USS Arizona
Yesterday morning, we went off to the USS Arizona. It opens at 7:45. We got there around 8:15. (Do you see a theme in getting places late? I see a theme.)
It’s like Disneyworld! Except free, and no one’s dressed up in costumes.
At 9ish we get to the front of the line; our tour is at 11:15. (When we left, around 12:30, there was no line; people were picking up tickets for about 3 hours later.)
Lots of interesting stuff about why the radar that showed planes coming wasn’t looked at as a concern: in essence, the guy who it was reported to had been on the job for 2 days, hadn’t heard that there was a submarine sunk in the bay, and was expecting planes in (which did arrive, though later). It ended with a “What would you have done in his case?” I guess they feel he was unfairly villified.
I sat in the store and read about cave divers who worked on the Arizona (Submerged: Adventures of America’s Most Elite Underwater Archeology Team). Do you know that if you bring up a dead body, the air in the lungs will expand so the lungs explode and blood and other stuff comes out the nose and mouth? Aren’t you glad to know it?
They show a movie with lots of movie news reels, which was really fascinating. Also it was cooler there.
The memorial, from the boat.
People who are interred in the boat now have their rank in 1941 placed there.
The Arizona is still leaking oil; efforts to deal with this have to ensure that nothing is done to it as a memorial site.
You can look down into part of the boat, they provide flowers to drop as a memorial. There are tropical fish swimming there, too.
