The Military Shrines of Pearl Harbor

Floating above the liquid graves of nearly half the Pearl Harbor dead, the USS Arizona Memorial somberly reminds us of that Day of Infamy.

Double Click on any word to see its definition

Battleships 'R' Us

Six miles west of Honolulu sprawls the olive-tree-shaped Pearl Harbor, a 10-square-mile port nearly useless to large boats until the coral reef blocking access to the ocean was removed around the turn of the last century.   Convinced by the Spanish-American war that they needed a base west of California, the Americans built a coaling and repair station here for their steam armada.   Pearl has been a military hub ever since.  Japanese expansionism led Americans to headquarter the Pacific fleet here in 1940.  Today it's still a busy working harbor for the Navy, but has become a peaceful setting for a loosely associated collection of museums and shrines that strain to accommodate two million visits each year:

The Pacific Fleet in 1940 sported 3 aircraft carriers, but 9 battleships.  Battleships are featured here: Two of them represent WWII's beginning (USS Arizona) and end (USS Missouri).  But no matter how potent, by WWII battleships were so last war --a floating Maginot Line.    Naval success in the Pacific WWII theater was to depend more on the submarines and aircraft carriers.  After all, Japanese aircraft carriers launched the attack that sunk 5 of the 8 America's battleships in port and damaged the rest. So while visitors flock to these behemoths resting along (or under) Pearl's battleship row, they sometimes ignore the real naval story of WWII as represented by the submarine USS Bowfin and its museum along with the newly opened Pacific Aviation Museum.    

Remember the Arizona

The best conceived and executed of the Pearl Harbor attractions is the USS Arizona Memorial (pictured above with a model at left).  Dedicated on Memorial Day, 1962, the concrete and steel memorial "floats" above the carcass of the ship as it is not allowed to touch the wreck.  The Navy architectural design competition also required the structure resemble a ship's bridge and hold 200 visitors.  Honolulu resident Alfred Preis won the contest.  Ironically he was Austrian-born and was briefly interned with his wife after the Pearl Harbor raid when German and Japanese-Americans were briefly held.  The lion's share of the cost of the memorial was privately funded with Elvis Presley raising 10% of the cost through a concert.

A pleasant courtyard and excellent naval museum distract tourists while waiting for the shuttle boat to the watery shrine.  With 1.5 million visitors per year, the wait can be long.  (The model at left is typical of the museum displays.  It shows how the 184' Memorial floats perpendicularly over the 608' Arizona.)  Built in 1980, the shore side museum is itself  threatened by overuse.  Up to 4500 tourists -- twice the number for which it was designed --  visit on busy days, sometimes taking two hours to struggle through the crowds.  Engineers give the place another two years before structural deterioration gets the better of it as it's built on landfill, some of which has sunk 30" already.

Launched in 1915, Battleship Arizona was crewed by nearly 1100 men.   A battleship is essentially a floating platform for huge guns.  However Arizona's 12 14-inch-cannons -- capable of raining 1500-pound-shells up to 20 miles away -- were never to fire in war.  It stayed state-side during WWI due to a lack of oil in Britain where the Allies coal-burning steam fleet was based..  A few minutes after the Pearl Harbor attack began on the morning of December 7, 1941, the Arizona took a hit between its #1 and 2 gun turrets, near the magazine where it stored its ammunition and gunpowder.  This area was so well enforced that it's unlikely that a bomb could have blown it open.  Speculation abounds that hatches were left open or a smaller magazine (filled with powder to slingshot aircraft into the sky on catapults) ignited the larger powder stores.  Whatever, the ensuing fire lasted two days and when it was over,  1,177 of the 1,400 on board were dead -- half of the total deaths for the entire Pear Harbor raid.  

