A piece of WWII history from the watery grave at Pearl Harbor is on its way to the Texas Panhandle War Memorial in Amarillo.

The fragmented piece of the USS Arizona’s deck, which weighs 800 pounds (363 kilograms), will be the newest edition to the museum’s WWII collection, and it will be featured in a new display that is set to be unveiled on December 7, in commemoration of the 1941 Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.

A small rusted steel plate and a portion of the attached wooden deck makeup the hulking relic, which was cut from the ship decades ago during the federal government’s construction of the USS Arizona Memorial.

112 pieces of the sunken battleship have been donated to museums and memorials throughout the US, however the majority of these artifacts are smaller than the piece that is on its way to Texas.

A Texas state judge who played an instrumental role in securing the donation said that the museum will take good care of the relic, and he as well believes that it will attract a lot of revering patrons.

Navy officials in Hawaii say they still have pieces of the Arizona that they are hoping to donate.

The Arizona lost 1,177 men on December 7, 1941, when a Japanese bomb struck the ship’s munitions pile. The ship went-up in a violent explosion and subsequently sank immediately, entombing many of the ship’s crew onboard.

According to sources at UPS, the piece was loaded onto a plane in Honolulu Thursday and is on route to California. From there, it will be transferred by truck to the museum in Texas, a service UPS has donated for the cause. In addition, a police escort and members of a veterans’ motorcycle club will arrive with the piece at the memorial on June 30.

For a piece which sits as a reminder of the price of freedom, and of the courage and of the bravery so many Americans have fought and died to protect, a hero’s welcome seems more than fitting.