Pearl Harbor 1

After what was a pleasant afternoon nap I kept close by to the hotel  for dinner because I know I have to be up tomorrow at 5.30am for the shuttle to Pearl Harbor. I dined at a upscale pizza place owned by three Brazilians. There was so much cured meat and so much Brazilian cheese that I can now honestly say there is a pizza with too much meat and too much cheese.  It was divine. Decent wine is a bit hard to come by here so I was pleasantly surprised to find a nice Italian Pinot Grigio following it with a Californian Cab Sav.

It was an early night for me with my body clock needed some time n the repair shop because before you knew it my alarm was calling and I was time to go to Pearl Harbor.

After a drive by tour of Honolulu including the statue made famous from the credits from Hawaii Five O it was on to the Harbor. 

The first thing that shocked me about the Arizona Memorial was not the sense of awe, respect, humility and reverence that I've felt elsewhere at other memorials but how poorly maintained it was. Uncut grass, edges needing doing, missing tiles, shoddy cleaning and patchy paint work. I know this is a large site and it suffers from the salt air but it really needed some love and attention. Now I don't know if this is a result of budget cuts, labour shortages or just poor management but it made for a disappointing impression. 

Setting that aside we made for the pre briefing theatre before embarking on a tender to the Arizona Memorial itself. I spent my time there trying to ignore the filthy air returns and duct outlets and before long we were on our way. You are given ten minutes on the memorial itself. While there is not a lot to see it was hardly enough time to take in that 1,177 lives had been lost here on 7th December 1941. The most profound sight was the "oily tears". This is the release of oil from inside the Arizona itself. You can see the slick leading out to the ocean. They say the tears are the ship and it deceased crew crying from the loss on that fateful day. 

Before long we were back on the mainland and off to Ford Island where the famous battleship USS Missouri is moored. The Missouri has had quite a time of it. It saw action in the last year of WWII and is famously where the General Douglas Macarthur accepted the Japanese surrender. It served in the Korean War and was brought out mothballs for the Gulf War. While not covered in any of the tours I saw, or on any of the interpretive signage around the ship itself, it is of course the ship made infamous in Cher's music video for her 1989 hit If I Could Turn Back Time. I don't think the 16 inch guns she was sliding around upon have ever recovered.

I spent a good couple of hours pouring over this ship from the bridge to the main deck and then the below decks. I could have easily spent an entire day here. This is now in the hands of a private organisation that maintains it, considering its size and its age they sure do have their work cut out for them. 

Anyway that's enough from Pearl Harbor today. Tomorrow I return to check out the aviation side of the equation.