After all the festivities yesterday, today we actually did our tour of the USS Arizona Memorial.
The Pearl Harbor site is actually part of the National Park Service and is known as the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument. The main entrance is on the shores of Pearl Harbour and getting to the rest of the memorials and exhibits starts from here.
We had booked one of the timed tours to the memorial itself nearly 9 months ago and we went to the ticket box to collect our tickets for our 10.15am tour when we arrived. The ticket attendant advised they had spots on the 9.30am tour so we took up those instead. Tickets are pretty limited as tours start every 15 minutes and last about 45 minutes or so in total. There are no more than about 150 max in each group. The first part of the tour is a documentary film of about 15 minutes which covers the buildup to the attack on Pearl Harbor as well as the attack itself. A lot of it is historical footage including film taken from the hospital ship in the harbour of the actual direct hit on the Arizona and the monumental explosions which followed.
After the film, we boarded boats which take the group out to the memorial which sits above the sunken remains of the USS Arizona. As one group arrives on the memorial, the previous group takes the same boat back. The first thing that hits you as you approach the memorial is the smell of oil. They have been unable to empty the remaining tanks from the ship so it is constantly surrounded by slicks. It doesn’t seem to have deterred the marine life as you can see fish swimming in and out of the sunken hull.
The sunken hull itself is the tomb of most of the 1,177 crew who lost their lives in the attack – not, as the documentary said, specifically casualties of war as war had not been declared at the time of the attack.
USS Missouri
There is a volunteer on the memorial giving information about the attack and excellent diagrams showing the before, during and current position of the ship and its remains. Again, only about 15 minutes is alloted before the next group arrives and we head back to the shore.
We then headed for a tour of the USS Missouri – now retired from duty but the ship on which General Douglas MacArther oversaw the signing of the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay in 1945. It now officially “stands guard” over the remains of the USS Arizona.
When we headed back to the main entrance, there was one of the 1941 veterans signing autographs for the visitors. I had seen him talking to some visitors as we left to do our Missouri tour. As I just happened to have a printed copy of FDR’s famous speech with me (as you do for just such an occasion !) we lined up to get it autographed and have photos. Delton E Walling is now a very sprightly 94 (and Mrs Walling just as sprightly and quite a character !). In 1940 he had hitch-hiked 190 miles to Detroit to join the Navy. He was not accepted at first as he had a stiff finger from boxing.
He asked the doctor what he had to do to get in the Navy and the doctor said “cut it off”. So he walked the streets of Detroit until he could find a surgeon who would ! If you look closely at the right picture you can see the missing pointing finger on his right hand where his is holding the pen.
He was 180 feet up in a signal tower at the time of the attack and watched the whole thing unfold. He was on the USS Pennsylvania which was in drydock and managed to miss the worst of the damage.
We decided to go back to the hotel after Pearl Harbor and again had a late lunch courtesy of the ABC Stores – including the local delicacy – Spam Sushi !!
Adrienne decided she needed a last hit of the shops so headed off and I have been getting my blog up to date and going through my photos.
And just in case you thought I was joking in my last post – It is now 5.30pm and I just took this photo from our balcony – It’s a bit early for the red glowing things yet until the sun goes down !
For our last night, we have booked dinner at the Ocean House restaurant at the back of the hotel which has a lovely outlook over the ocean to celebrate the last night of another great holiday.
We will be off early for our late morning flight so we look forward to catching up with you all very soon.