Pearl Harbor, Honolulu

...in infamy". The attack on Pearl Harbor became a pivotal point in history, and the site as a result still attracts huge numbers of visitors to it (estimated to be around 1.5 million people annually). When visitors say they are going to Pearl Harbor, however, what they are actually referring to is the USS Arizona Memorial, which consistently ranks amongst the top three most visited attractions in the state of Hawaii every year. For a state that ...
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The attack on Pearl Harbor, while swift in execution, had been slowly brewing for years. The US once had good relations with Japan, but after the occupation of Manchuria in 1931, relations gradually deteriorated between the two countries, and got worse still when Japan became a formal ally to the Axis powers in September 1940. Early in 1941, Japanese military leaders recognised the strength of the US navy in the Pacific as the chief obstacle ... more

Honolulu has long been a key port for the US navy in the Pacific, with a major naval base having been in operation to the west of the city for a full century. In all that time, the base has become best known for the events that happened there on December 7th 1941, events that President Franklin D Roosevelt was later to famously refer to as "a day that will live in infamy". The attack on Pearl Harbor became a pivotal point in history, and the site as a result still attracts huge numbers of visitors to it (estimated to be around 1.5 million people annually). When visitors say they are going to Pearl Harbor, however, what they are actually referring to is the USS Arizona Memorial, which consistently ranks amongst the top three most visited attractions in the state of Hawaii every year. For a state that offers so much to so many, that speaks volumes about not just the importance of the site in the American consciousness, but also to how much it offers to visitors in terms of history and self-reflection.

Historical Significance

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The attack on Pearl Harbor, while swift in execution, had been slowly brewing for years. The US once had good relations with Japan, but after the occupation of Manchuria in 1931, relations gradually deteriorated between the two countries, and got worse still when Japan became a formal ally to the Axis powers in September 1940. Early in 1941, Japanese military leaders recognised the strength of the US navy in the Pacific as the chief obstacle to their plans in the Far East. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander of the Japanese Combined Fleet, began planning for a surprise attack against the American navy that would take place just before Japanese forces began to move against their other objectives; the plan was that if the attack was sufficiently devastating, the US would not be in a position to retaliate against further operations by Japan until it was too late to stop them. It was therefore intended as preventative action designed to stop the Pacific fleet from influencing the war in South East Asia that Japan intended to wage against British Malaya and the Dutch East Indies (now Malaysia and Indonesia). The Pacific Fleet had been moved to Pearl Harbor as a strategic location between the mainland US and Asia as a result of growing hostilities with Japan, with 96 vessels, the bulk of the Pacific Fleet, being anchored there along with 390 army and navy aircraft that were based on O'ahu's airfields. Although a surprise military attack by Japanese forces was a theoretical possibility, the US commanders in Hawaii considered the most likely threat to their resources was sabotage, and therefore took steps to reduce this risk by grouping together ships and aircraft, and keeping them out in the open where any spies and saboteurs would be more easily seen by the guards. Unfortunately, this also meant they were more easily seen and attacked during the raid, and hindered the defenders' attempts to get planes airborne.

On 26th November 1941, the Kido Butai (striking force) of six aircraft carriers with 405 aircraft on board left Japan for a position about 200 miles north-west of Hawaii. The aircraft were launched in two waves early in the morning; the first wave was initially detected by a radar outpost at the northern tip of O'ahu, but its staff were told to dismiss the signal by the island's main intercept base, which was only manned by one untrained officer on his second day in the job, and who was also expecting a group of American B25 bombers to return to base that day. Initially surprised by the attack, the Americans fought back with anti-aircraft fire and what planes they could get in the air, but ultimately the Japanese force was successful in crippling the US navy in the pacific, sinking or severely damaging 21 ships (including 8 battleships), destroying 161 army and navy planes and damaging 102 others, and killing 2,117 military personal (at least 57 civilians were also killed).

