![]() |
July 15, 1971: A Trip to the Big Island |
![]() |
July 13, 1971: Sea Life Park/The Polynesian Cultural Center |
![]() |
Return to the Index for My Visit to Hawaii |
Today I am going to spend the day here in Honolulu, and visit two sites that I presume no one who comes here ever misses. I am first going to drive up to the Punchbowl- the Cemetery of the Pacific. I have seen and heard of it a lot, and want to experience it for myself. My other major stop will be at the USS Arizona Memorial over in Pearl Harbor. This memorial will bookend by visit to Hiroshima last week; I will have visited, in the space of a week or so, the sites that represent the beginning World War II and the end of it.
The Kodak Hula Show
|
Now, if you are curious, the distance between my lodgings at the Fort and the bandshell in the park is just about a mile and a quarter- not very far at all. As you can see, almost all of Waikiki and surrounding area is easily walkable, and this is one reason why so many folks come here and don't rent cars.
An adventurous or in-shape retiree could probably even walk to Diamond Head from his hotel (if not all the way back around to the back side where the trail up into the crater begins. But with the beach, the park, all the tourist attractions, and even a golf course all within easy walking distance from the hotels makes this an unusual destination- perhaps only rivalled in convenience by New York City (at least in the United States).
I had seen flyers for the Kodak Hula Show all over Waikiki- in restaurants, hotels, and gift shops. It was, apparently, one of Honolulu's iconic attractions. And it was free. So I had to go check it out.
|
Hula accompaniment expanded during the reign of Kalakaua to include instruments like the ukulele and guitar. In the following decades, dancing to hapa-haole songs became more common than performing the old-style chants and mele.
Hawaiian performers played to a national audience during the 1915 International Exposition in San Francisco. Promoting the Islands to potential visitors, Henry Kailimai played "On the Beach at Waikiki" on his ukulele while women danced the hula. In print campaigns, hula dancers became as identified with Waikiki as Diamond Head.
With the regular arrival of Matson passenger ships in the 1920s, Boat Day became a new Honolulu tradition. A crowd of greeters swarmed the pier- newspaper reporters there to interview arriving luminaries, the Royal Hawaiian Band performing Hawaiian songs, women dancing the hula, with outrigger canoes and coin divers plying the water around the big ship.
Waikiki bloomed in the 1930s and '40s with a growing visitor count from around the world. Hula continued to be part of the package.
|
The popular shows later expanded to 20 female and six male performers, 15 musicians, two chanters and audiences of 3,000 each week. For many tourists, their only exposure to Hawaiian dance was the Kodak Hula Show.
Other images of hula- glamorized and Westernized- were spread through Hollywood movies. Representing a romantic native paradise, Hawaii became a setting for the adventures of white males, usually Americans or Europeans. Hula was included as an element of native culture, though it barely resembled traditional dance. Ancient dance costumes gave way to sarongs and grass and cellophane skirts.
Some of the more famous Hollywood films of Hawaii include Clara Bow in Hula (1927), Dolores Del Rio in Bird of Paradise (1932), Bing Crosby in Waikiki Wedding (1937), Esther Williams in Pagan Love Song (1950), From Here to Eternity (1953), South Pacific (1958), Blue Hawaii with Elvis Presley (1961) and John Wayne's Donovan's Reef (1963).
|
|
Fond Farewell To Waikiki's Oldest Hula Show
(We bid a fond farewell to Waikiki's oldest hula show. Performers and visitors say aloha to the former Kodak hula show. Today was the show's last performance. In 1969, the Kodak Company moved the Hula Show from the beach area to an amphitheater adjacent to the Waikīkī Shell in Kapiolani Park.)
It's a picture perfect day in Waikiki as hundreds gather to mark the end of an era. The curtain is finally falling on a legendary hula show that became an island tradition. "I think for a lot of people, it is bittersweet. It's a tradition, it's a job for a lot of these wonderful young people and the ladies who play the music," says Kimo Kahoano, show host.
Originally known as the Kodak hula show, the colorful performance has drawn over 10 million visitors since it began back in 1937. "It's emotional. The first time we came to Hawaii, we came to the show. That was one of our major things to attend," says Pat Nugent of Spokane, Washington.
