Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona Memorial

This Memorial Day I decided to spend the day reflecting on what the holiday is really about: a day to remember those men and women who died serving in our armed forces.  An interesting fact: Memorial Day was originally known as Decoration Day and was to commemorate the Union soldiers who died in the Civil War.

 Fittingly I spent the day at Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona Memorial.  I hadn't been since they built the new Visitor's Center and I was really impressed.  I didn't realize you couldn't bring your bags/purses in and so I was kind of kicking myself for having to pay $3.00 for a bag check, but oh well.

FLAGS AT HALF MAST FOR MEMORIAL DAY

Of COURSE because I am the consummate tourist I didn't mind paying the $7.50 for the audio guide. It's narrated by Jamie Lee Curtis and augmented by pieces from Pearl Harbor survivors. I know that I have a terrible memory, but I did learn a lot of new things that I never really registered in prior visits.

STANDING BY HAWAII

Alfred Preis designed the Arizona Memorial.  One of the features built into the memorial is this Tree of Life.  Preis intended it to be a symbol of renewal to inspire contemplation (I totally got this sentence from the plaque next to it!).  It also is a symbol of the interconnectedness of all life on Earth. To the left of the relief you can also see the Crossroads to the Pacific which has signposts to various places of Pearl Harbor relevance.

TREE OF LIFE

They have two mini-museums (Road to War Museum and Attack Museum).  I'm sure they had these before, but somehow in the renovation it seems much sleeker and a better production than before.  One of the things that I learned was that part of the surprise in the attacks was that Pearl Harbor was supposed to be too shallow for torpedoes.  Additionally the military thought it's armor plated battleships could survive bombs.  The Japanese developed a special torpedo that could be launched into shallow water and armor piercing bombs for the battle ships.

In 1991 they were dredging the harbor and found this original torpedo just off the USS Oklahoma's mooring on Battleship Row:

The warhead was still intact so it needed be exploded.  On one of the panels there's a photograph of the Japanese writing found scratched into the torpedo that identifies it as dropped by Akagi pilot airman Tomoe Yasue.

The museums have these fun mini interactive parts.  The one below is how they searched by air and sea for any interlopers.  It took me forever to "spot" any Japanese subs or planes since you can only search by a little slice of the pie each time.  The quote on the back says: "Do you mean to say they could be rounding Diamond Head and you wouldn't know it?" It's from Admiral Husband E. Kimmel on December 2, 1941 after being told the location of the Japanese aircraft carriers was unknown.

ENEMY AIRCRAFT SPOTTED!

Clearly I've never seen the movie, but I didn't know that "Tora! Tora! Tora!" (Which, by the way, is literally "Tiger! Tiger! Tiger") was the Japanese code that the Japanese fighter planes used to indicate total and complete surprise as they flew in and met no antiaircraft fire.  Additionally I really didn't register in the past that "Pearl Harbor" wasn't just an attack on the harbor and the battleships, but a very well-coordinated attack on all the air bases at the time and was designed to cripple the American fleet, eliminate our planes and demoralize us.  They attacked Hickam Field, Wheeler Field, Bellows Firld, NAS Ford Island, NAS Kanehoe and MCAS Ewa in addition to the more well-known attack on the ships in Pearl Harbor.

TORA! TORA! TORA!

 Of course we didn't help our cause by lining up our battleships in Battleship Row and our planes were parked wingtip to wingtip to "prevent sabotage."

I also didn't know that we knew about the Japanese flying in before the attack.  A huge "what if" moment!  Below is the Opana radar plot.  The Opana Radar Site was the first use of radar in wartime.  It was primarily set up to train, not quite ready for use in the defense of the US.  So on December 7, 1941 when two privates detected a very large spike of activity at 7:02am, they called in Lt. Kermit Tyler.  He thought it was an expected flight of American B-17 bombers and told them not to worry about it.  They plotted the incoming planes until 7:40am and then went to breakfast.  The air portion of the attack began at 7:48am.

OPANA PLOT

The other thing that I didn't realize was that Memorial Day 2012 was literally the 50th anniversary of the USS Arizona Memorial.  As I stood waiting to get into the theater for the movie the screen before you board the boat to the memorial, a park ranger came over and told us what a special day it was.  They gave us these commemorative cards.

After the movie I boarded the ferry.  I noticed that there were two service men and a service woman standing in the front of the boat.  They were let off first so I quickly scurried off the board after them.  I'm really glad I did as they went and paid tribute in the memorial shrine room.

SALUTE

GIVING A LEI

Of the 2,386 American fatalities on December 7th, 1,177 were killed when a bomb exploded the forward magazine of the USS Arizona.

Being present at the memorial during Memorial Day and getting to see the wreaths and the tribute from the servicemen and woman really struck me that this was such a perfect way to celebrate Memorial Day.

ANOTHER SERVICEMAN HONORING THE MEMORIAL

The weather was beautiful (unlike how it normally is on the Big Island...) with blue skies and wispy white clouds.

Looking up I caught this image of the American flag at half mast through the beams:

USS ARIZONA MEMORIAL ENTRANCE

VIEW AS WE PULL AWAY FROM THE MEMORIAL

Alfred Preis designed the memorial to represent the height of American pride before the war, the sudden depression of a nation after the attack and the rise of American power to new heights after the war.

The architecture of the USS Arizona Memorial is explained by Preis as, "Wherein the structure sags in the center but stands strong and vigorous at the ends, expresses initial defeat and ultimate victory ... The overall effect is one of serenity. Overtones of sadness have been omitted to permit the individual to contemplate his own personal responses ... his innermost feelings."^[7]