Our excursion today was a bus tour around Honolulu and then a trip to Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona Memorial. We started off at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at the "Punchbowl", where many of the victims of the Pearl Harbor attack, the WWII campaigns in the Pacific, and subsequent wars are interred. The cemetery is quite beautiful and reminds you in many ways of Arlington. Very well-maintained and very respectful. Unfortunately, we couldn't get off the bus and so we didn't come away with any usable pictures.
We continued on around the western side of Honolulu and passed the State Capitol building, not surprising very modern considering the relatively short time Hawaii has been a state:
Iolani Palace was the residence of the last queen of Hawaii, before it was annexed by the US as a territory:
We went from there on over to Pearl Harbor. Pat and I have been here three times in the past and the site remains very inspiring. At Pearl Harbor is the USS Blowfin, a WWII submarine that served in the Pacific Theater:
In addition, the USS Missouri, the last US Battleship and the ship upon which the Japanese surrender documents were signed, is moored at Pearl Harbor and can be toured, although we didn't get the chance to do so:
Of course, the most famous memorial at Pearl Harbor is the USS Arizona Memorial. The Arizona was sunk by a single bomb during the Japanese attack, and 1,177 of its crew of about 1,500 were killed. Approximately 900 of those killed were never recovered and remain on board the ship. This is the actual memorial itself, adjacent to its mooring on December 7th:
The only part of the Arizona that is above water is its #3 (rear) 14"-gun turret:
Inside the Memorial are the names of each of the 1,177 men killed during the attack:
Of the 350 or so survivors of the attack, a number of them who have died over the last 30 years have had their ashes interred on the ship:
Of the total survivors from the original attack, only 10 remain alive, all in their 90's.
And, finally, here is Pat in front of the Memorial:
Tomorrow, we're up way before the crack of dawn and on our way to Sydney, Australia!