Most devastating among these was the loss of the USS Arizona; the images of it on fire are probably the iconic photographs of that day. The Arizona suffered a direct hit, and nearly half of the American fatalities that day were due to the explosion the bomb ignited in the ship's forward magazine, an explosion so intense that it separated the bow from the ship and lifted the vessel out of the water. 1,177 crew lost their lives aboard the ship as it burned (the fires lasted for two and a half days) and later sank, representing the largest single loss of life in American naval history. Due to the intensity of the fire, most of the remains of the crewman remain unidentified aboard the ship, although some were removed during salvage operations and later buried as unknowns in nearby Punchbowl cemetery, the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. The Pearl Harbor attack acted as a catalyst that compelled the US to enter World War 2 and united the country behind the cause; due to the Arizona accounting for so many of the casualties, it became the central symbol of the commemoration of that day.

The Visitor Centre

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Covering 10.5 acres in and around Pearl Harbor, the USS Arizona Memorial is currently run by the National Parks Service. The centre is the first point of call for visitors to the memorial, and houses exhibits, a bookstore, a small snack bar, toilets and two cinema screens. On arriving, visitors head to the front desk and collect a free ticket for their tour of the memorial; the tickets are numbered for one of the thirty timed programmes that are conducted around the memorial each day, and you can otherwise spend as much time around the visitor centre before and after your tour as you please. Due to the capacity of the memorial, however, each tour is limited to just 150 people. As an average of 4,000 people a day visit the site, you can imagine how quickly the tickets get snapped up, and waiting times can get quite long, especially in the summer season when it could be as long as three hours between collecting your ticket and your tour starting, and apparently tickets often sell out completely. For this reason, visitors are advised to get to the monument early in the day to ensure a ticket and more modest wait (we visited out of peak season, and arriving at 7.30am still required a 45 minute wait until our tour began). As an aside, though, I want to mention more about the tickets that are issued. While the National Parks Service could provide just plain numbered tickets - and it would doubtless be cheaper to do so - the tickets are designed to be part of the interpretation of the site as much as everything else is. Each has the photograph of someone who was at Pearl Harbor during the attack, and a short note about who they were and what happened to them, which really helps to personalise such a huge historical event.

The visitor centre isn't that spectacular a building, being mostly made of concrete and rather worn from the huge number of people who have passed through it over the years. While plans are underway to develop a new and more impressive building close by, this rather small and unassuming structure is effectively the museum for Pearl Harbor and acts as a gateway to the memorial for the time being. The memorial itself is ¾ mile away from the visitor centre and only accessible by boat, but there is plenty to occupy the interested visitor for a good hour while you wait for your tour to begin. While toilet and snack bar facilities are limited by space (although by my recollection the snack bar was very fairly priced for such a visitor attraction - a can of drink cost just $1), the bookstore was very impressive in scope and there was even a Pearl Harbor survivor on hand to sign books and share memories of the day itself with visitors. The exhibits were also remarkably well done given the space available and careful wording that had to be adopted by the authors given the international audience the site presents to. Audio headsets are available for the visitor who wants more in depth information (in seven languages) and are the only part of the interpretation that you need to pay for (forgive me for not recalling the exact amount, but suffice to say it wasn't expensive). Amongst the photographs and historical accounts of the attack, the exhibit contained tangible evidence of it, such as objects that had amazingly survived the sinking of the Arizona and other ships, when their owners doubtless had not. The rear of the visitor centre opens onto the harbour side, from where you can see across to the memorial out on the water; today it is a quite peaceful and beautiful setting, with the mountains sheltering the harbour and the Hawaiian sun sparkling on the water, and it becomes quite hard to imagine any act of war taking place here.

Shortly before our tour time slot, we were called forward to queue at one of the cinema screens, where our tickets were checked and we settled down to watch a 23-minute film about the attack. The film was an extremely well presented documentary, clear and accessible, sticking to the facts in a balanced way, and showing archive footage of the events of December 7th 1941. As we left the screen, no one could have been in any doubt about the significance of the memorial or how sombre a landmark it was. The exit from the screen took us out to the harbour landing where a boat, crewed by the navy, was waiting to ferry us across to the memorial.

