A Pearler Of A Day
We arose at the crack of dawn this morning and drove down to the sacred spot, steeped in history, Pearl Harbour. The Americans sure do know how to run a tour and our audio tour was no exception! We were given a detailed map, with ordered audio snippets, explaining exactly what happened on that fateful day of December 7, 1941. There were movies to watch, photos to look at and models to inspect and it was all very educational. We were lucky enough to meet 2 World War II veterans who were actual, real-life survivors of Pearl Harbour. They were both in their 90s and it was such a privilege to meet them. They had both written books about their experiences and there were photos of them in uniform aboard the ship. They told Keryn, when she revealed where she was from, that all the prettiest girls come from Sydney and when I thanked them for their autographs, the cheeky one said “that’s OK babe..oh I mean ma’am!” We told our husbands we’d just been chatted up by a couple of 90 year-olds!
The kids were given colouring books and challenged to look for all the clues around the displays in order to qualify for their “Junior Ranger” badges. Maisy took hers very seriously! The rangers laid down the rules and showed us to the large speed boat that would ferry us over to the USS Arizona Memorial. We were asked to be respectful of the fallen and to be suitably quiet and refrain from taking photos until we got inside. Toby struggled with staying quiet and I struggled to not take photos…but we managed to control ourselves.
The Memorial was really moving. Just seeing the names of all those soldiers who lost their lives, written on the wall, was really confronting. There was an elderly man with a walking stick, who was the first one into the room where the names were written, and he just stood in front of the wall, as still as a statue and saluted for several minutes. Both Keryn and Adam said they were quite choked up just seeing him there. To think there were over 900 soldiers’ bodies laying entombed below us, inside the sunken ship, was enough to make anyone tear up. It was very moving indeed.
Once the boat had returned us to shore, we hopped on a bus and were transported to the USS Missouri, or “Mighty Mo” as it’s affectionately known. It was HUGE! As we walked up the gangplank, we were faced with a big rack of dress up hats. What fun! There were army helmets, naval officer hats and cute little white sailor hats. I was very excited and encouraged everyone to get into the spirit and grab themselves a hat for the tour. To my disappointment though, the hats were just props for a photo they were about to take of us and we had to take them straight off! Oh well.
The Gallaghers had previously done the tour and weren’t actually planning to come again but Ross, meaning well, bought them tickets when he bought ours and there was no refund! They didn’t mind too much and climbed aboard for a second look. Being our first time, we decided to go on the guided tour and had a fantastic guide named “Ford”. He assured us it was purely coincidental that he worked on “Ford Island”, in Pearl Harbour and he also assured us he drove a Jeep! His parents just liked the name Ford. Ford was a veritable fountain of information (& with a bit of an excess saliva issue, he was a fountain in the true sense of the word too) and didn’t skip a beat! He was so informative and taught us so much. It was really interesting! The USS Missouri was as long as 3 American football fields and as high as a 12 storey building and just one of its guns weighed as much as the Space Shuttle! We stood on the very deck where the Japanese signed their declaration of surrender in WWII! While looking over the documents that were signed that day, it was quite amusing to see that the Canadian had actually stuffed his up and had signed in the wrong spot, completely missing where he was supposed to write his name!
After the formal tour, we bid farewell to Ford and explored the rest of the ship on our own. It was amazing to see how cramped the quarters were and it was awesome to think that at some stages there were 3000 sailors on board! They had bigger rooms for the officers and even had their own post office on the ship. It was especially fun going into the control room and checking out where all the important decisions were made. Sam and Molly both had to show great restraint in not pushing any buttons, obeying the signs, but Maisy failed to read the signs and thrust her little hand towards a tempting big red button. The tour guide that was supervising us feigned a look of shock and told Maisy she’d inadvertently launched a missile! She was mortified for a brief moment until he broke into peals of laughter and she was most relieved to find he was joking!
The tour bus took us back to Dodge and Jeep (we ran out of creative names after Rog’s demise) and we began our crawl – literally snail’s pace – through the Honolulu peak hour and back to the North Shore. Along the way, since we were going so slowly, we saw some real-life dramas unfolding through the car window! There was some sort of incident happening at a group of flats and the police were trying to find the “blonde girl and the green-haired guy”. We got to see the police question all the bystanders and ask questions until they were directed to the above-mentioned couple, whom we also saw police questioning! It was very exciting! Pity we had to drive past before they’d made an arrest… The traffic was unbelievably slow and it actually took us 2 hours to get home! Drivers in Hawaii are so nice though. Cars stop to let pedestrians cross the road and people are always letting you into the traffic when you’re merging. It’s like one big happy Hawaiian family. Road rage certainly doesn’t live here in the islands.
Tonight it was back to Haleiwa for some dinner at Breakers and then some more card playing with the kids. Maybe a sleep in is in store for tomorrow?
