Day 11, Jan 19: Pearl Harbor, Diamond Head

Today's our last full day in Honolulu and we are realizing how little time we have here. Though we relaxed and swam on the beach in Maui, we really haven't had a beach day here. That goes on the list for the next time we visit. 

We arrive at Pearl Harbor before 8 AM on a Sunday and hear reveille over the loudspeakers at 0800. It was during that music 73+ years ago on a Sunday morning like this that the attack began.

The informational displays highlight the surprise of the attack, the heroism of those who responded and died, and the path back to ultimate victory. They also point out great defensive errors, including the strategic error of expecting an invading force rather than a knockout aerial attack. And a tactical error in ignoring the then-new radar detection of the incoming planes because an 8AM flight of our own planes was expected. And the luck of having the aircraft carriers at sea that day while battleships and aircraft were neatly lined at rest. 

We took the short and somber visit to the USS Arizona memorial where 1177 died and other survivors have been buried. The Park Service does an excellent job of ensuring dignity and reflection at what's effectively an underwater grave site. 

Gun turret of the Arizona

Memorial Hall over the ship

Grave marker listing all who died in board

Oil from the ship still bubbles to the surface 75 years later.

Model of the memorial site. 

We toured more of the park displays after the Arizona visit. It was a heavy morning with the flags at half staff and inauguration day coming tomorrow. 

Then we split up. Kathy and Pat had planned to visit the Ialani Palace, but find out is closed on Sundays. Instead they went out for a nice Vietnamese lunch and took Pat to the airport for her return to 19° and snowy Boston. 

Dave visited the USS Bowfin submarine exhibit, the USS Missouri, and the base's air and space museum.  I'll just throw in a few photos from each. 

The amazing thing about the Bowfin is how spacious it feels compared to the U-505 U-boat at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry. Bowfin served many years and sank a number of enemy ships. More mundane but amazing is the tight packing of bunks, triple decker and not very wide -- there are even a couple folding bunks in the torpedo room that become available after the first torpedos are fired. At least there are not 30 unshowered guys in the room with you.

Come aboard

Ladder up to the conning tower and periscope

Topside view

"coffin rack" bunk beds

Bunk room including folding bunks. Tight! 

Engine room. The four sixteen-cylinder diesel engines powered generators to charge electric batteries that would drive the propellers (and everything else on board). The engines could only be run while surfaced, typically at night. The boat could sail at all times through diesel or electric power.

Ballast valves to flood and clear the tanks to dive and rise.

Hawaii has green turtles everywhere! 

After the Bowfin visit I grabbed a quick lunch. The only vegetarian option was garlic fries, so have at it. I guess your typical visitor to the military exhibits is not a vegetarian. 

After lunch I visited the USS Missouri, where the Japanese surrender declaration was signed, and the air museum. Both are impressive with a wealth of detail and vast displays. After visiting the USS Midway in San Diego, which has elements of both, including a better tour and more volunteer docents, this was duplicative. 

Big guns on the battleship Missouri.

Part of the ship's bakery. The crew ate ~5000 meals a day. Those are loaves of bread in the back. Imagine slicing and toasting those as well as all the baking.

Vegetable prep room, aka "spuds locker." Pealing potatoes on KP duty would have been boring work. 

More bunk rooms. At times they used "hot bunking" where more than one man shared a bunk. If they were on alternating shifts then only one needed to sleep at a time. Imagine the smell down here. 

1000 paper cranes to grant a special wish for peace.

Next stop the air museum. A hangar with restored WWII planes and many newer fighter, bomber and helicopter aircraft outside.

But first a mural of the old Waikiki including the Pink Palace.

How it will always look to me. 

Mitsubishi "Zero" fighter plane of the type that attacked Pearl Harbor 

B-25 land based bomber like those launched from deck of USS Hornet in the 1942 Doolittle raid on Tokyo.  Doolittle is one of the four aviators portrayed in the book The Aviators. He comes off as a key figure in US aviation. Helped to invent and then made the first instrument landing, figured out how to extend the planes' range ~50% (or so) by adjusting fuel/air mixture, thus making the raid on Tokyo possible, led the raid on Tokyo which was for many a suicide raid.

From front to back the 

F-16A Viper

F-15A Eagle

F-14D Tomcat

F-111C Aardvark 

F-4C Phantom

with the Pearl Harbor airfield tower in the distance. 

The day was not all military clash, however. Kathy picked me up and we headed east past Waikiki Beach to Diamond Head State Park. This is basically a cinder crater from an old eruption of the volcanos that made Oahu. 

We hike up the trail and steps and tunnel to the WWII observation and gunnery bunkers on the hilltop. Great views! 

hiking up

See the layers from the lava flows in this old shield volcano. (Or layers of ash and cinder deposits?)

Inside the crater

Thru the tunnel

Really at the top with a view all around, including back towards Honolulu and Waikiki Beach.

Diamond Head lighthouse. This is where I saw the 150 surfers a couple days ago. 

Brazilian Cardinal birds that we saw here and on Maui. 

Little sparrows that also have a red band on their heads. 

Ok that's it for our last day. Early wake up tomorrow for 8AM flight to Sydney.