Like the military aircraft parked wingtip to wingtip (to discourage sabotage), the 8 American battleships were sitting ducks; but all eventually returned to service except the Arizona and the USS Oklahoma.  Fortunately the Navy's three aircraft carriers were also outside the harbor and the Japanese did not have enough logistical  support to mount a third sortie which would have destroyed the fuel supplies.  Had they been able to do that, Japan may have hampered the American response long enough for Japanese conquest of oil producing countries in Asia -- and the outcome of the war may have been quite different.  Today we might all be driving Toyotas instead of Chevies and Fords and watching Japanese TVs.  Who knows, the Japanese Prime Minister might have even turned out to be the world's biggest Elvis fan and Waikiki boutiques would be filled with Japanese tourists.  Did somebody say "soft power"?  If you can't beat 'em on the bounding main, defeat them in the malls.

See pictures of the Arizona memorial, museum, shrine, etc on our overflow picture page by clicking here.

After the attack, the Arizona was trimmed above its waterline.  Most of those big guns were moved to shore defenses, but 2 of them were found still submerged near the ship's carcass in 1983.   Designed as a new breed of battleship that ran on oil, tanks surrounded Arizona's core, providing what was hoped to be further armament.  Today these tanks leak about a quart of oil per day.  When an oil drop hits the surface, it disperses into a  molecule-thin sheen which stains the water with rainbow colors until it evaporates.  

The Arizona was a ship ahead and behind her times.  Her big guns could have been a player in WWI, but the US Fleet was stationed in Britain which lacked the oil to fuel her.  So she prowled along the US Eastern Seaboard.  By the beginning of WWII, battleships had been made obsolete by carrier aircraft -- one of which clobbered her within 5 minutes of the onset of WWII with her huge cannons yet to fire upon an enemy.

Today visitors are asked to remain silent once onboard the memorial that hovers above the Arizona, providing its white interior with an appropriately somber feel.  A chapel lists the names of the 1177 who died below.  Outside the museum stands the Circle of Remembrance, erected in 1991.  It lists the other Pearl Harbor dead: 1213 including 49 civilians.  This was 9-11 before there was 9-11.

Alpha and Omega

The picture below left shows the view from the Arizona Memorial over the oil slick past the white buoy marking the end of the USS Arizona all the way to the USS Missouri.  Below right is the inverse view -- standing on the command bridge of the USS Missouri looking back at the Memorial.  The position of these ships is not accidental:  WWII began for the US with the bombing of the Arizona and ended with the unconditional surrender of the Japanese on the deck of the USS Missouri nearly 4 years later.

A quart of escaping oil a day creates the rainbow slick over the sunken USS Arizona where half of the dead of the Pearl Harbor attack mark the spot that began World War II...

Just to the right of the USS Missouri's huge 16" guns is the spot where General Douglas Macarthur and other representatives of the Allied forces accepted the unconditional surrender of Japan, marking the end of worldwide hostilities less than four years later.

We didn't take this picture of the Japanese surrender   -- but you can see the USS Missouri pictures we did take by clicking here.

The USS Missouri

The USS Missouri was the end of other things besides WWII.  It was the last battleship constructed and arrived in Pear Harbor on Christmas Eve 1944.   Although obsolete when it was built, it shelled Iwo Jima and Okinawa and supported the carrier bombings of Tokyo.  It saw service during the Korean war but spent the Vietnam conflict in mothballs.  Reagan's resurrection of the 600 ship navy gave it new life and it was retrofitted with Tomahawk missiles and delivered 28 of them onto Iraq during Desert Storm in 1991.  Sadam returned the favor by launching a Silkworm missile at the Missouri but the Brits shot it down.  The Missouri's only casualty in its last enemy action was a minor injury from friendly (and automated) fire.

Over 20 stories high, the USS Missouri is 279 feet longer than its sunken sister battleship, the Arizona.  Retrofitted with modern aiming technology, the Missouri's 16 inch guns can deliver with precision accuracy a 2700 pound bomb 23 miles at speeds of about a half-mile per second.  But with today's terrorist battles, this is like using a bazooka to kill a mosquito.

