Pearl Harbor | Touring the USS Missouri and USS Bowfin

Our last day in Hawaii was a flurry of even more logistical planning. When we tried to extend our rental car for an extra day to accommodate our new plans we were quoted a rate that was over 3x the daily rate that we had been paying. Instead of shelling out the exorbitant new rate, we dropped off our rental as planned and had a luggage storage service pick up (and store) our luggage from the car rental agency. From there we boarded a free shuttle bus back to the airport where we hopped on a bus that took us to Pearl Harbor.

As we expected, tickets to visit the USS Arizona Memorial were already sold out by the time we arrived, but tickets to the USS Missouri and the USS Bowfin were still available. We purchased our tickets, stowed our backpacks, and hopped on another shuttle.

First stop: USS Missouri

The USS Missouri was part of a class of fast battleships known as Iowa-class Battleships, the last of which was the USS Missouri. In World War II the “Mighty Mo” took part in battles in Iwo Jima and Okinawa, and then later fought in the Korean War. It was decommissioned from 1955 until 1984 at which point it was reactivated and modernized. In 1991, the 50-yr old ship provided fire support for Operation Desert Storm. For various reasons, the Navy no longer uses battleships in combat and as such the remaining Iowa-Class battleships, including the USS Missouri, have been retired as museum ships.

What I most loved about this ship was all the little details that harked back to another time, a time of gears and gauges instead of digital screens and virtual buttons. Check out the wooden deck of the USS Missouri! Can you imagine a boat of that size (or any boat in general) having a wooden deck these days?

retro soda fountain!

My favorite thing to see on a ship (or on any house tour) is how people lived every day lives. I love peering into bedrooms, bathrooms, rec rooms, and especially kitchens. In my head I try to imagine what life would have been like at that moment in time by envisioning myself doing a very mundane activity. For some reason those types of spaces are the ones I most connect with as a touchstone to the past.

On the USS Missouri I wondered what life was like in the 1940s when the ship was filled with the sounds people scuttling about and big band music wafting down every corridor. If I were on this ship at that time I would have undoubtedly spent all my time and money at the snack shop filling up on popcorn and ice cream sodas!

this would have been Sly’s room on the ship in his Navy days

Another thing I love about ship tours is the economy of space. Even though I don’t necessarily practice this in my own home (cough) I love seeing rooms where furniture folds up and out of the way, or into a wall. Everything and everyone seems to fit satisfyingly like tetris pieces into such a tiny space. 

I’m especially curious about what people ate and I loved peeking into the kitchens and cafeterias. I wonder how much the menus have changed since this one was posted in the Truman line. I think vegetarians would be eating a lot of potatoes. 

Perhaps the USS Missouri is most famous for the part it played in the end of World War II. It was on this boat, on this spot, where the Japanese formally signed a written agreement of surrender thereby marking the end of WWII. Pretty cool to stand in that exact spot.

More than anything I think what most impressed upon me was the sheer size of the battleship (and the size of all the guns). We walked up and down and around the ship for nearly two hours and I still didn’t feel as I saw the entire ship. 

After touring the USS Missouri we grabbed a small bite to eat, peroused the gift shops, then shuttled back to the USS Bowfin, a WWII submarine. Eight days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, construction started on a new class of fleet submarine, including the USS Bowfin. She was launched exactly one year after the attack and was given the nickname the “Pearl Harbor Avenger.” 

Submarines represented only a small number of military in WWII, yet accounted for over 55% of the Japanese ships sunk – roughly 1/3 of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Sadly many innocent ships (including ships carrying US POWs) were caught in the crossfire like the Tsushima Maru, an unmarked cargo ship carrying school children that was sunk by the USS Bowfin. Submarines also represented the highest percentage causality rate for the US. Essentially if you were on a sub in WWII, you had a 1 in 4 chance of making it back alive.

The USS Bowfin was one of the lucky ones.

Whereas the USS Missouri was impressively large, the interior of the USS Bowfin was as cramped as they come. I could not imagine spending any length of time on this ship, especially with a crew of people. Compared to the expansive McMansion-sized kitchen of the Mighty Mo, the dining area of the USS Bowfin was like that of a NYC apartment. 

