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Spent most of the day at the Pearl Harbor Memorials which was one of the main reasons for a stopover here. After a very early start & pickup at 5.45 we were in the queue for the first tour of the day at 7.30am and spent 9 hours there. Starting with a short film & a boat trip to the Arizona Memorial everyone paid a quiet tribute to the lives that were lost when this ship was bombed & sunk on 7th Dec 1941. The ship sits mostly under the water right where it exploded with 1177 men on board & the white memorial seems to hover over it in gentle tribute. It was one of many ships lost with their crews that day when America was drawn into the war by this surprise attack. A bus took us over to Ford Island where we had a short tour of the USS Missouri to see the exact place that the Japanese surrender occurred to end WWII. We then were able to explore much of the ship at leisure - an interesting experience for a land-lubber like me - narrow spaces, cables everywhere, grey steel & tiny bunks but also wonderful teak wooden decks. Another interesting place to climb through was the USS Bowfin submarine with it's torpedoes & we were lucky to have it almost to ourselves while we listened to the audio tour. So much lovely brass to brighten the small space & I thought often of my cousins Phil & Lindsay who both had long Navy careers, probably in vessels much like these. There was so much to see, read, listen to & learn about the possible causes, the actual attack & the eventual outcome of this crucial attack on Pearl Harbor that we both thoroughly enjoyed our day there. We've learned so much - more pieces to the puzzle that is WWII & we were struck by the clever juxtaposition of the two memorials side by side now - the Arizona symbolic of the start of America's war & the Missouri symbolic of the end.
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Helen Colin would have been in his element. Reminded me of the death march museums in Borneo