After touring the USS Bowfin sub, we walked over to the USS Arizona Memorial Visitor Center. There, they had a bookstore and a small museum, as well as a short film to watch, which recounted the events of the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Most all of us have family members who were directly involved in World War II, so seeing all of these places firsthand really helped to put it all in perspective for how life changed for our family members back then.
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After viewing the film, we exited the theater and boarded a ferry which took us out to the memorial site. The battleship is still resting where it sunk on the day of the attack, and the memorial is situated over the sunken battleship. Even after almost 68 years, there is still oil seeping out of the ship, so the air smells very heavily of oil, and it can easily be seen floating on the surface of the water. The memorial was done so well, and it is a moving and fitting memorial to those men who gave their lives that day to the cause of our country's freedom. I'm so glad that we got to go and see it.
A beautiful mural of the USS Arizona, which was in the Visitor Center.
A wall of "Pearl Harbor Survivor" license plates from many states.
Of course, here's the one we were interested in.
The ferry that took us over to the memorial site.
The memorial, as we approached it.
As we entered the memorial, we passed through a flag room, with flags on either side on the walls.
These plaques were in the memorial
At the other end of the memorial, they had a wall with the names of all those who died on the Arizona.
The following pictures are of the views we had of the actual battleship. You can definitely see the seeping oil on the surface in some of these pictures. You'll see how it is iridescent. You can also see in a couple of pictures the USS Missouri battleship docked in the distance. It is docked where the USS Oklahoma was on the day of the attack. The Oklahoma was struck by a torpedo and capsized.
The day that they commemorated the memorial in 1950, they raised an American Flag on this new pole to honor those who died and remained entombed within the battleship below. I thought this picture turned out so pretty.
Back at the Visitor Center, we walked through the museum area and looked at several items of significance to the Arizona.
This is what the ship looked like when it was first commissioned.
This is how the ship looked in 1941. It had undergone a facelift and modernization.
A letter of condolences from the Navy to the family members of one of the fallen sailors.
A Purple Heart medal along with a certificate.
A Christmas greeting from one of the crew of the Arizona, which was delivered to its recipient after the attack had already taken place.
A clock that was recovered from the ship, which stopped at the precise moment the ship was bombed.
A diving helmet that was used in the recovery efforts of Pearl Harbor. This was prior to the advances of modern scuba diving equipment, so diving was a very limited and dangerous endeavor.
A torpedo found near the capsized USS Oklahoma, which was launched from one of the Japanese mini-subs.
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