Travel Day 850 – Waikiki to Pearl Harbor, Oahu, HAWAII
Finally, today it was possible to visit the one sight that I thought of first when planning to visit Hawaii, the great battleships of Pearl Harbor…
Battleship memorial of USS Missouri in Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii
On December 7 in 1941 the Empire of Japan attacked all six US airfields on Oahu and the naval base of Pearl Harbor with 353 fighters, bombers and torpedo planes. Almost the entire US naval fleet was docked in the battleship row of the harbor and within 2 long hours of the early morning surprise attack, 21 American ships where badly damaged or sunk. Amongst those 21 destroyed ships were the 8 great battleships and 4 of them sank within minutes. The USS Arizona was one of them…
When I arrived at the historic site of Pearl Harbor, I was faced with a couple of different options. At first there was the free USS Arizona Memorial, which required a boat ride and an appointment, then there was the USS Bowfin Submarine Museum, the USS Missouri Museum and the Pacific Aviation Museum. The latter two museums required a bus ride over to Ford Island. Considering that I had a two-hour window before my earliest appointment at the USS Arizona Memorial, I opted for seeing only the USS Missouri in-between…
Turret Tower Base of sunken USS Arizona in Pearl Harbor on Oahu, Hawaii
The visit of the Mighty Mo, as the battleship Missouri was called, was an excellent choice. Even if 22 dollars for visiting a ship seemed a bit too much, it was still worth seeing this great battleship which was the last one to be launched during World War 2 from the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Besides the Pacific War, the USS Missouri participated in the Korea War and the first Gulf War before it was finally decommissioned and became a museum in 1998. Apparently it had a comeback in a movie called Battleship where it fought against aliens, but in reality its technology has become completely obsolete a long time ago. In today’s world much smaller ships carrying precise missiles have proven to be more effective than enormous battleships like the Mighty Mo which had cost one million dollars per day to operate. But what had become an ancient fossil for the army, still made a great museum for the public…
On the other hand there was the memorial of the sunken USS Arizona, only a few meters away. It once was one of the 8 great battleships, but it got hit by a Japanese armor-piercing bomb, detonating the forward magazine and killing almost 1200 people. While most ships where either lifted and repaired or cleared away, the USS Arizona was left in place and became a real life memorial. Unfortunately everything above water level was dismantled and so all that could be seen at the memorial site were silhouettes of the submerged battleship and the base of one of the turret towers…
USS Arizona Memoral in Pearl Harbor of Honolulu on Oahu, Hawaii
While visiting these US battleships was great, the remarkable thing about the two ships lying side by side was that the sunken USS Arizona marked the beginning of WW2 for the USA and the USS Missouri marked the end of it. It was actually on board of the Mighty Mo that the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, General Douglas MacArthur, accepted the instrument of formal surrender of the Empire of Japan on September 2nd 1945 in Tokyo Bay…
Overall there was a lot to be seen and learned in Pearl Harbor, so for me personally today was a great day of real life US and world history in which it was finally possible to have a close loot at the famous battleships…
Find all Oahu, Pearl Harbor photos here
Hi Dennis,
Great that you got to see a bit of history up close! I think too few Americans are even interested in seeing Pearl Harbor. A sad reflection on the state of our country I think. I worked on Hickam Air Force Base, and it too was hit by bullets from the Japanese zeros. In fact, I worked at the Pacific Air Forces Headquarters building. There were still huge chunks of concrete missing all over the building where the Japanese shot them up. The Air Force left the buildings that way as a reminder! Kind of scary to work there daily shortly after that happened I’d guess. Anyway, great article, i enjoyed it. Aloha! – VL
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Thanks a lot Vern, I am glad to hear that you enjoyed reading about my Pearl Harbor experience! I am actually quite surprised to hear from you that not many people from the US go to see the battleships. It was actually quite busy when I was there and I assumed it was almost like a pilgrimage site to come close to history, learn about it and make peace with what happened. For me as European, Pearl Harbor and the sunken battleships were the first thing that came to my mind when I planned the trip to Hawaii. Well, maybe a close second after the beaches, but I personally really like to understand and learn from history…
Aloha back!
Hi Dennis,
I’ve lived in Thailand for ten years now and I’ve met so many people from the UK, DE, and other parts of Europe that are so much more interested in history than Americans typically are. And the knowledge level is vastly different! I don’t know what it is about Americans learning about history, but we’re just not all that concerned about it. Weird – right? Did you get to see any of the other islands while you were there? Aloha!
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