A unique new perspective on Pearl Harbor
A relic from the USS Arizona on display at the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum, removed from the wreck in 1962 during construction of the iconic memorial that sits over the ship today.
Military museums offer invaluable and often unique perspectives on history, and nowhere is this more literally true than at the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum’s new exhibit, “A Piercing Blow: The Aerial Attack on the USS Arizona.” The piece of steel pictured above is framing from a portion of the vegetable locker in the ship’s galley, which was located on the port side of the ship above the main deck. If you were a humble ship’s cook on the morning of December 7, 1941–peeling potatoes for use later in the day, perhaps–you might have been looking through these exact portholes as you heard the first Japanese planes pass overhead.
The exhibit, housed in the Museum’s Hangar 37 on Ford Island, lets you explore the “day that will live in infamy” from a new perspective–that of the Japanese and American aircraft that fought on that day. The Museum is open during its normal hours this summer.