Hawaii Revisited

The Arizona

We were in Honolulu last October but could not get to the Arizona Memorial, so we were thrilled to find out our tour included tickets to go out to the Arizona. After a short boat ride out to the Memorial, we entered the pavilion to view the remains of the battleship. It is very sobering to see the metal from the battleship popping out of the water signifying the watery grave of so many fallen sailors. Amazingly, you can still see oil bubbling up to the water’s surface after all these decades.

334 members of the crew survived the attack on December 7th, 1941. Only 1 member of the crew is still alive. The guide said he is 102 years old and his wishes are to be buried with his family. The rest of the sailors who survived the attack that day made the decision to have their ashes scattered over the sunken battleship. The memorial service includes a committal service, internment, rifle salute, TAPS, flag presentation, and plaque presentation.

The Mighty Mo -USS Missouri

The next stop was a quick tour of the USS Missouri. She was the last battleship to be built and the last to be decommissioned. On September 2, 1945, at 0923 the peace treaty was signed to officially end WWII.

Honolulu Highlights

Before going to Pearl Harbor, our bus did a brief tour of the government buildings and the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. This cemetery is open to all members of the armed forces including reservists who die while on active duty.

In front of the Ali’iolani building is the famous statue of King Kamehameha. He was the warrior king who united the Hawaiian Islands.

The Painted Church on Kona (St. Benedict’s)

Imagine being a young Catholic missionary in Belgium and finding out that you are being sent to Hawaii. Father John Velghe was that young missionary when he arrived in 1899. Father Velghe did not speak any of the Hawaiian languages. He knew he needed to find a way to communicate with his new parishioners and he accomplished that through painting frescos on the walls of the church. He gathered as much paint as he could from the surrounding farms. He mixed the colors using local plants for coloring and started to paint scenes from the bible depicting important religious truths. Father Velghe left Hawaii in 1902 due to illness, however, his legacy lives on to this day. The only mural distorted from the heat of the Hawaiian sun is a scene of Hell featuring Satan and a bunch of tormented souls. To prevent further destruction from the sun, the single-wall construction is now fortified by double-wall construction.

The photo of the white cross has a peekaboo painting of Jesus on the left. When you are sitting in the church and you sit on the right, the painting of Jesus is NOT visible.

In 1969, St. Benedict’s was officially entered into the National Register of Historic Places.

Dinner in Kona

After a day of getting on and off a bus, we treated ourselves to a dinner at a local restaurant. The food was good and the view was fantastic. A great way to end the day before reboarding the ship.