her Commanding Officer.

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