As a kid I hated visiting anything remotely related to the military mostly because my dad was forever dragging us to air shows and on battleship tours. It wouldn’t have been so bad except for the fact that my dad was a total military history buff who was also extremely interested in engineering and industrial design. Our trips to view ships, planes, tanks, etc. typically took all day and often involved my dad explaining how guns work (including a lesson on make, model, production, and artillery used), how a piece of equipment was engineered or machined, and/or which war/battle the ship/plane/tank was used. It was excruciatingly boring for a 6-8 yr old kid, and way above my interest level at the time. Whenever I hear people complaining about how their kids get pooped out at an amusement park or can’t walk for long at a zoo I think to myself, “Try taking your kid to an outdoor military museum in 90+ degree heat all day with no water, no snacks, and no amusement.” My sister and I suffered through it because we loved doing anything with my dad. Plus, usually my sister and I would come up with some stupid game or sneak off while my dad spent another five hours in the book store, and find something interesting or cool to do on our own.

Fast forward to high school. One summer my dad paid me $5 per book to read books he found interesting. I have no idea why he did this but I definitely was not one to turn down free money especially given that I was a pretty fast reader. Then I took a look at my dad’s book list. The list of books definitely did not contain any quick reads and was comprised of books on computers, machinery, and WWII. I read a few computer books first, including a surprisingly good one about Steve Jobs and the creation of Apple, before moving on to a couple of WWII books. I don’t recall the names of these books anymore but they sucked me right in. I had always been really interested in life in the early to mid 1900s and reading these WWII books added another dimension to what I already knew.

I guess my dad’s strategy (if that’s what it was?) worked. I hate watching gory war movies, but I can watch WWII documentaries and read books on the subject all day long. I especially love looking at photos from this era. I cannot believe some of the amazing photos taken during WWII with such simple technology in the heat of battle.

Anyway, long story short, I no longer hate touring battleships and submarines. In fact, I find them extremely fascinating on many levels. If Sly and I ever have kids, I feel really sorry for them. Between the two of us we hold enough information about WWII and the military to make any kid/person’s head explode. Sorry nonexistent/future kids, you can blame Gramps for that. 

DETAILS

Pearl Harbor Historic Sites  |  COST: $35 combo for USS Missouri and USS Bowfin, audio tours included.  |  TRANSPORTATION: Taking the bus from the airport costs about $2 and is only a 20 minute or so ride. To get to/from Waikiki takes about 45 minutes. See Bus info here. Alternately, Pearl Harbor is THE number 1 tourist attraction in Hawaii so group and private tours can be arranged from various hotels and pick-up points. | DESCRIPTION: The most popular package is without a doubt one that includes a tour of the USS Arizona memorial. (The Passport to Pearl Harbor, which includes all four historic sites is $65). However, these tickets must be reserved in advance OR you can visit the ticket booth at 7am (when it opens) to see if you can snag one of the free tickets given out for just the USS Arizona. Since we didn’t make any prior plans, we showed up in the afternoon to see if anything was available and pretty much all of the sites still had tickets except for the USS Arizona. You have to take a bus to the USS Missouri and once dropped off you may have to wait in line (we didn’t as it was later in the day) to board the ship. The audio guide does a really good job of guiding you through and around the ship, but you are also left to freely roam around unrestricted areas as well. The USS Missouri is quite large (besides the top deck we rarely ever encountered other people inside the ship) with a good amount of steps and lots of narrow passageways. I can’t remember if there are public restrooms on the actual ship, but there are restrooms near the gift shop/food court before/after boarding. Our tour, plus side trips, lunch, and bus ride to/from took approximately 2-2.5 hrs. The USS Bowfin can be reached by walking from the entrance gate. It’s significantly smaller and if you’re short on time and can only see one thing, it’s probably the easiest to visit. Once again, expect to climb steps and squeeze through narrow doorways. Outside of the submarine there is a small gift shop and a museum that can be visited for free with your ticket. The tour of the USS Bowfin maybe took us a little over 1 hr.  Note: You cannot bring anything beyond a camera (without a bag) and maybe bottled water with you past the gates. No purses, backpacks, diaper bags etc. There is a bag check area at the gates that charges $3 per bag. regardless of size. We contemplated bringing our luggage with us to check in instead of using the airport bag service. We were pretty confident we could stow our carry on bags as they aren’t much larger than a large backpack, but we weren’t sure about our larger gear duffel. When we left I noticed a couple wheeling away two very large check-in bags from the bag check area so it seems likely that they can store larger pieces of luggage.  |  VERDICT: Recommended. Definitely worth a visit, even if you cannot get tickets to the USS Arizona and even if you’re not hugely into military history. For one, you can see the USS Arizona from various points along Pearl Harbor and second, it’s kind of nice being able to take your time to view the other sites. I’m pretty sure if we purchased the “Passport to Pearl Harbor” that we probably would have rushed through the entire thing or skipped out/been too burned out to visit the other sites.