San Francisco to Sydney - Days 27-28

Day 28 : Stars and Stripes Tour, Oahu

We arose this morning with the Sun - personally, if I were the Sun, I'd be asking the boss for a later starting time - to make sure that we met our tour pick-up bus at 6:40am, downstairs and across the road.

First stop on the tour was the USS Arizona Memorial. It was established to commemorate the sinking of the USS Arizona in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. Of the 2,400 US lives lost in the attack, almost one-half were from the USS Arizona.

As a consequence of September 11, security was extremely tight. No-one was permitted to enter the Memorial with anything larger than a wallet, except a camera. No camera bags, no shopping bags, no back packs, and no handbags were permitted. In short, nothing was allowed inside which could be used to conceal something large.

The first part of the Memorial tour was a short film about the attack on Pearl Harbour and the events that led up to it. The film included footage which appeared to have been taken just after the attack and which demonstrated the utter devestation that was wreaked on the area on that Sunday morning. In the 2-hour attack, 2,403 US troops and civilians were killed and 1,178 were injured; 169 planes were destroyed and 159 were damaged; 13 ships (5 of them battleships) were sunk and 8 were damaged. The Japanese lost 55 airmen and 9 submarine crewmen, 29 planes and 5 midget submarines.

The second and final part of the tour was a visit to the off-shore memorial that has been constructed directly on top of the submerged wreck of the USS Arizona. You can see at left a side-on photo of this memorial. The dip in the roof's middle is said to symbolise the drop in the country's morale immediately after the attack; the upward slope of the roof is said to symbolise the ultimate uplifting of morale and the sweep to victory.

It's a very simple memorial, but a very moving place to visit. As you can see in the photo, the building is very open, and as you walk along the memorial you can look out and down and see what's left of the USS Arizona - a rusty piece of the bridge here or a barnacled piece of the bow there. The ship is still leaking oil, so you can see the rainbow colours of oil-slicks on the surface of the water. The roof is almost completely open and a US flag flaps constantly in the strong breeze.

At the far end of the structure the roof is closed and there is a room with American flags in either corner and a wreath next to and just in front of the flag on the right. On the wall of the room is the list of the names of the 1,178 people who lost their lives on the USS Arizona. I don't think I heard a single word spoken by anyone whilst they were inside that room.

Next stop on the tour was the battleship USS Missouri, which is docked at Ford Island. It last saw active duty in the Gulf War and is now used solely for tours, but it retains most of its weaponry and certainly still looks imposing.

The ship is a little over 887 feet (270 metres) long and 209 feet (64 metres) high. Fully loaded, she weighed 58,000 tons and yet could still travel in excess of 32 knots. Her nine 16" guns had an effective range of 23 miles (about 40 kilometres), but she could also carry Tomahawk Missiles with an effective range of over 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometres) and Harpoon missiles for ship-to-ship combat.

We spent a little over an hour being shown around the ship. We saw the gun turrets, the officers' accommodation, the bunks for the enlisted men, the bridge and the command engagement centre. It was from the command engagement centre that the ship would be commanded during a battle.

Battle-ready, the ship would be home to around 64 officers and 1,500 enlisted men. It's incredible to think that it takes this many personnel to keep the ship running and to make it an effective offensive weapon.

The USS Missouri is also famous as the venue for the Japanese surrender : it was on the deck now known as The Surrender Deck that the signing of the Instrument of Surrender took place in Tokyo Bay at 9:04am on September 2nd, 1945.

For the tour's third and final stop we drove to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, situated in Punchbowl crater, a now-extinct volcano. Covering 116 acres, the cemetery, now full, includes over 33,000 immaculately maintained graves.

Our volunteer guide for the day was John. He was a member of the American Legion, and had seen active duty in Korea. Sometime in the past he'd suffered a stroke and this had left him with a mild speech defect. Occasionally too he'd struggle for a word or two. But he loved showing us around the cemetery (he told us he kept wanting to call it the 'post'), explaining who was buried where, what the various plaques meant, what the name of this or that flower or building was.

He had been, we found out, a drill-sergeant when he was younger, and he lapsed into a form of drill-sergeant behaviour on a couple of occasions as he gave us our orders for 'moving out' to the next location.

The cemetery includes a number of extraordinary maps depicting the troop movements in some of the key war battles. John was clearly in his element as he took us through these maps. That was until he reached the map of North and South Korea. He spoke at length about what had taken place there from 1950 through 1953, how he'd been involved and then, tears welling in his eyes, about how 100,000 lives had been lost for a little over a one-mile strip of land. It's fifty years later - fifty years - and he still feels this much pain.

He was similarly affected when he told us about the large number of troops that are still classified as missing-in-action, and about the unidentified bodies that are buried at the cemetery.

As the final part of the cemetery tour, John took us to see the 30 foot high statue that you can see in the photo on the right. The inscription is a quote from a letter which Abraham Lincoln wrote to a mother who had lost 5 sons in the Civil War. It reads :

The solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom

Day 27 : Waikiki, Oahu

On yet another humid, overcast day, Debbie and I decided to walk to nearby Waikiki. It's just a mile or two from where we are staying, and it's home to the world-famous (of course) Waikiki Beach, and to a variety of other tourist attractions such as the International Market.

Pick a random spot on Waikiki Beach, turn and face away from the water and start walking. Approximately 95% of the time that you attempted this exercise, you would find yourself walking into various parts of some hotel before you'd taken 20 steps. And, about one-half of the area between the hotel and the shore - the half nearer the hotel - would generally be roped or otherwise set off to form a private beach for the exclusive use of the hotel's patrons. These private areas, as well as those areas that are public, are crammed with people, towels, bags, and surfboards.

Amidst all this clutter and exclusivity, it's hard not to feel a touch out of place wearing a t-shirt and long pants, and carrying a camera. Unfamiliar with the local stalking laws, I took relatively few pictures of the beach and beachgoers. On the left though is one I did take and it shows a completely public part of the beach where the hotels are at a respectful distance from the shore. As Debbie pointed out, the water does seem to be especially clear here compared to the water at any of the beaches we can think of in Sydney.

One of the earliest and largest hotels in Waikiki is the Royal Hawaiian, pictured at right, and sometimes referred to as The Pink Palace for obvious reasons. Room rates start at US$250 a night and go up to US$400 a night or more. It's one of the hotels that fronts on to the beach and, of course, it has its own roped-off private section. As well, it has a bar which extends to the edge of the sand. Naturally, you shouldn't drink and dive.

Another famous hotel in Waikiki is the Ala Moana (now owned by some hotel chain and called something else entirely). The photo at left shows about one-half of the entire hotel. It appears to have started out as a much smaller, thinner hotel which has since been successively expanded to achieve the extraordinary proportions it exhibits today. If the Royal Hawaiian is the Pink Palace, then the Ala Moana must surely be the White Whale.

The Ala Moana and the Royal Hawaiian were the first two hotels in Waikiki; such is the popularity of Waikiki as a tourist destination, they are now just two amongst over two hundred. Of course, not all of them have ocean views like ours though (if you've forgotten what our view is like, see the blog for Day 25).

Originally posted by TC