Today is the biggest single reason I wanted my first real trip to Hawaii to be to Oahu. I have been a WWII Pacific Theater buff since I was six years old, drawing pictures of dive bombers plunging out of the sky down towards battleships and aircraft carriers. My favorite war movie is probably the newest Midway, which starts with the attack on Pearl Harbor and takes you through the turning-point of the battle at Midway Island. I just watched the movie again last week in anticipation of this visit here today and was appropriately inspired for this visit.
We have dedicated the entire day to come here to see both the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial and the U.S.S. Missouri, docked on Ford Island in Pearl Harbor, facing and standing guard over the Memorial where crew members lay entombed beneath the surface in the plated steel coffin below. The U.S.S. Arizona was moored on Battleship Row when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7, 1941. Shortly after 8 a.m., an armor-piercing bomb struck near the forward turrets and set off the ship’s ammunition magazines. The explosion tore the ship apart, and it sank in about nine minutes. Of roughly 1,512 men aboard, 1,177 were killed, nearly half of all Americans who died in the Pearl Harbor attack overall. It remains the greatest loss of life on a single U.S. warship. Because the wreck was too badly damaged and dangerous to clear, the Navy recovered only some of the bodies. More than 1,100 men are still entombed in the hull, and the ship is treated as a war grave. The white memorial, dedicated in 1962, spans the sunken hull without touching it. The memorial was designed by Alfred Preis, an Austrian-born Honolulu architect. In an irony that’s part of its story, he was held at a Sand Island internment camp as an “enemy alien” for several months after the attack. The design is a white, 184-foot structure spanning the sunken hull without touching it. It sags in the middle and rises at both ends. Preis said the shape stood for initial defeat followed by ultimate victory. Some early critics dismissed it as looking like a “squashed milk carton,” but it has become one of the most recognized memorials in the country. It has three sections, the entry room at the dock where visitors arrive, the assembly room in the center, open to the sky with 21 openings, intended to stand for a 21-gun salute. Through the floor opening you can look down at the hull and the oil sheen, which still weeps “black tears” and will for many years to come, and the shrine room at the far end, with the marble wall of names of everyone killed aboard. The flagpole is attached to the ship’s severed mainmast, and the flag flies over the wreck as a commissioned-ship honor. One of the Arizona’s anchors and the original ship’s bell are displayed at the visitor center ashore. The National Park Service manages the site as part of Pearl Harbor National Memorial, and Navy boats take visitors out to it.
There are many interesting facts about the site. There were 37 pairs or trios of brothers aboard, and 23 sets of brothers died. A father and son, Thomas and William Free, were also killed together. All 21 members of the ship’s band died, most of them near their battle stations by the ammunition hoists. And perhaps the most poignant reality is that survivors of the tragedy could choose to have their ashes placed inside the hull by Navy divers, rejoining their crewmates. More than 40 did so. The last living survivor died in 2024.
But before we went to the Arizona Memorial, we went onto Ford Island to visit the U.S.S. Missouri, who’s story is almost as inspirational in it’s own way. The U.S.S. Missouri, nicknamed “Mighty Mo,” was the last battleship the United States ever completed. Launched in New York in January 1944, it was christened by Margaret Truman, daughter of then-Senator Harry Truman of Missouri. The Iowa-class ship is 887 feet long, carried nine 16-inch guns, and had a crew of about 2,700. During World War II, the Missouri supported the invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. On April 11, 1945, a kamikaze crashed into its side. The dent is still visible and an amazing picture exists and is on display of the moment that plane hit the ship. In one of the greatest moments of wartime respect and compassion, the captain of the Missouri had the Japanese pilot buried at sea with military honors the next day, a gesture that is one of the best measures of humanity in the face of wartime aggression. And then, as Mighty Mo steamed up to the doorsteps of its wartime enemy, it became the site of the surrender of the nation of Japan to the Allied forces. On September 2, 1945, Japan formally surrendered on the Missouri’s deck in Tokyo Bay, with General MacArthur presiding. Truman, then president, had chosen his home state’s ship, which just happened to be offshore at the moment. The ceremony also displayed the flag Commodore Perry flew when he sailed into Tokyo Bay in 1853. A plaque marks where the documents were signed and we spent time there listening to our docent describe the scene. The Missouri served in the Korean War and was mothballed in 1955. It was reactivated in the 1980s, refitted with Tomahawk and Harpoon missiles, and in the 1991 Gulf War fired both missiles and its 16-inch guns at Iraqi positions. It was decommissioned for the last time in 1992. Since 1999, the Missouri has been a museum ship at Ford Island, berthed near the Arizona Memorial with its bow toward it. The placement is intentional: the Arizona marks where America’s war began, and the Missouri marks where it ended.
After our guided deck tour, we were free to go below to see how the men who served onboard lived and worked. We went down a gangway stair aft of the “kamikaze” deck. Once below, we realized that while the below deck tour was unguided, it did follow a set path through the rabbit-warren that is the below-deck of a battleship. After the first few bulkheaded rooms, reading the placards and looking at all the museum exhibits of clothing, personal items and workspaces, reversing directions multiple times, I began to get anxious and asked Kim if we could get back topside. She led the way and we briskly moved back and forth in the bowels of the ship with no sense of how to get back to the upper deck. There were very few people down there. What was anxiousness became near panic for me and I suddenly had a sense of urgency to get up to the open air. I’ve never suffered from claustrophobia, but I needed out. Every turn led to another set of bunks or a radio room or a wardroom. I had no idea how men could possibly know their way around this maze. I suddenly had the feeling that I was being mustered with the clanging of the alarm bells during an attack with the message, “Battlestations! Battlestations!” just like in Midway. When we finally found a ladder we were allowed to climb up to get topside, I scrambled up and went through the last bulkhead door and finally saw a uniformed tour attendant. I stopped him and said…”where are the rest rooms, please!?” That is as close as I will ever come to the pressure of battle.