Saturday 6 October 2012

Pearl Harbour


I got up at 5.45 this morning to go to Pearl Harbour.  Apparently the tours go early in the day because it’s gets very busy and very hot later.  Anyway having been picked up at 6.45 we arrived at Pearl Harbour at 8.30 having picked up others and then wended our way through the rush hour.  Even at that time out visit to the USS Arizona was scheduled for 11.30 -12.15 so if we had arrived later heaven knows when we would have got there.
In the mean time there were things to do so at least we weren’t hanging around too much. First of all we went to the USS Missouri where the Japanese signed the declaration to end the WWII.  
It was interesting to see the ship and all the memorabilia associated with the end of the war.  I didn’t realise that the Missouri was in use up until the early 1990s and only brought to Pearl Harbour about 10 years ago. It was some climb up to the Bridge but you do get a good view when you are up there.

View from the bridge looking towards the USS Arizona memorial. 





From there we went back to the museum area to hear about the Road to War and see the Walk of Remembrance.  The talk on the lead up was really well done and for once it was not the Americans who were as thick as two lavatory doors but an Australian couple who must have been at least in their late 60s but the Second World War seemed to have passed them by and they had never been taught it at school either!  Why were they there?   Who knows but they were very good at getting lost too.

One of the Arizona’s anchors which now serves as a memorial
After a short film showing the attack on Pearl Harbour through actual footage and the words of those who had been there we were taken out to the memorial.  You are only allowed 15 minutes here and yes it does feel like a conveyor belt.  Maybe it was because I wasn’t American but I didn’t have the feelings here that I have had at other cemeteries of this type. Actually I have felt more like that visiting the wonderful memorials to different wars on the Mall at Washington than I did today.  It is strange to look down from the memorial and still see the Arizona in the water but that is really all I could say.




Arizona’s  berth

































View of the memorial
I am glad that I went to visit the site because to have come here and not done so would have been very blinkered but it didn’t move me in the way that I imagined it would.
PS There were an incredible amount of Japanese tourists there.  Very strange, but to be fair the whole thing is handled in a very non inflammatory way unlike the present attitudes to Muslims.




4 comments:

  1. Your photographs have improved. Is that because you have taken so many or did you get someone else to take your pictures?

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  2. Neither except when I am in the photo! I can take photos. I just can't always be bothered.

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  3. Jim found it very interesting! By the way, Callum was the first one to sleep on the bed chair the other night. Both Ryan and Callum managed to sleep in it the following night! No complaints! Hope you are still enjoying yourself. Take care.

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  4. I'm glad he found it interesting.
    So Callum was the pioneer then. How on earth did two of them manage that?

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