Arizona Memorial

We spent a morning at the Arizona Memorial. This was my 2nd time here. The museum and the memorial are very powerful reminders of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.


The Memorial sits across the sunken battleship Arizona where it sank within minutes of being hit by Japanese torpedoes. The majority of the crew died with the ship.

Various plaques relate the names of the crew and the valiant efforts made in Pearl Harbor that Sunday morning.

The battleship itself is visible in the shallow waters. In the 60 years that the hulk as sat on the bottom of the harbor oil has leaked in droplets, rising to the surface and creating rainbows and sheens on the water.






The drops of oil known as 'Rainbows of Tears' add to the legend of the sunken battleship. The battleship is a tomb, containing the remains of the crew. Now there are concerns about the rusting metal and the volume of oil that may still be in the hull. The memorial is sinking as the hull collapses. Efforts are being made to secure the memorial more firmly to the bottom of the bay.

If the hull still contains thousands of gallons of fuel oil, an environmental disaster may happen if the hull ruptures before the oil can be removed.

D-Day Memorial, Va. 2007

In the spring of 2007 Ken and I visited the East Coast. One of the things that I wanted to see was the D-Day Memorial outside of Roanoke Va. It was recently completed and sits high on one of the mountains. The memorial is visible from the freeway and is quite awe-inspiring from the highway.

The memorial re-creates the D-Day invasion on the Normandy beaches. The structures represent the various landing crafts and the soldiers who stormed ashore under German gunfire. As you walk through it, the water erupts with stimulated gunfire, just like what the soldiers went through.



The bronze sculptures are cast from actual photos of the invasion. They are life size and very life like.

The walkway takes you over the beach with a representation of one of cliffs the soldiers had to scale to reach the German soldiers.

The sculpture is incredible. From the expressions on the soldiers' faces to the detail in the equipment each soldier carries, it is an exact replicia.


At the top of the wall the soldier survives to charge the German lines. This sculpture is so emotional that tears spring to your eyes when you walk through it.
The plaque lists the names of the soldiers who survived the climb, and the ones who didn't. It also lists who the sculptures are representing. Again, the sculpture is taken from a photo.

This represents everyone from the various counties who died in the D-Day invasion. The memorial contains flags from every country involved in WWII.



One of the planes used during WWII. No GPS, no computers, no technical assistance. Just good pilots and lots of courage.