Turning back time

Warning: serious pontification coming: A few years before its last battle in the Persian Gulf, the Mighty Mo served as the backdrop for a barely-clad Cher singing in the video of "If I Could Turn Back Time."  Her starboard sported more tattoos than the entire contingent of 200 sailors appearing with her. Chic or Cheek?  You be the judge (click here if you want to YouTube it-- but hide the children from this day of fashion infamy).  Not that the Missouri has been much for formal wear even when the beltless and rumpled General Douglas Macarthur accepted the surrender of the impeccably dressed Japanese on the Missouri's deck creating VJ day on September 2, 1945.  Still what was the Navy thinking when they let Cher do her MTV lingerie thing?  Were all the prigs in the brig?  WWII caused the deaths of 40-50 million people worldwide, and it officially ended on the deck of this ship.  Perhaps a little reverence may be in order.

OK.  Off the soapbox now.  The Arizona and Missouri now rest on Ford Island's Battleship Row -- but there are no more battleships in the US Navy inventory.   Today these floating (and not-so-floating) dinosaurs rest with dignity; but battleships are viable only as floating museums, assuming Cher is done making videos.  The Navy has decommissioned  8 of them for museums --the same number of battleships moored at Battleship Row when the Japanese attacked.  These include the first museum battleship, the USS Texas, one of only two ships to survive both world wars.  Today it rests near us at the entrance to the Houston Ship Channel.

Submarines

The USS Bowfin's submarine museum is the only one to display the stages of the Poseidon C-3 missile, one of the cold war warriors that guaranteed mutually assured destruction.  It could simultaneously deliver 14 nuclear warheads 2800 miles away after being fired underwater.  This meant that the US submarine fleet could theoretically hit any target in the world.  Like the Arizona's guns, it was never used in a real battle.  If it had been, you probably wouldn't be reading this caption.  The Poseidon was made obsolete by the Trident missiles after 1979.

How the War was Won: The Bowfin museum displays weapons used such as this Mark 27, a post-WWII torpedo that could carry 128 pounds of explosives at about 16 knots per hour -- even an aircraft carrier cold outrun it.

Check out the USS Bowfin website.  Click here to see, among other things, their virtual tour of the ship.  See pictures from our overflow page by clicking here.

While battleships are physically impressive, the much smaller submarines tell the real story of what became of warfare in the 20th century.  Technically first used in warfare during the US Revolutionary War, submarines had no significant military capability until electric motors could be harnessed to provide underwater propulsion.  Subs inauspiciously started the 20th century as shipping annoyances -- but ended as silent and hidden weapon systems capable of destroying nearly all human life on the planet.  Attacks by German U-boats were a significant cause of the US entry into WWI even though most other nations did not have submarines of any consequence during what was still a battleship war.  WWII was a war of submarine and carrier navies.  After WWII, nuclear submarines and their strategic missiles were the cold war weapons, capable of destroying the world many times over in the Strangelovian MADness called mutually assured destruction.  Linked to its namesake vessel by a long gangplank, the Bowfin Museum chronicles the progressively-more-deadly evolution of those underwater warriors from 1900 to the present.

The picture above shows one of over 600 Poseidon missiles produced for the US submarine fleet.  These were a "second strike" force as they could not be accurately targeted.  Instead, if the Soviets destroyed our first strike capability (namely our land-based missiles), our subs -- roaming the world and hard to detect -- would rain these over "soft" targets --like the civilian population of Moscow.  The idea was that no one would start a war that would completely destroy both sides.  Apparently planners never heard of dueling --or accidents.  This brings us to the question, if the Soviets started a war, would the best response for the US be to surrender?  If not, the US would be destroyed as well as the Soviets.  Perhaps they would be greeted as liberators?  (OK, I should have issued another pontification warning!)

A retired Poseidon missile (see above) lies on its side inside the USS Bowfin museum whose entrance is beside the museum honoring the fallen warrior USS Arizona.  Its 10,000 square feet explain the history of the submarine, ending with the flaccid missile.  It's linked by a gangplank to the restored USS Bowfin.  A ticket to the museum gives you a self-guided audio tour to the sub.  (Take our tour by clicking here.)  

