R&R in Waikiki

We returned to Nanjing this September via California (to see our daughter & her family) and Hawaii…. a place we had not visited in almost thirty years. A week-long stay in Waikiki offered a bit of a respite from a rather hectic year…. and a chance to lay back & relax & do some reading not in any way related to energy or environment!

Pearl Harbor

It also offered an opportunity to visit the ‘bookends’ of World War II at Pearl Harbor: the USS Arizona and the USS Missouri. The USS Arizona was in the harbor & was hit in the December 7, 1941 surprise attack, resulting in the loss of 1,177 crew members (almost 80% of those on-board)… & about half of the total losses suffered that day. The Arizona Memorial sits above the ship’s sunken hull…. still leaking oil, even today.

 

Arizona Memorial and USS Missouri

WWII ended almost four years later, on the deck of the USS Missouri. On September 2, 1945, with the ship docked in Tokyo’s harbor, Japanese officials signed an unconditional surrender. Today, the USS Missouri is docked right next to the Arizona Memorial, about 400 meters away.