On December 7th, we attended the formal dedication of the USS Oklahoma Memorial on Ford Island. With formal invitations and ID in hand, we were bused to a spot just down from where the USS Missouri is moored. The location of the Missouri is now at the exact location of where the USS Oklahoma was sunk.
The actual dedication was pretty vivid in that the USS Oklahoma was the primary initial target and sunk within 12 minutes of the raid starting. It rolled over 180 degrees almost immediately due to the circumstances of the raid and it's condition -- 429 men were lost.
If you've not heard the story, you need to look up the USS Oklahoma site --- lots of stories by those who survived and were there. This was the second largest loss of life other than the Arizona.
You can see by the location map below the ships alignment just before the attack.
The primary speaker was a survivor who was fantastic. Said he had thought about it being a "monument" but on second thought, when you get your butt kicked and sunk in 12 minutes, it's better suited to be a "memorial". Had a lot of other colorful comments and was obvious that he was honoring his "ship mates" the best he could.
If you think about it, most of those sailors were 19 or 20 years old and now 66 years later, they are in their mid-80's to mid-90's. Amazing to meet some of those survivors and hear their stories first hand.
The numbers of Big Brass from the military was also very impressive.
At the end of the dedication, the Signal Staff from Tinker AFB mingled out of sight among the various individual stanchions in the Memorial itself. The Commander then called out to the Memorial if all 429 were present...and there was a loud number of different voices answering back affirmative. He then praised them for their sacrifices and "relieved them" from duty which resulted in another loud round of applause and shouting, like a bunch of anxious sailors ready to have shore leave --- it was eeary but incredibly moving.
After the dedication, their was a reception at the Pacific Aviation Museum several hundred yards away which added a lot to the history of the attack. Those pictures in another post.
All in all, a very moving and solumn time being on Ford Island within sight of the USS Missouri and the Arizona Memorial imaging what it was like 66 years ago with the attack in progress.
Also, very interesting, in that the story of how the Oklahoma Memorial concept was developed had the design team standing at this site when a US Warship came into port and went by. The sight of all the sailors in dress whites along the sides of the ship was stunning.
It was explained to those present that this was "manning the rails" and a tradition of a ship entering port. And so it was the primary focus in that black/gray granite is flanked by individual white marble stanchions for each soul lost in a permanent "manning of the rails" for the USS Oklahoma.
If you go to
http://www.yahoo.com/ and do a search on pictures for the USS Oklahoma Dedication, you can find a slide show of 31 pictures from the event --- the first slide contains a view of the Memorial and flag raising --- Kerry, Jeanne and Kyle are shown on the left side of the picture! AP photo mind you.
Here's a few pictures from the actual dedication ceremony. be sure and "click" on each picture to see a larger view --- lot of stuff going on in these pictures.
Impressive image with the USS Missouri in the background.
Portion of the 300 or so at the dedication -- Dad, Charlene and crew...
One of the USS Oklahoma survivors I had the pleasure of shaking hands with.... He was on deck and thrown into the water from one of the torpedo explosions, swam to the boat on the inside of the mooring and started shooting back...... Just amazing to listen to him.
The final part to this post is the post script of the USS Oklahoma. After the raid, it was impossible to consider rebuilding it but it also posed a threat to naviation because of it's resting place. After two years of work, the ship was "righted" and sold for scrap metal back in the US.
Once made sea-worthy, it was to be towed back to the mainland.
What happened next is the subject of much debate but with no resolution of fact. About 530 miles northeast of Oahu, the USS Oklahoma somehow took on water, broke it's towline and sunk!
To this day, there is no concrete evidence of what happened or why --- but the survivors at the ceremony including the speaker will tell you that the ship decided not leave the waters that contained the souls of 429 of her sailors and itstead joined them for eternity.....
