Oahu, Hawaii: A floating museum, the official United States memorial to the war in the Pacific, was constructed above the remains of the sunken battleship the USS Arizona, upon which more than half the Pearl Harbor causalities occurred. The December 7, 1941 Japanese attack remains present in American memory, as one of the only modern day acts of military aggression to have reached American soil. Inside of the memorial, an interpretative museum introduces visitors to the history of the Pearl Harbor military base and gives a sense of daily life prior to the attacks. Models of the Arizona demonstrate the grace and power of the ship. A large portion of the installation covers the incident, the sinking of the ship, and its aftermath, including a full size replica of the Japanese aircraft used to deliver the bombs. Personal biographies of some of those who perished are included, with much of the displays composed of items donated by family members.
I just happened to visit this site in August and was amazed at what we were standing above. The ship was in port and gave the allusion that maybe the sailors were safe at their base. You can still see the oil floating out of the boat which has been sunk for some 60 years. The other part is the wall inside the bridge they have built that list everyone who was on the ship. It all provides for a very moving experience.
I visited this site on two occasions and what caught me the most was the extensive list of names of those who died. It was very moving and forced you to realize that this incident was more than just something you learned about in history class, far removed from you. It was beautiful and tragic at the same time, seeing the pristine memorial, the ship underneath with oil and air still coming from it, and the long list of names.
I visited this site on two different occasions, and both times I was amazed at the impact that this memorial had on me. The most astounding part of it was that the oil was still in the water, even though so many years have passed since the attacks on Pearl Harbor. Like previous people have said, it was such a beautiful memorial and ironically, a beautiful way of remembering such a tragic event.