By the time I reached my desk this morning, I had made it to work with about a minute to spare. It wasn't because I was running late; it was because I sat out in my car in the parking lot thinking about this day in history. It was 7:55 when I pulled into my parking space - the same time that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor happened 65 years ago today. Almost 500 survivors of the Pearl Harbor attack gathered this morning at the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii to honor the over 2,400 Americans killed during the attack. Almost half of the Americans killed that day - 1,177 to be exact - were crew members of the battleship the U.S.S. Arizona. In the attack, a 1,700-pound bomb plunged through the ship's deck, detonating in an ammunition compartment. The explosion caused the massive ship to sink in less than ten minutes. The battleship -- three times the size of the Statue of Liberty -- settled to the bottom of the harbor in 34 feet of water, where it rests today.
I had the honor of visiting the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial back in 1984, when Mom and I were in Honolulu. I can honestly say I've never been to a monument or memorial, or any place in this country that made me feel more emotional than the Arizona Memorial did. On the boat ride from the shore to the monument, you can see part of the battleship sticking out of the water, along with parts of other ships that sank that day. Along with the parts of the ships, you can also see an eerie trail of oil still seeping from the ship; as if the ship were still bleeding from the attack. The leaks come from over half a million gallons of thick, bunker C fuel oil that remains trapped in the deteriorating ship. The day before the attack, the Arizona took on 1.2 million gallons of the fuel oil at its berth in Pearl Harbor. The ship was scheduled to make a Christmas trip back to the west coast the next weekend. Even though the ship has been submerged for six decades, the oil still continues to seep, as if the ship were bleeding.
No comments:
Post a Comment