Hawaii - Pearl Harbor

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=================================================================================================== U.S.S. Arizona Memorial

Early morning – we left the hotel at 6:30 a.m. in order to get to Pearl Harbor before 7:00 a.m. Doris explained that in order to get in early (doors open at 7:30 a.m.) you had to get there by 7:00. We did arrive by 7:00 but there were already close to 1,000 people in line! Did they get there the night before?

Even with the maddening crowds, the experience of Pearl Harbor was heart-wrenching. The museum covered the planning and strategy from the U.S. and Japanese perspectives and explained what happened leading up to, during and after the attack. And then to visit the site of the U.S.S. Arizona with a thousand of the crew still encapsulated inside the ship was an attack on the senses. The thoughts and images will stay with me.

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	Surrender of Japan, Tokyo Bay, 2 September 1945 General Yoshijiro Umezu, Chief of the Army General Staff, signs the Instrument of Surrender on behalf of Japanese Imperial General Headquarters, on board USS Missouri (BB-63), 2 September 1945. Watching from across the table are Lieutenant General Richard K. Sutherland and General of the Army Douglas MacArthur. Representatives of the Allied powers are behind General MacArthur. © www.history.navy.mil

	Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, USN, signs the Instrument of Surrender as United States Representative, on board USS Missouri (BB-63), 2 September 1945. Standing directly behind him are (left-to-right): General of the Army Douglas MacArthur; Admiral William F. Halsey, USN, and Rear Admiral Forrest Sherman, USN. © www.history.navy.mil

The U.S.S. Missouri (“Big Mo”) is also located in Pearl Harbor. This is the ship on which the Japanese, the U.S. and the Allied Forces signed the surrender that ended WWII on September 2, 1945. It is awesome to feel the size of our battleships. One of the guides explained that each of the nine ‘big guns’ on the ship weighs the same as a 747 airplane fully loaded!