Hawaii: Visiting WWII Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor, Honolulu

 

Hawaii

Visiting WWII Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor, Honolulu

Sachi Ghosh Dastidar

 

A Model of Arizona Memorial Sitting on Top of the Ship Resting on Seabed 

In the Lower Middle of Oahu Island is Pearl Harbor

To break from the Corona virus lock down, and to fulfill the wishes of granddaughter Shriya Lakshmi, we headed to the Island State of Hawaii during her 2022 Spring Break in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It is said that it is a wonderful place to visit, a tropical area of the United States. It proved to be true.

 

Getting from the East Coast of the U.S. to Hawaii was almost as much time consuming as going to the distant India and Subcontinent.

Hawaii is the place through which United States officially entered WWII after Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, destroying naval ship Arizona taking hundreds of lives. That bombing demanded immediate action by the U.S. to save the world from destruction by Japan and Germany. Thousands of books and articles on WWII are available in our libraries, but visiting in person was different. Arizona Memorial is located on the opposite side of Pearl Harbor visitor center in the city of Honolulu. A short ferry trip from the Visitor Center takes visitors to Arizona Memorial.

The visitor center has many museums, a nice tropical garden, memorials, shops and book store.

In the Indian Subcontinent there are thousands of such examples of atrocities by the British and Islamic-Persian-Arabic rulers for over a thousand year. Yet in the Subcontinent’s fatalistic, self-destroying, history-avoiding culture such examples – from Kutub Minar to Mathura to Varanasi to Noakhali to Kashmir to Churchill’s Bengal Famine to 1964 Hazrat Bal Genocide to 1971 Bangladesh Hindu Genocide to Kolkata Hindu Monk & Nun Killing to many more, are neither memorialized nor taught in history books.One doesn’t have to anti something to learn from history. We are told that “people who do not learn from history, history will repeat itself.” As we didn’t learn from British oppression we had India-Pakistan religious-sectarian partition. As we didn’t learn from Indian Partition we had Pakistan-Bangladesh minority-majority partition. America and the West have tried to teach their citizens of their history through places like Pearl Harbor and Berlin memorial,Black Lives tribute, Irish Memorials, and hundreds more such places.

Here are sample pictures from the Island of Oahu, known as home of Pearl Harbor, among others. 

 

At Memorial Building

 

The Memorial from Pearl Harbor Across the Bay

Bombed Ship on the Seafloor 

Memorial at Arizona Memorial

Memorial at Arizona Memorial

Memorial at Arizona Memorial

Part of Arizona Ship

Visiting Arizona Memorial

 Parts of the Drowned Ship

On Way to the Memorial

A Memorial at Pearl Harbor

 

Pearl Harbor Visitor Center

 At Museum

Museum

 Some Comments from Social Media:

 Laura Healey

I truly loved all of the pictures and your commentary - especially, about the buses!

Lynn and I visited Hawaii in different years (I think 1976 & 77) and loved it.

Your family looks wonderful and rested.

tks!

Laura

*******

Rev. Arlene Wilhelm

Looks like you had a good time. It is a beautiful state. Went there a number of years ago. 

Looks like you did some business too

Take good care.

Love to all 

Arlene