The free show was almost shut down three years ago when Eastman Kodak ended its sponsorship. Pleasant Hawaiian Holidays stepped in to save the performance, but it looks like these photos will be the last taken of the historic hula show, as Pleasant Hawaiian Holidays is shifting the $500,000 annual funding to its own education programs. Cast members say they're disappointed, but they're determined to preserve the spirit of the show.
"It's free, and the people think we should charge and some say, 'oh, no. Don't ruin it by charging'," says May Akeo Brown. As the final performance winds down, the crowd tries to capture one last snapshot of old Hawaii. "This show has been kind of a benchmark for everybody to come back and enjoy. Silver, golden anniversaries, honeymooners, people who come back again, and again and again." A spokesman for Pleasant Hawaiian Holidays says the company is still searching for a new sponsor for the hula show.
Honolulu from the Ilikai Hotel
|
Eventually it was sold a few times, work was done on it, and it became a combination hotel and condo. That's what it is today, with the hotel portion occupying about a third of the structure and the condominiums the rest.
When I walked over to the hotel and went up in the elevator, I got out on something like the thirtieth floor and the first thing I noticed were the directional signs on the corridors. This was my first introduction to Honolulu directions, as the halls were labeled "Diamond Head", "Ewa", and "Pearl".
I found my way to the function room area and, lo and behold, I found that I could get onto an outside terrace to take some pictures.
NOTE from 1977:
I am retyping my handwritten notes for my slides for the last few years, having gotten my original letters that I sent home with the slides back from my Mom who has sold the house on Somerset Drive and is moving to a condo a bit further out in Charlotte. And a few days ago I recall watching an episode of "Hawaii Five-0" on television, and I noticed that the Ilikai Hotel appears in the opening sequence. If you watch the program, look for it when they introduce the star- Jack Lord.
(Mouseover Image if Video Controls Not Visible) |
Oddly, there are a couple other pertinent things from this video. At about the 17-second mark you will see a brief image of a police car driving by Kapiolani Park (where the Kodak Hula Show was held). And at about the 22-second mark, you will see some photos of the Punchbowl Memorial, where I will be heading next.
With that interesting tidbit out of the way, let me include here now the pictures that I took from the top of the Ilikai. They turned out well, and show most of the Honolulu area.
|
|
|
|
|
The Punchbowl
|
When you look at the pictures I took here today, you can refer back to the aerial view at left and you will be able to pick out where in the Memorial I was. From the aerial view, you can see clearly why the Memorial is known as The Punchbowl- it is actually the inside of an ancient volcano crater that must have collapsed long ago. This fact is not very evident from the ground; one thinks of this area as just a fairly circular valley, losing sight of the fact that on the trip up one comes slowly up the side of the outside of the crater, cross over the rim, and then descend into the Memorial.
The National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (also Punchbowl National Cemetery) is a memorial to those men and women who served in the United States Armed Forces. It is administered by the National Cemetery Administration of the United States Department of Veterans Affairs. The cemetery is located in Punchbowl Crater; in ancient times the Punchbowl was used as a site for human sacrifices. In February, 1948, construction began on the national cemetery. Since the cemetery was dedicated on September 2, 1949, 34,000 veterans of World War I, World War II, the Korean, and Vietnam wars have been interred.
Prior to the opening of the cemetery, the remains of soldiers from locations around the Pacific Theater— including Guam, Wake Island, and Japanese POW camps— were rought here for final interment. The first interment was made January 4, 1949. The cemetery opened to the public on July 19, 1949, with services for five war dead: an unknown serviceman, two Marines, an Army lieutenant and one civilian— noted war correspondent Ernie Pyle.
|
Initially, the graves at National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific were marked with white wooden crosses or Stars of David— like the American cemeteries abroad. Eventually, over 13,000 soldiers and sailors who died during World War II would be laid to rest in the Punchbowl. Despite the Army's extensive efforts to inform the public that the star- and cross-shaped grave markers were only temporary, an outcry arose in 1951 when permanent flat granite markers replaced them.
The National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific contains a memorial pathway that is lined with a variety of memorials that honor America's veterans from various organizations. This is something like a "trail" you can follow through the cemetery with "stations" where the organization memorials are found. There are more than two dozen of these memorials throughout the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific— most commemorating soldiers of 20th-century wars, including those killed at Pearl Harbor.
