Hawaii - Jeff Campbell [89]
USS Arizona Memorial
One of the USA’s most significant WWII sites, this somber memorial (422-0561; www.nps.gov/usar; 1 Arizona Memorial Dr, ′Aiea; admission free; visitor center & museum 7:30am-5pm, last boat tour 3pm) narrates the history of the Pearl Harbor attack and commemorates its fallen service members. Run by the National Park Service (NPS), the memorial comprises a visitor center and offshore shrine. On land inside the visitor center, a museum presents rare WWII memorabilia and a model of the battleship and shrine, as well as historical photos.
The offshore shrine was built over the midsection of the sunken USS Arizona, with deliberate geometry to represent initial defeat, ultimate victory and eternal serenity. In the farthest of three chambers inside the shrine, the names of crewmen killed in the attack are engraved onto a marble wall. In the central room are cutaway well sections that allow visitors to see the skeletal remains of the ship, which even now oozes about a quart of oil each day into the ocean. In its rush to recover from the attack and prepare for war, the US Navy exercised its option to leave the servicemen inside the sunken ship. They remain entombed in its hull, buried at sea. Visitors are asked to maintain respectful silence at all times, although some tour groups and their guides don’t always comply.
Boat trips to the shrine depart from the visitor center every 15 minutes from 7:45am until 3pm on a first-come, first-served basis (weather permitting). At the visitor center, you’ll be given a ticket stating exactly when your 75-minute tour program, which includes a documentary film on the attack, will begin. In the afternoon, waits of a couple hours are not uncommon. In peak summer months, 4500 people take the tour daily, and the day’s allotment of tickets is often gone by noon.
USS Bowfin Submarine Museum & Park
If you have to wait an hour or two for your USS Arizona Memorial tour to begin, the adjacent USS Bowfin Submarine Museum & Park (423-1341; www.bowfin.org; 11 Arizona Memorial Dr, ′Aiea; park admission free, museum & self-guided submarine audio tour adult/child 4-12/senior $10/3/7; 8am-5pm) contains the moored WWII-era submarine USS Bowfin and a niche museum that traces the development of submarines from their origins to the nuclear age, including footage from real-life wartime submarine patrols. Last entry 4:30pm.
The highlight of the park is clambering aboard the historic submarine. Lunched on December 7, 1942, one year after the Pearl Harbor attack, the USS Bowfin completed nine war patrols and sank 44 enemy ships in the Pacific by the end of WWII. A self-guided audio tour explores the life of the crew – remember to watch your head below deck! Children under the age of four are not allowed on the submarine.
As you stroll around the surrounding waterfront park, you can peer through periscopes and inspect a Japanese kaiten (suicide torpedo), the marine equivalent of a kamikaze pilot and his plane, developed as a last-ditch effort by the Japanese military near the end of WWII.
If you plan on visiting the Battleship Missouri Memorial and/or Pacific Aviation Museum, purchase tickets here first at Bowfin Park; discount combos are available.
Battleship Missouri Memorial
The last battleship built at the end of WWII, the USS Missouri (455-1600, 877-644-4896; www.ussmissouri.com; 63 Cowpens St, Ford Island; adult/child 4-12 $16/8, with guided tour from $23/15; 9am-5pm, last entry 4pm) provides a unique historical ‘bookend’ to the US campaign in the Pacific during WWII. Nicknamed the ‘Mighty Mo,’ this decommissioned battleship (incidentally, it’s bigger than the RMS Titanic) saw action during the decisive WWII battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa.
The USS Missouri is now docked on Ford Island, just a few hundred yards from the sunken remains of the USS Arizona. You can poke about the officers’ quarters, browse exhibits on the ship’s history and walk the deck where General Douglas MacArthur accepted the Japanese surrender on September 2, 1945. Worthwhile guided tours are led by