Despite having the worst torpedoes in the world, American subs destroyed more Japanese shipping than all other methods combined.  While less than 2% of the Navy's wartime compliment, submarines accounted for 55% of all Japanese tonnage lost.  Worldwide, the US had 314 submarines during WWII which sunk 1,392 enemy vessels, mostly merchant ships as large military ships could usually outrun submarines, especially submerged ones who were typically restricted to about 10 knots/hour or less.  Japan ended the war with only 12% of her merchant fleet intact but with virtually no fuel to run them.  Its attack at Pearl Harbor was meant to delay effective US naval action for a while until Japan could capture areas with significant petroleum assets.  Their attack on Pearl failed to significantly damage either the fuel storage tanks or the submarine base -- key failures even though the dinosaur battleships burned spectacularly.

The USS Bowfin entered the war in  August 1943 and had 9 successful patrols.  Like most submarines, its kills were typically merchant ships, in the Bowfin's case 39 Japanese and one French (Vichy) merchant ship plus 4 Japanese warships. Two decades after the war ended, one of the unmarked and unlit passenger ship ships sunk in convoy off  Okinawa in August 1944 turned out to be transporting 826 schoolchildren, ironically being moved to the mainland for safety -- all but 59 were lost.  The USS Bowfin was decommissioned and decommissioned several times before being towed to Pearl Harbor for use as a museum ship, opening to the public in 1981.

The USS Bowfin is one of the best preserved WWII fighting ships, thank to many volunteer hours.  Some of its restored parts were salvaged from the equipment (unfortunately painted pink) used to film the Operation Petticoat TV shows.  Many restorers are submarine veterans who, fortunate for us, are sticklers for details.  Restoration is ongoing and the museum's web site provides a wish list in case you have a 50 caliber machine gun that doesn't sell at your next garage sale.  

WWII-vintage submarines like the USS Bowfin sported deck armament typically of 4 caliber to force inspections on merchant ships or to fire upon targets too small to merit a torpedo.  Nuclear submarines didn't bother with such weapons as their intent was to stay away from the small fry and go after entire cities.  At right is a picture of the engine area of the Bowfin.  Before nuclear power, submarines had to have two engines, a diesel to run when surfaced and electrical for underwater movement.  Underwater, they were slow, running about 1/3 the speed of a battleship or carrier.  Typically they would travel on the surface until they approached their prey (usually a merchant ship), then submerge to approach the target and launch their torpedoes.  See our other photos of the inside of the museum and submarine, by clicking here.

Cosmetic Surgery

Nicknamed the "Pearl Harbor Avenger" because it was launched on the first anniversary of the attack, the Bowfin has had two major renovations, one paid for by ABC so they could use the ship in the Herman Wouk 1988 miniseries "War and Remembrance."  Unfortunately, the ship rode high enough in the water to show some of its damage -- so the network filled the free flooding areas with concrete to make it ride lower.   It was used to portray 3 different subs in the last of the giant mini-series before cable TV fragmented the viewer audience so that filming such epics no longer made economic sense.  "War and Remembrance" would go on to be the most expensive show ever made for TV (but, thankfully had no Cher cameos). 

The Bowfin went on to a 2004 refurbishment that cleaned out the concrete and painted its hull (what else?) battleship gray.

To those on Eternal Patrol...

Standing next to the Bowfin museum since 1992, the Waterfront Memorial honors the 52 U.S. submarines and 3500 crew members lost forever in WWII.  About 10% of all US subs built have failed to make their last ascent.  This photo was taken from the deck of the USS Bowfin.

Promise in the Air

We ran out of time and so failed to see the newly opened Pacific Aviation Museum also on Ford Island (433 acres in the center of Pearl Harbor where the USS Missouri is at anchor.)  It's three hangars and a control tower on what was a US military airfield starting in 1913.  A month before our visit, seaplane Hangar 37 opened to the public, focusing on WWII air activities from the Pearl Harbor attach through the Jimmy Doolittle raid on Japan (the desperate year of 1942).  The master plan calls for Hangar 79 to open in 2009 and feature the more successful air war of WWII.   In 2011 Hangar 54 will open and feature military air technology from the Korean war forward.