(Image source from: Arizona to have its World War II memorial finally)

After two-years of laborious effort, Arizona is all set to get its Wold War II memorial finally.

The memorial, erected near the Arizona State Capitol, will be inaugurated on December 7 will full bells and whistles. The ceremony will be attended by 2,000 motorcyclists from the American Legion and other veterans' groups, a B-17 flyover and the 108th Army Band.

The memorial, which took a year to be erected, will feature historic gun barrels from two U.S. battleships - the USS Arizona and the USS Missouri. Names of Arizona military personnel, who lost their lives during the war, will be displayed on a steel structure between the gun barrels.

“The Arizona was sunk during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor at the beginning of America's involvement in the war. Nine vertical pillars at the memorial represent the nine minutes it took for the ship to sink to the bottom of the harbor,” AZ family.com reports.

“The memorial was championed by Secretary of State Ken Bennett after hearing from John Thomas, a former attorney in the Arizona House of Representatives, about the rusting relics in East Coast surplus yards. Bennett took action after learning the military treasures could be sold for scrap metal,” the website further added.

Scores of World War II veterans and several Pearl Harbor survivors are expected to be there on the inaugural day.

AW: Suchorita Dutta Choudhury