After doing a project and making a small replica of the USS Arizona memorial, I have always wanted to see Pearl Harbor. A couple of weeks before our trip I looked at purchasing tickets for our tour and saw that because we would be there around the anniversary of Pearl Harbor, they would be having a special tour that they only offer once a day for three days. So I was quick to purchase tickets for that tour. The free tours that they do most days just take you out to the memorial and back. The tour we were on took us out and around the harbor and get more of the history. We were taken out to where the harbor meets the ocean and see where several of the ships were docked and then by the Navy repair center, by the USS Missouri and then to the memorial.
This is one of three anchors from the USS Arizona that was recovered.
This picture is kind of hard to see, but it is the USS Bowfin submarine.
This is a sea based radar detector that is normally based in Alaska, but comes to Pearl Harbor for repairs. There is a photo of it from the distance and the then a closer up one...this thing was massive! It had several steel bars around it that we believe were for breaking through ice. Our tour guide said everyone was very hush hush on what the thing actually does.
This is a water tower on Ford Island, where the naval base is located. When the Japanese attacked they thought the tower was a temple so they did not shoot it down, but in reality it was a water tower. We didn't get to see them but from a distance, but there were several buildings around, such as the medical building that had bullet holes in them, and they chose to leave them standing as they are a part of history.
This is a small memorial for the USS Nevada. When they received word Pearl Harbor was under attack, the USS Nevada headed toward open sea, this is close to the entrance into the Harbor, but when they realized they weren't going to make it to the ocean, the captain chose to run the ship a ground knowing they could eventually repair and reuse the ship, which they did! There are only 2 ships that remain at the bottom of the Harbor, the USS Utah and the USS Arizona, most of the others they were able to raise, repair, and reuse.
This is the Navy's repair yard. I can't remember what ship they said, but one of the ones that had "sunk," but was lifted to repair...they estimated it would take 3 months to repair it to where they could put it back into use, but they did it in 3 days.
On the side of one of the buildings at the repair yard it read, "The Navy's No Kai Shipyard," which means the Navy's best shipyard.
This is the USS Missouri. This is the last battleship to be completed. The USS Missouri was ordered in 1940, before the attack on Pearl Harbor, it was not completed until 1944. The surrender agreement for WWII was signed on the deck of the USS Missouri.
The USS Arizona Memorial.
Part of the USS Arizona still above water.
All along battleship row, were these white and black markers which were what the ships tied off to dock.
The oil that still leaks from the USS Arizona, 70+ years later.
The names on the wall are the names of those that lost their lives that day. The name on the little block on the bottom left are those who survived the attack, but have since past away. Many of whom chose to have their urns placed in the USS Arizona. On Friday, Dec. 7th this year, there were going to be having a ceremony at the memorial for a man who died six years ago. The man had no family left when he died and had told a friend to take his urn to the memorial site, well the friend died before that happened, and six years later his urn finally arrived and was to be placed in the Arizona on that Friday. Our tour guide, is a park ranger and I assume is retired from the Navy...but he was going to be a part of the dive team and he was going to be the actual person to hold the urn as they took it down to the Arizona. They said they don't actually go into the ship, but there is a place around one of the gun turrets that during the attack was blown away and they push the urns in through there.
I put an arrow in this picture, they have a buoy on each end of the Arizona to show where the bow and the stern are located.
This is just a diagram that showed the ship and then what parts of the ship are above water.
This is the rough draft of the speech that President Franklin Roosevelt wrote....
This is a picture of a torpedo that was discovered in the Harbor in 1995, it was still armed. After detonation it was recovered.
