Description: Tuesday was the first of two daytrips we planned for the week. Our plan was to spend the day in Honolulu visiting Pearl Harbor, Waikiki, and Diamond Head. We needed to be at Pearl Harbor early in the morning because we heard that slots to see its main attraction, the USS Arizona Memorial, normally fill up by the afternoon. We picked up our tickets a little after 8 AM and were given an entry time of 11:30 AM - Darn! What were we going to do for 3.5 hours? We didn't want to give up our good parking spot. It wouldn't make sense to drive all the way back to the resort only to turn around and head back an hour later. Fortunately, there are other things to see at Pearl Harbor but, unlike the USS Arizona Memorial, most are not free. There is the USS Missouri, the Bowfin Submarine Museum, the Pacific Aviation Museum, and other attractions. We bought a day-pass that gave us reduced admission prices for several Pearl Harbor attractions.
For our first tour, we were shuttled to the USS Missouri battleship (a.k.a. Mighty Mo). We were given a fantastic 35-minute guided tour on the ship deck. We saw where the USS Missouri was hit by a Japanese kamikaze in World War II. We received a brief explanation of the ship's weapon systems such as the 16-inch guns and its Tomahawk cruise missiles. However, what makes the USS Missouri famous is that it was on the deck of this ship that the Japanese surrendered on September 2, 1945. We were shown the exact spot where the surrender agreement was signed.
We were told about the ship's history in battle. The ship has seen action in World War II, the Korean War, and the first Gulf War in 1991. She was last decommissioned in 1992. Interestingly, the USS Missouri's most recent role was in the 2012 movie
Battleship. A movie tour is now offered that allows visitors to see where some of the scenes were shot; however, this was not part of our package.
After the guided portion of the tour, we were turned loose to explore the ship on our own below deck. We followed the green arrows that took us through the living and working quarters. These areas of the ship were compact but functional. I noticed this ship had that distinctive oil smell that I first encountered when my wife and I toured the Battleship New Jersey in Camden, New Jersey many years ago.
As we exited the ship, we took a look at the professional photo that was taken of the five of us when we first boarded. We did not purchase the picture but it was pretty funny. All of us were smiling in the photo except for my brother-in-law who looked like he wanted to hurt someone:-0.
We caught the shuttle back to the main Pearl Harbor visitor complex. We still had 45 minutes to kill so we visited the souvenir shop, the snack shop, and then just waited around. Although, our visit to the USS Missouri was originally intended to be a time-filler until our USS Arizona time slot, I was genuinely impressed by the tour. Our guide did an excellent job of explaining the ship and its history. However, it was our guide’s story of the surrender ceremony that was the most captivating. As he transported us back to that day in 1945 with his narration, he had the undivided attention of our entire tour group from the young to the not-so-young.
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