When I drove into the Memorial, I found that I was just about the only person here. It might have been because it was noontime on a weekday, but I really wasn't sure. I parked at the south end of what seemed to be the central lawn- a long, rectangular open space running from the memorial itself down to the southeast. (I marked that spot on the aerial view).
|
The impressive memorial sits high on the wall of the crater overlooking the graves area of the cemetery. It consists of a non-sectarian chapel, two map galleries of inlaid mosaic maps of theatre operations in the Pacific area, a monumental staircase leading from the crater floor to the Court of Honor, and ten Courts of the Missing. A total of 28,778 names are inscribed on the ten Courts of the Missing which flank the staircase.
|
|
The quote underneath Columbia was actually penned by Abraham Lincoln, within a document known as the "Bixby Letter". In 1864, Massachusetts Governor John A. Andrew wrote to President Lincoln concerning one Mrs. Lydia Bixby, a widow who was believed to have lost five sons during the Civil War. Lincoln's letter to her was printed by the Boston Evening Transcript. The text of the letter was:
Executive Mansion, Washington
Nov. 21, 1864
Dear Madam,
I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.
I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.
I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.
Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,
A. Lincoln
|
The memorial contains a small chapel and a series of wall-mounted mosaics detailing some of the major battles in the World War II Pacific Theatre, and the same for the major operations during the Korean War.
NOTE from 2022:
My original picture above was actually scanned professionally some years ago, and that's how I am able to include it here. When it was scanned, it was done at a resolution such that I could have blown it up so you could actually read it, which might have been interesting for you. But I can do the same thing here. Below you will find the same image as above, but full size and in a scrollable window so that you can use the scrollbars to look at any area of the image in detail. If you just want to read the narrative, scroll all the way to the right to find it.
![]() |
Views of Honolulu from the Punchbowl
|
|
The Arizona Memorial
|
The Visitor Center has a number of different areas that I visited. The building is surrounded by some green space, and there is an exhibit hall and a small theatre. Visitors can tour through the exhibits, relax in the courtyard or go outside to the viewing area across Pearl Harbor. There are some interesting exhibits out there, too. To get out to the actual memorial, built atop the sunken ship, the procedure is to watch a short orientation movie before going out in one group to the dock, where one of two cutters takes you out to the memorial.
I could have spent quite a bit of time in the visitor center itself; it had a lot of exhibits that looked very interesting, but I was anxious to get out to the Memorial itself. So I went ahead into the theatre, watched the movie, and then followed by group to the dock to board the small cutter that would take us west across the former harbor to the actual memorial. I took a couple of pictures on the way of a large ship docked opposite the Memorial. I believe the cutter captain mentioned that the craft had recently been involved in picking up an Apollo capsule after its spashdown earlier this year.
|
|
The boat ride across the harbor was short but the boat went slowly and it was pretty neat. There is a procedure that all the shuttle boats follow when they actually dock, as the Memorial is considered a kind of sacred place. I wanted to get that perfect shot of the Memorial, but I was a little late getting into position.
|
The answer would seem to be that the USS Arizona occupies one of those symbolic positions in American history, much like the Alamo (an inconsequential frontier outpost that became a symbol of American resistance to interference) or the Maine (a rallying symbol for the Spanish-American War, but just one of many vessels damaged). It represents all of what happened on that day, even though only about a third of the lives lost were on her.
And I suppose the other reason why she occupies the position she does is the fact that she and her crew are still down there, preserved forever (not only is it extremely dangerous to enter the wreck, but now there would probably be little sentiment for doing so). The thousand human remains are only a hundred feet or so underneath the surface, but they might as well be on the moon.
If you look at my picture of the actual Memorial at left, you will see some of the superstructure of the Arizona sticking up above the water. The Memorial was actually built on top of the wreck itself, and from the Memorial, as you will see, that superstructure (indeed the round stack you see on this side of the arched white Memorial) is easily visible.
As the cutter approached the dock at the Memorial itself, the first thing you see is the identification of the ship whose wreckage lies beneath. I understand that on the official records, the USS Arizona is still "commissioned," and that, for official purposes, the crewmen are still identified as being assigned to her. Then the cutter docks and, after a short announcement, you are on the memorial.
|
The Memorial building, which is built over the wreck of the Arizona, is a long, pure white building. It is closed on both ends (one end is the dock and the other is the memorial to the dead) but open in the middle with broad "windows" through which visitors can look out onto the wreck itself and to the other parts of Pearl Harbor.
