Back from Hawaii

I got back from Hawaii Wednesday night. After all, air shows are a vital part of our National Defense, and you can't drop Navy Seals out of an airplane at an air show without maintenance to support the plane. It was a very nice trip. We had a down day on Monday and I was able to get in another dive trip and visit the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor. (See picture at right) It is a very nicely done memorial. It takes about 75 minutes to see everything. The tour starts out with a video that documents the days leading up to Pearl Harbor and actual video from the attack. For those of you who do not know, the Arizona was sunk when an armor piercing bomb penetrated the deck and struck the ships forward ammo hold. It seemed like you could feel the blast watching the movie.

After the film, there is a boat that goes out to the memorial. The memorial is build over the wreckage of the Arizona. From the memorial, you can see some of the ship, including the mount for one of the gun turrets, above the water. Since the ship was refueled about a week before the attack, there is still fuel oil bubbling up from the tanks.

I have uploaded all of my pictures to Flickr. In the pictures, there is another battleship moored not to far from the Arizona. The is the USS Missouri. This is the ship on which the treaty ending WWII was signed. This battleship was in active service as late as the Gulf War in the 90's. It is now set up for tours. Unfortunately, time did not work out to allow us to tour this.

If you plan on visiting the memorial should you ever get out to Hawaii, make sure you get there early. We tried going one day after work, but ended up getting there about a half hour too late. The last tour starts at 3:00 pm so make sure you get there in plenty of time.