When you visit Pearl Harbour, make sure that you go to the Pacific Aviation Museum on Ford Island. You can get a combined ticket to this, the USS Missouri and the USS Bowfin. Mind you, you need a full day to see all these and the USS Arizona Memorial as well. Ford Island is in the middle of Pearl Harbour and civilians can only get there by shuttle bus from the visitors centre. It was a military airfield from 1918 until 1999 and you can see it in many of the movies that include the attack on Pearl Harbour. Tora Tora Tora is the best and most accurate of the bunch in my opinion. The hangars now house a collection of aircraft that have been based in Hawaii and the Pacific. The top photos are full-size dioramas featuring the main opponents in the early Pacific war, the Japanese Mitsubishi A6M Zero and the Grumman F4F Wildcat. There are lots of other aircraft in the museum and you can even see some of them being restored. The bottom photos show two things that are in every Pearl Harbour movie. They are the 1940's control tower and one of the fire engines. There is a petition active at present to save the tower from demolition. It has been signed by both Oldies and one small bear. Historic sites like this should be preserved so that we never forget.
Labels: aircraft, Hawaii
# posted by Bart Bear @ 11:19 am
