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US Navy Battleship USS Arizona underway with President Herbert Hoover on board, March 1931. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Auction house pulls USS Arizona items from block

Catherine Saunders-Watson
Catherine Saunders-Watson

US Navy Battleship USS Arizona underway with President Herbert Hoover on board, March 1931. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
US Navy Battleship USS Arizona underway with President Herbert Hoover on board, March 1931. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
HONOLULU (AP) – An Ohio auction house has decided against selling a partial silverplated serving set salvaged from the sunken USS Arizona in the wake of the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor.

A spokeswoman for Cowan’s Auctions Inc. said Tuesday that the company “has no intention of selling the silver” at its Dec. 9 auction. She says the company is waiting for official notification from the Navy’s Judge Advocate General Corps that the 24-piece serving set cannot be sold.

Some U.S. military veterans and others were dismayed that items from the USS Arizona might be sold to the highest bidder.

The company received the serving set on consignment from an heir of Navy diver Carl Webster Keenum. He collected the pieces in 1942 or 1943 during salvage operations. Keenum died in 1964.

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Information from: The Honolulu Advertiser, http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com

Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AP-WS-11-10-09 1948EST

ADDITIONAL IMAGES OF NOTE

The only known photo of the USS Arizona during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Dec. 7, 1941.
The only known photo of the USS Arizona during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Dec. 7, 1941.