Skip to main content

My Hawaiian Vacay Pearl Harbor

The bus ride from our hotel to Pearl Harbor is about an hour and a half, so I got an early start. Traffic through downtown is not bad at 630a.

I've been looking forward to touring Pearl Harbor since I found out I would be able to accompany Paul on this trip. The area around the military base -Pearl City - is tacky. Homeless have established a squatters camp along a dreary looking canal. A raggedy assemblage of tents, tarpaulins, and shopping carts.

Lots of tourists were already moving towards the security checkpoint when the bus dropped me off at 745. Precisely at 755a each day, the Star Spangled Banner is played, all activity stops as we stand quietly, hands over hearts, hats in hand. 755am is the time the attack began on Pearl Harbor, December 7th, 1941. I stood at the ticket counter trying to decipher the different prices and tours, choose to see the Arizona (free), the Missouri and the newer Pacific Aviation Museum...ticket in hand I board the shuttle bus that takes us to Ford Island. The Island used to be an active air strip, now home to the museum, military housing ( very nice military housing) and a huge leviathan of a radar platform.

The Missouri - Mighty Mo- is the fourth battleship I've toured over the years. On the deck of the Missouri is where Japan surrenders to the U.S.

After a quick tour of the Missouri, I hopped back on the bus to visit the Pacific Aviation Museum, a fairly recent edition to the Pearl Harbor Memorial. Most impressive was the exhibit on women aviators - purchased a book about Cornielia Fort -and the incredible photo exhibit on Chinese American friendship throughout the war years.



I had an 11:15 ticket for the USS Arizona tour, so I headed back to the main terminal. There is a 20 minute movie prior to the boat ride out to the memorial. It is well done and I appreciate the fact it gives viewers background on why we went to war w Japan. Too many people just don't understand the history of pre-WW2. There is a wonderful museum exhibit as well. Visitors are well,coached on the somber nature of the tour and then we are loaded onto the boat for the short trip to the memorial

The USS Arizona and the 900+ men who perished is entombed in the water in Pearl Harbor. The memorial is built over the hull of the ship. Two things I learned:  most of the dead were incinerated since the Japanese bombed a boat fully loaded with ammo, therefore no bodies were found...only several body parts (these were buried in a common grave at Punchbowl Cemetary - the Arlington of the Pacific - in a common grave), the men who survived the attack are also interred on the ship if they so choose.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Waning Light

  There are times I dread the waning light of day, That golden hour which precedes the night. The night brings sad memories. The night brings old terrors. The night brings lonely hours, Sleepless hours, Blackness filled with sorrow. The darkness carries the quiet, the quiet commands the truth. The night accentuates my aloneness; it echoes my fears. The darkness makes me yearn for my children and for my loved ones long gone. The night plays a melancholy tune in my head. The night makes me yearn for the light of day when everything is new once again.                                                                                                     ~ Author: Debi Tolbert Duggar   As a...
Post a Comment
Read more

#Scattered_TheBox

     Bree sat silent in the passenger seat of Della’s Range Rover as they drove away from the city towards Bree’s farmhouse. Della respected her friends silence, glancing furtively towards Bree, checking for what? Della didn’t know; was there a protocol for ‘how to act when your friend is told she has a few months to live?’ Della wasn’t sure and at this moment her heart hurt as if it were being squeezed by a giant hand intent on crushing the organ in her chest.       Della met Bree Maxwell at the registrar’s office in 1974 at the University of Chicago. Just two long-haired hippie chicks in bell bottom denims and crop tops among thousands, struggling to look cool while simultaneously overwhelmed by the process of registering for classes. The two became fast friends and shortly thereafter they met Tish and Ann, also freshman. The foursome became inseparable and forged a bond that has endured four decades.         Bree is the...
Post a Comment
Read more

Summer Road Trip_The Warehousians

June 16, 2012 In the summer of 1969, when everyone old enough and hip enough was flocking to Yasgar's Farm in upstate New York for a music festival called Woodstock, I and most of my friends were looking forward to starting high school. The tidal wave of rock n roll, free love, tye-dye, psychedelics, and peace was just beginning to roll across the country from the west coast; it would find willing participants in the sleepy little mid-western town I grew up in. It was music that brought us together in the early '70's at a seemingly abandoned building in downtown Marion Indiana (righteously name The 7th Street Warehouse), and it was music that brought us together Saturday night in a building once occupied by Freel and Mason drugstore in downtown Marion some 40 years later for a first attempt at a 'reunion' of sorts. Our 'Prophet,' Duke, started a Facebook Page about a year ago, called the '7th Street Warehouse People,' which mushroomed (no pun intend...
Post a Comment
Read more