The Memorial

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Suggestions for a memorial at Pearl Harbor as a mark of respect to those who had lost their lives in the attack began as early as 1943, but it wasn't until 1949 that the first real steps were taken to bring it about. On the 9th anniversary of the attack, a flagpole with commemorative plaque was attached to the sunken USS Arizona both to mark the place where the ship sank and as a symbolic "re-commissioning" of the battleship. It wasn't until 1958 that that approval was gained to build the current memorial, which was finished and dedicated in 1962. The memorial, designed by architect Alfred Preis, is a long white structure with a roof that stands high at either end, and sags in the middle, supposedly to symbolise strength coming out of initial defeat. Simple and elegant in design, the memorial sits across the mid-section of the sunken battleship, acting both as a viewing platform for those parts of the Arizona that remain beneath the shallow waters and as a shrine that has come to commemorate all the lives lost at Pearl Harbor.

Visitor movement on the memorial is very carefully regulated to allow as many people as possible to visit it while maintaining the degree of dignity and respect that the site demands; as each boatload of people arrives and unloads at the memorial, those visitors on the tour that has just finished board it and head back to the visitor centre. The memorial is divided into three distinct areas. Firstly the entry room, where flags of the nine states after which the eight lost battleships and USS Utah (still resting in Pearl Harbor) were named, then the assembly room which is the main section of the memorial, and finally the shrine room that holds the marble plaque listing the names of those killed on the Arizona. It was the assembly room that held the most interest for me, as this is where you can see the shadowy remains of the Arizona. From either side of the room it is possible to see both parts of the ship that remain above water, and those that hover just beneath the surface; there is also a viewing hatch where you can look directly down on the ship and make out the shape of parts of the deck below. Remarkably, the ship is still leaking oil, despite so much of it burning away before it sank. As you watch the waters around the ship, you occasionally notice drops of it coming to the surface and spreading out in a rainbow pattern across the sea surface. Our time aboard the memorial lasted less than 20 minutes before we were quietly directed back onto a boat to return us to the visitor centre, but it was a very moving time, and absolutely worth any amount of waiting to experience it.

Concluding Thoughts

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Although very interested in history, we initially had reservations about visiting Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona Memorial because we were afraid it may be rather over-the-top and jingoistic, and we would feel out of place as non-Americans. This was only heightened by seeing so much tourist information referring to Pearl Harbor as the place where the Second World War began, notably missing the key qualifiers "in the Pacific" or "for the United States". Let me just say that this concern couldn't be further from the truth; the National Parks Service have done an amazing job in presenting this site to the public in a way that was remarkably fair, balanced and objective. We were both very impressed with just how well it had been done, and would recommend a visit to anyone visiting Hawaii.

Highly recommended.

Some Notes About Visiting Pearl Harbor

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Opening Hours: The visitor centre is open 7am to 5pm, with the first tour programme starting at 7.45am. It is open daily, except Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day and New Year's Day.

Dress: The minimum dress is shorts, t-shirts and footwear; sandals are fine, but no bathing suits or t-shirts with inappropriate slogans can be worn on site.

Security: Strict security measures mean you cannot use anything that "offers concealment", so no handbags, rucksacks, camera bags, etc may be used on site. If you have these items with you there are locker facilities a short distance from the entrance where you can stow your items for a fee.

Address: Arizona Memorial Place, Honolulu, O'ahu, Hawaii, 96818-3145.

Directions: The visitor centre is located adjacent to Kamehameha Highway, near the Aloha Stadium, between Ford Island Bridge and Pearl Harbor's Makalapa Gate. From Waikiki take the H-1 freeway to the airport viaduct, and follow the signs to the Arizona Memorial Exit 15A.

Website: http://www.nps.gov/usar/

 

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