October 20

The Hawaiian Airlines HA466 flight does not depart Pago Pago until 11:20 PM. The last hotel shuttle from Tradewinds was 8:30 PM. The airport is open-air, until you pass through Immigration and Customs. Thankfully, there was a breeze with only 77deg F temps. There is one small waiting room, not large enough for the nearly 300 people who can fit on an A330-200 plane. No water fountains in the room, and you cannot bring water through Security, so you have to buy from the lone food stand if you want liquid refreshment. People who could climb stairs entered one side of the plane, while those who could not were hoisted up by one of those food service lifts on the other side of the plane. Remember, no jetway in American Samoa. Most people fell asleep while the hardy, or foolish, fought to stay awake and watch in-flight entertainment. Being from American Samoa, all passengers go through USA Customs and Border Control in Honolulu. The airport has pulled all the rental car companies into one center at Terminal 2 (was not the case seven years ago) making for easy and quick access to the roads. Pearl Harbor is only ten minutes west on Nimitz Highway. I was surprised to discover parking is now $7 per vehicle in the park’s lots. You scan a QR code, then input a credit card number to the website. Visitors were already lined up for the 8 AM and 8:15 AM tours of the U.S.S. Arizona. Be sure to have a reservation via www.recreation.gov before you arrive, or you will have to get in the Standby lane. I walked around the complex, viewing information placards, the Arizona’s anchor and bell, and perusing one of the two museums. The Arizona and the Missouri are off in the distance, on Battleship Row, where the Japanese inflicted severe damage to our Pacific Fleet on December 7, 1941. When your tour is called, you enter a theater where a ranger gives guidance on how to visit the Arizona Memorial. This is hallowed ground and waters. In fact, the entire complex is hallowed ground. This is where World War II began for our country, sadly with 2,403 dead. You have 15 minutes to walk on the memorial’s deck before the next group arrives and you have to get on the ferry boat which just arrived. Oil slick can be seen coming from the Arizona’s fuel tanks. A volunteer said the military estimates one hundred more years before all the oil will have risen to the surface and been dissipated. He also said there is one Arizona sailor left alive, Lou Conter. Conter was only 20 years old when the attack unfolded. He is now 102 years old. In a decade there may not be any WW2 veterans left alive. I had the honor of holding a one-hour meeting with our country’s last surviving WW1 veteran, Frank Buckles, a number of years ago. I will consider it an equal honor if I ever meet the last surviving WW2 veteran.

The U.S.S. Bowfin, a submarine, is docked in the park. A fee is required to tour the boat. This is the same for the U.S.S. Missouri, which is reached via the Ford Island bridge by a park shuttle bus. Plenty of tourists were walking the decks of both warships. As the shuttle bus was driving the length of Ford Island, I tried to imagine what the men at the airbase thought as Zeros strafed the field. The movies Tora, Tora, Tora (1970) and Pearl Harbor (2001) attempted to show the horror.

It was time to drive over to the Rainbow Helicopters office on the southside of the HNL airport. Josh, the pilot assigned to my flight, was going to fly me to Honouliuli National Historic Site. If the NPS is not going to let the public enter via the couple of dirt roads, we would just come in from above. We discussed the details of the park boundaries, from south to north, and the width. Monsanto and Bayer have donated land to the NPS for this park. But those companies still own the land bordering the park, including crop fields and research buildings. Trespassing is not taken lightly. I had a photo of the main section of the civilian internment camp and was ready to match that to the structures and landscape we would see (check the Daily Trip Report for the comparison). It is obvious the NPS is doing work in the camp. A long retaining wall is being built on the east side of the gulch, probably to keep the crop fields from falling down the slope. Concrete pads from camp structures are easily visible as were the few vehicles parked along the main road. The whole area looked safe, as evident by the cars and wide dirt roadways, but one man’s ease is another man’s difficulty, so the NPS is erring on the side of everyone being safe. It will be a few years before the public can drive into the park. But I had my experience, one I will never forget.