The trolley ticket seller told us that we should get the first purple shuttle (@ 7.04am) to the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument (USS Arizona Memorial) National Park. It would arrive at 8.15am and we would need to get in line and try to obtain one of the free tickets passed out on a daily basis.... Simple enough, we thought....
A mistake we made was that we didn't do our own research. So lesson learned here:
You can made a reservation on line for tickets in to the memorial. We should have done this.
You can't take a bag into the park - we both had bags. This made us very uncomfortable because we had passports, cash, credit cards, my medication in our bags. There is a secure bag minding service complete with video surveillance for a price of $3 per bag. So we did that.
We then had to line up for tickets. At 8.30 in the morning, they were handing out free tickets to the 1.30pm tour. We were grateful to receive them! But - it was 8.30 and we had 5 hours to fill in! Luckily, the bus driver had told us that at the football stadium a short distance up the road, was the flea market - operates Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays. So we walked up and managed to walk around slowly, enjoy the weather and have a look at some stalls. It was a fairly hot day but we managed.
At about midday, we walked back to the National Park and spent some time looking at the little museum and reading about the history of the Japanese entry into World War II and the lead up to the attack on Pearl Harbor.
1.30pm - our tour began with a 23 minute orientation movie in an air-conditioned theatre - taking us back in time and telling the story. We then exited the theatre and went out to the shuttle boat, operated by the Navy. They took us over to the memorial. It sits right on top of the hull of the damaged USS Arizona.
Hospital ship (present day) in the harbor...
Approaching the memorial....
The entrance....
Names of all servicemen killed on 7 December, 1941....
Oil still escaping from the ship after 75 years....
USS Battleship Missouri - recently de-commissioned (Cher performed her music video on this one!)
Submarine USS Bowfin
The USS Arizona Memorial, located at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii, marks the resting place of 1,102 of the 1,177 sailors and Marines killed on USS Arizona (BB-39) during the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 and commemorates the events of that day. The attack on Pearl Harbor and the island of Oʻahu was the action that led to the United States' direct involvement in World War II.
The memorial, built in 1962, is visited by more than two million people annually. Accessible only by boat, it straddles the sunken hull of the battleship without touching it. Historical information about the attack, shuttle boats to and from the memorial, and general visitor services are available at the associated USS Arizona Memorial Visitor Center, which opened in 1980 and is operated by the National Park Service. The sunken remains of the battleship were declared a National Historic Landmark on 5 May 1989.
The USS Arizona Memorial is one of several sites in Hawaii and elsewhere that are part of the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument.
Too bright in there for me without my sunglasses on!
Our visit was a time for remembrance and reflection. The tour guides were insistent that people switch off phones, pokemon apps and any other distractions, so as to remember where we were and why we were there. We enjoyed our visit.
We were able to return on the purple shuttle and were back in Waikiki by about 4pm - in time for lunch/dinner!
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