A step into the past - Honolulu and Pearl Harbor

May 18, 2012

Today I headed out for a two part adventure. My morning was spent at Pearl Harbor. Nothing special about getting there. I took the bus to try to let my blisters recover some more and then got on the tour bus to take me there. You can go on your own but there is no guarantee you will get in once you get there. The buses here confuse me to no end. I'm learning but as of now I am still bus stupid. That said it was better to just take ONE bus, get on the tour and get a tour of downtown Honolulu thrown in as well. The tour included the Punchbowl National Cemetery of the Pacific, the State Capitol building and Washington Place, King Kamehameha Statue, Kawaiahao Church and Mission houses. Here is a link to the Punchbowl Cemetery. It is important to know what this is and why it is significant. Here are some pictures (they are not mine, I couldn't get clear ones). You can also take a virtual tour at Acres of Honor website.



 There is much to see here:
 1) Court of the Missing: the names of 28,788 missing, lost, or buried at sea are carved on ten marble walls
 2) Court of Honor: statue of Lady Columbia, who represents all grieving mothers, with an inscription at the bottom from a letter President Lincoln wrote to a mother: "The Solemn Pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom"

This quote always makes me think. It has been in several movies and each time it makes me sad. I somehow think that Mother wasn't feeling a solemn pride but a gut wrenching sorrow that would never end. But who am I to guess? It seems to me that we as a people need to think about these people who have sacrificed for us and feel that solemn pride for their sacrifice for us.

We drove by Iolani Palace but it looked really neat. I may try to get out there for a tour inside sometime. It is the only palace on American Soil. The Kawaiahao Church is really a neat building. Again, I only saw it from the outside but it was an amazing thing for its time and really makes you think about the past. It is still being used today!


 Next was Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona Memorial. I included the link to the multimedia for photos and videos. Here are some that I took. I didn't take any within the actual memorial itself out of respect. The ginormous ship in the background is the USS Missouri. The USS Arizona sank during the bombing of Pearl Harbor with 1,170 crewmen. This was the largest single loss to the Navy to that time according to the tour guides. Those men are still within the battleship sunk in the harbor. the memorial straddles the wreckage. Here are a couple of pictures I took:

Here are some pictures of the USS Arizona memorial. As I said above I didn't take any myself out of respect while I was there. It just felt wrong to do.


Please look at this link to the Memorial Wall. There were a very few survivors. Today there are only about 15 left. To each side there is a small marble memorial that each day is draped with flowers and leis. These are the survivors who chose to be interred with their shipmates upon their death. At that time their names are added to these marble memorials. This was really striking to me. I cannot imagine surviving such horror and devastation, then willingly choosing to be entombed in this watery grave.

Quote from the website: There were 1.4 million gallons of fuel on the USS Arizona when she sank. Over 60 years later, approximately nine quarts still surfaces from the ship each day. Some Pearl Harbor survivors have referred to the oil droplets as "Black Tears" or "Tears of the Arizona". Even if you are not superstitious it is extremely creepy watching these oil droplets rise and dissipate. Just knowing that this oil is trapped down there with the dead and slowly escaping is morbid. The water from this area is filtered to remove the oil before it allowed to mix with the other water in the environment. However, the oil cannot be removed from the sunken ship without disturbing the remains, so it is allowed to escape in these droplets before being filtered out of the water away from the monument.

This entire first half of the day just really was sad. Buildings from a bygone era. A HUGE beautiful cemetery. The poignant quote on the statue. Then then tragedy of the devastation at Pearl Harbor. My grandfather was in Bataan instead of Pearl Harbor but these were his peers in the service. They all served in the Pacific and suffered their own horrors. In addition, my Grandmother's first husband was MIA. I don't know where but when i saw the memorials today to the Missing in Action during WWII it made me think of him. The whole thing was sad but beautiful. I was glad we are showing some respect for these men.

After seeing the monument we all returned to the bus and returned to Waikiki. Which began the next part of the day.

To be continued...
~Melissa