5668 Diana and I with Delton E. Walling, a survivor of the Arizona. The guide said that there are only 21 of them still alive and most of them will be here for the 50th anniversary of the Arizona Memorial Opening on Dec 7th of this year. His wife is there to take the pictures.
5704 The USS Arizona Memorial and the USS Missouri. The design cut into the right end of the memorial building is the Tree of Life and the little round, white dot in the water just below the mooring stand is the marker for the stern of the Arizona.
5710 The base of Gun Turret Three with the stern marker just above the right side of the turret base. The concrete dock is not original it was added after the sinking to moor rescue and recovery boats at the site.
5714 This is the Shrine Room wall listing the names of those killed on the Arizona during and as the result of the attack. The little wall in the lower left is the memorial for those who have died since and opted for interment aboard the Arizona. That’s the Tree of Life allowing in some light.
Nov 26 – At Sea. This is the last day aboard for some who are disembarking in Honolulu and out last day at sea before three stops in Hawaii. A very relaxing day for us. I didn’t go to the show because there’s a pearl vendor on board and Diana wants me to learn how to string pearls. The technique was easy to learn and I was quickly in business. Anyone have pearls they want restrung? I’m your man.
Nov 27 - Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii. We are docked directly below the historic Aloha Tower in Honolulu. I remember being here in 1991 when we had to jump off the ship early and find a place to buy a new electric shaver. Mine had given up on the way over. We found a drug store that had some good shavers and I bought the Remington shaver I used until about 2 years ago hygiene.
Today we are taking a tour called the Pearl Harbor VIP Military Base Experience. It’s a small tour on a van that gets you onto some of the existing military bases that played a role in the attack on December 7, 1941. We were here and visited the Arizona Memorial on its 50 year anniversary in 1991. This time they’re celebrating the 50 year anniversary of the opening of the Arizona Memorial.
Our pre-dawn sail in was very picturesque but not really photogenic. Too dark to get more than Diamond Head’s silhouette. Inside the terminal they had the same mural I photographed Diana with 21 years ago, a line of hula dancers sending a ship off at the port. They’re all ’20-‘30s themed pictures either about cruising or island welcomes. This year we took pictures with two different murals, Diana with the band on the pier and me waiting in line with other arriving passengers to get leied.
Our guide is dressed in a military style uniform and also drives the van. Our first stop is at the aforementioned Arizona Memorial. Since they are having ceremonies to commemorate the first half century of the memorial, almost all the Pearl Harbor Survivors are in town for the celebration. We met two, Delton Walling, USN (he gave us an autographed one page biography of his experience) and another man from the USA (that’s US Army) whose name I’ll have to look up. The memorial has been completely revamped in the last 21 years. It includes three memorials, the Arizona, the Utah and the Oklahoma. There are two museums, one covers the raid itself named ‘Attack’, the other gives you the events leading up to the war named ‘Road to War’. Neither of these was here last time. The ship’s bell from the Arizona is on display in a different location than last time. Underneath it there’s a small replica so that the blind can touch it and experience what everyone else can see.
On the waterfront there’s a Pearl Harbor overlook as well as a memorial to submariners. A little further down the USS Bowfin is docked as a museum ship adjacent to the Bowfin Submarine Museum and Park. Also new since we’ve been here there’s the Battleship Missouri Memorial. Just up from the Arizona Memorial the Mighty Mo has been docked as a floating museum out on Ford Island. The island is also home to the Pacific Aviation Museum, the USS Utah Memorial and USS Oklahoma Memorial and Chief Petty Officer’s Bungalows. It would be very easy to spend a whole day here if you wanted to do justice to all the exhibits and memorials.
We’re just stopping to visit the Arizona Memorial. The tickets to the memorial are sold on a first-come-first-served basis so we have a little over an hour to wait for our 10:15AM boat. I visited both of the museums but spent more time in ‘Attack’. They had some maps, dioramas and artifacts from the attack that were very interesting. One was the wreckage of the purpose built Japanese shallow water torpedoes that were so effective in decimating battleship row. We were very fortunate that our aircraft carriers were out at sea on maneuvers during the attack. The day of the battleship was ending and they were made obsolete by air power. We had almost none and Japan had all of theirs and yet we annihilated their battleships in fairly short order with aircraft from our surviving carriers.
