david becker/viewSilver State Pearl Harbor Survivors Association Chapter 2 Vice President Clif Dohrmann shares stories about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor while holding up a photograph that shows the destruction at the Kaneohe Bay Naval Air Station, where he was stationed during the attack on Dec. 7, 1941.
david becker/VIEWSilver State Pearl Harbor Survivors Association Chapter 2 President Ed Hall pauses as he recalls the loss of life that occurred at Pearl Harbor.
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National Park Service representatives responsible for the complete makeover of the USS Arizona Memorial's shoreside facilities at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, came to Las Vegas Aug. 27 not only to discuss progress on the project, but also to solicit opinions from veterans and those who survived or were indirectly involved with the Dec. 7, 1941, attack.
Frank Hays, Pacific area director and memorial superintendent, told the nearly two dozen vets assembled at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1753 hall, 705 Las Vegas Blvd. North, that the $54 million project is only a few million short of its goal, but groundbreaking is expected later this year, and the public can expect to see the entire job completed and dedicated on Dec. 7, 2010.
Hays talked about the various buildings that will be built soon on the additional 6.5 acres transferred from the U.S. Navy to the park service, including a new visitors center.
"As for the visitors center, I want you to know the Arizona itself is in fine shape," the memorial's superintendent said. "At the visitors center building, what we'll be doing is replacing the existing visitors center, but on fill land since the building we now occupy is actually falling apart."
But of all the structures, the one building the park service really came to talk about was the Attack Theatre, a place where the images and "pieces" of the war will be on display and presented in an interpretive way for visitors to explore and learn what happened on that day of infamy.
"The primary building deals with the actual attack that will have lots of images of explosions aboard the USS Arizona and the (USS) Shaw," Hays said, naming the battleship and the destroyer that took the worst pummeling. "The Attack Theatre, this is where we want to get assistance from you. We're planning on having a 9-foot-by-5-foot-by-2-foot piece of the Arizona on display. The one question we have for you is, would you object to having a small piece of the ship's frame there so you could go up and touch it? It's an incredibly powerful experience to touch a piece of history."
Some 1,177 American servicemen aboard the Arizona lost their lives when the battleship exploded and sank during the Japanese attack on the U.S. naval base at Honolulu.
Before getting veterans' opinions during the VFW hall meeting, Hays noted that there's a large pile of the Arizona's steel sitting out on Ford Island in the middle of Pearl Harbor rusting away in the Hawaiian humidity that can either disappear because of climatic conditions or be put on display for visitors to touch.
"I think it would be a little closure to touch something like that," said Bruce "Mac" Whitehouse, a former Marine Corps corporal who served two years at Pearl Harbor in the late 1960s.
Scott Pawlawski, curator of the Arizona Memorial, said the newly constructed museum will hold a treasure trove of memorabilia.
"Roughly 30 percent or more of the 150 artifacts are new," he said, while describing some of the more unique items that will be on display. "We'll have cruise log books; we have a clock from the chaplain's office that shows exactly when time stopped during the explosions, sort of like having the attack frozen in time; and we've got pennies fused together that were removed from somebody's pocket during salvage operations. It's been designed so people can spend as much time as they want in the museum or they can go fast and get through it in just 30 minutes."
Hays said he came away from the meeting with positive feelings from the veterans just as he had from three previous presentations in Tucson, Mesa and Phoenix, Ariz., during the two days prior.
The Silver State Pearl Harbor Survivors Association, Chapter 2 has 13 members, down from 16 at the beginning of the year.
If the park service follows the advice of Don Walker of Henderson, when the new shoreside Arizona Memorial opens on the 69th anniversary of the attack, visitors will be able to touch and experience what happened on that fateful day.
"I think it's important that we show the attack was gruesome," he said after seeing an audio-visual presentation of what will be on display. "I think you need to show graphics like this, but you don't want to sensationalize. It happened, it's history. Why shouldn't it be shown?"
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