Pearl Harbor

Hello again. The next tour we did was to Pearl Harbor. We got picked up at our hotel in a very nice 24 seat van with Charlie as our driver. He did give us some historical background of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. It was a sunny Sunday morning on December 7, 1941. People, military and civilians alike,  were just starting their day, some getting ready for church and others were getting ready for a football match between 2 of the ships sitting at Battleship Row.

Charlie told us of one gunner who answered the call "All hands to Combat Stations" wearing his football helmet!

The Pearl Harbor site includes the museum and visitor and information center with the Arizona Memorial monument across the harbor at Battleship Row on Ford Island. The ship, USS Missouri, is also moored there as a static display.

The whole area is still an active military site so no bags, purses or backpacks are allowed so they have to be stored in lockers at the info center prior to entry. Pictures are allowed and even encouraged throughout the site, even on the Arizona Memorial.

The entrance to the site. The security guards declined to have their pictures taken

The Walk of Remembrance; it does give a historical review of what happened on that fateful day

I am not sure what this is but a fellow tourist says it is an unmanned drone that the US Navy was working on back in WW2 

This may be a replica; It is an example of the 5 minisubs that the Japanese used that day. None completed their mission that day 

The USS Bowfin, one of the few WW2 US subs to survive the war

This cut away shows just how cramped the space was in one of these subs. Imagine having GI problems in one of these subs???

These marble blocks each commerate a US sub and it's crew.

This is the mural that greeted us as walked into the museum. We did the audio tour and it was very interesting, especially about the 2 "mistakes" that occurred occurred that day

We are on the US Navy shuttle that takes us out to the Arizona memorial. It is only accessible by boat

The memorial straddles the Arizona and this is the base of one of the ship's main gun turrets

Looking down it is hard to imagine that over 1700 human beings are entombed beneath us. A lot of them were 18-20 yr olds. Just a few years older than our oldest grandson. It was a very subdued group of people there. 

And everyone of those men name's were inscribed on the rear wall of the memorial...and each and everyone one of us was checking to see if their last name was up there...and some were...

Those 2 round things you see are called bollards. They are where the hawkers are wrapped around to secure the ship to the dock

Present day Battleship Row. The USS Missouri moored in the background...we will be visiting her later in the day

Present day Pearl Harbor

One last look at the memorial. We only had about 15 minutes on site as this memorial is a very popular attraction and they have to regulate the tours through on a tight schedule. I overheard one visitor who had a family member die on the USS Arizona say 15 minutes is enough...any longer and she would be such an emotional wreck that they would have to carry her off....

 Our next stop is the Ford Island Aviation museum which may only interest my flying buddies and the tour through the USS Missouri is avter that.

Goodbye for now.