In April Karin and I spent two weeks in Hawaii…for her it was a first time visit, and it was a return after nearly 38 years since I had been there on R&R. Things certainly have changed since 1969!
Of course, any trip to Oahu means a visit to Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona Memorial. When my parents and I were there in 1969, we went out on the memorial on a small Navy boat of some kind from a dock on the shore. Now there is a visitor center that has a film introduction to what happened on 7 December 1941, a large mural of the Arizona, a small café and outside areas remembering the other personnel who died that day as a result of the attack. There are plans and fundraising efforts underway for renovating and enlarging the center in the near future, because it is visited daily by so many people from all around the world.
There is a new memorial for the USS Oklahoma that opens officially on 7 December 2007, to remember the 429 who died when she was sank by a Japanese torpedo in 1941. There is a great article about the Oklahoma and the memorial in the December issue of VFW Magazine (www.ussoklahoma.com/Pearl_Memorial.html).
Below are some photos I shot in April. It is as moving for me today to visit Pearl Harbor as it was when I was 22 years old.
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