The ceiling is composed of four or five large openings that let in the elements. From one of the exhibits in the Visitor Center, I learned that the designers wanted the Memorial to be as open as possible, symbolic of the fact that the wreck is also open to the elements. Even at the ends of the Memorial there are open skylights, although the openings are smaller.
|
|
Of course, the bay is not so deep here, right near Ford Island, so I suppose it is not so unusual that one of the taller points on the superstructure might stick up above the water. (I have a mental image of one of the Titanic's funnels sticking up above the surface of the North Atlantic, even though the hull is sitting on the bottom over two miles down), but it is still eerie in that you realize exactly what it below you on the bay floor, having already seen the models in the Visitor Center and the explanatory diagrams when you entered the Memorial.
|
|
The memorial is built on the sunken hull of the Arizona, some portions of which are still above water. Since the bodies of the men who went down with the ship could not be safely retrieved for a normal burial on land, it was decided that the Memorial to their sacrifice would be built literally on top of them. In a very real way, they became physically part of their own memorial. I was struck by the thought that there may still be airtight compartments down there, and the captain of the excursion boat agreed that was probably the case.
The model of the USS Arizona out here on the Memorial itself is of the ship before the attack. The tops of the antenna towers and radar domes were sheared off in the attack. If you look just forward of the aft control tower and crane, you can see the top of the round structure that has been painted black. This is the structure that you saw earlier sticking up above the water line.
|
And the evidence that the ship is still, in a sense, "alive," is brought home by the continuous presence of small oil slicks which are formed by petroleum compounds- gasoline, diesel fuel and oil- slowly leaking from the ship and rising to the surface of the water. This has been going on for over thirty years now, and how long it will continue no one can say.
NOTE from 2005:
I will return to the Arizona Memorial this year while on a trip to Hawaii with some friends I will have at the time. When we return here, the USS Arizona will not be the only WWII ship permanently in Pearl Harbor. The USS Missouri, will be a museum ship berthed a short distance from the Arizona Memorial. The Missouri was also in Pearl Harbor on the day of the attack, but was one of the few vessels that could be repaired and refitted to see service in the Pacific. After the war, it continued to be in service until it was decommissioned and brought here to Pearl Harbor in 1998 to become a permanent fixture in the harbor.
I had spent quite some time here on the Memorial; but it is an inspiring place, and well worth the time. It is, perhaps, one of those few places that all American citizens could benefit from visiting. I would put it on par with the monuments in Washington or one of the major Civil War battlefields or perhaps the Alamo. It is one of those sites that not only represents or remembers a specific event or person, but which transcends that event or person and makes a larger statement of who we are and what we are as a nation. More importantly, it is a reminder of the sacrifices that were made by so many thousands of men and women to get us where we are today.
|
Whenever one sees a list like this one, whether it is etched into marble or simply printed in the newspaper, it is very natural to wonder whether your own name, or one similar, is in the list. I wondered, too, and my answer is hidden in the picture;
|
To my knowledge, he was not a relative except in the most general sense. But seeing my own name was just a bit eerie.
|
I headed over to the exit out to the boat dock, but before I left I took one last picture. In the center is the top of the ship's bell from the USS Arizona and some other items that are on display. Then it was back on one of the excursion boats back to the Visitor Center.
On the way back, the launch pilot and his first mate did a final presentation of some information about the Arizona Memorial and the other things to see and do around Pearl Harbor, and I listened with interest- even though most of the rest of my time here in Hawaii was already planned out.
Back in Waikiki in the late afternoon, I did some planning for the rest of my stay in the Islands. Tomorrow I planned to take a flight over to the Big Island (Hawaii) because I really wanted to see the volcanoes there. I planned to spend the night in Hilo and then return to Honolulu.
|
I thanked them very much and asked them to give my regards to Pete when they heard from him, and I walked back to Fort DeRussy, diverting to walk along Waikiki Beach as the sun was setting. That's how I came to take the picture at right- my last of the beach at Waikiki.
Earlier in the day I had, for only the second time in my life, actually purchased tickets on an airplane- and for the first time it was with my own money. I had some dinner in Waikiki and then returned to Fort DeRussy.
You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.
![]() |
July 15, 1971: A Trip to the Big Island |
![]() |
July 13, 1971: Sea Life Park/The Polynesian Cultural Center |
![]() |
Return to the Index for My Visit to Hawaii |