At the far end of O’ahu Court is a sign that hung from a storefront in the 30s-40, The Crossroads of the Pacific. Near that is a copy of the design cut into the far end side walls of the Arizona Memorial Structure called ‘The Tree of Life”.
There’s a tourist from Chicago running around the grounds with a hilarious T-shirt. In in the colors of the Chicago Bears and it says, “Da Bears Still Stink”. It hilarious because a few years ago when the Bears started to tease their fans by actually winning a few games they started calling the “Da Bears” too mimic the Chicago accent. This was supposed to be a new start going back to the previously very successful franchise. The shirt is saying at ‘Da Bears’ are not any different from the Bears. Dallas had the same thing. ‘Dem ‘Boys’ was the phrase as in “How ‘bout ‘dem Boys?” Unfortunately the same thing happened to Dem Boys that happened to Da Bears. I mean with all the money they spent on first round picks and free agents and all they have to show for it is one playoff game won in 16 years. Yikes!! Until Jerry, the owner, gets a clue and fires Jerry, the General Manager, it’s going to be more of the same.
We boarded the launch to the memorial at 10:35, right on time. At 10:15 we were ushered into a theater to see a movie about the attack, the sinking of the Arizona and the building of the memorial. Complete with reminders for the clueless that this is a solemn place. Hundreds of the men killed are still on the Arizona and all the survivors have the option to be interred with their shipmates. The message is ‘act accordingly’. A message totally lost on the truly clueless and thoughtless.
The ride on the Navy shuttle boat is very pleasant and you quickly arrive at the memorial. They announce that you are not to take pictures while disembarking from the boat or entering the memorial. After you are aboard the memorial you can take all the pictures you want. People weren’t exiting the launch for more than 20 seconds before he had to repeat over the loudspeaker “No Photos, your camera will be confiscated if you take any more photos!” I’m telling you I despair for the human race, at least the way we are growing them in the USA. I’m here to tell you Europe is worse by a big distance.
The memorial is just as impressive the second time you see it. You enter the memorial from the shuttle boat dock and go up two sets of stairs to get to the center section with the large viewing cutouts. At the other end of the space there’s a partial wall, shaped like draped curtains, with an opening at the center. Just in front of this wall is a large viewing well cut into the floor. It forces you to go around it on one side or the other to enter the room at the other end beyond the curtain portal, the Shrine Room. Inside the shrine room, on the far wall is a list of all the crewmen of the Arizona who died in the attack on December 7 and are either interred in the ship or buried elsewhere, both Navy and Marines. The ship’s captain and the battleship group commander, a rear admiral, are both there. Lots of Ensigns, a few Lieutenants, Junior Grade, one Lieutenant, 2 Captains (the rank, but one was the ships’ commanding officer) and the one Rear Admiral. Hundreds of enlisted men of all types, engineers, firemen (the coal shoveling type), gunners, mess workers, musicians (the ship had a 60 piece orchestra) and sailors. Not to mention a large contingent of Marines, almost 100. Cut into the side walls are the Tree of Life sculptures, one on each side. They allow a subdued light into the room.
On a short, 18-inch high by 4-foot long wall about six feet in front of the shrine wall they have a roll of those who survived the attack but have since died and opted to be buried with their shipmates aboard the Arizona. Part of the wall was obscured by a large wreath but the dates of interment from 1982 to 2004 were visible. Someone said that there are only 21 still alive so we met 10% of them today.
The easiest part of the Arizona to see is the base of gun turret three. It’s about 30 feet from the memorial building to the north east and as it was a fairly low tide, about 4 feet of it was above the water. To the left of the base and a little closer to the memorial is the hatch that is leaking oil to this day. The multicolor oil scum is very visible on the water’s surface. About 150 feet past the base is a buoy that marks the stern of the ship. A little less than 400 feet to the south west is the buoy that marks the bow of the ship. Since the memorial building is about 45 feet wide that accounts for just about the entire 608 feet of the Arizona’s length.
Between the memorial and the bow buoy the tide was low enough that you could see part of the top of gun turret 2. I’d never seen that before. Off in that same direction is where the USS Missouri is docked. It’s significantly larger than the old Arizona as it’s almost 50% longer and 30% wider. (These are estimates. I would have confirmed my observations on the internet if it weren’t so expensive on the ship. Can anyone tell me how far I’m off? All too soon our time aboard the memorial was over and it was time to board the shuttle for the trip back to the center.
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