For the first time in
15 months, visitors to the USS Arizona Memorial on Sunday will be able to step foot on the iconic memorial to the bitter loss and valiant defense of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
The National Park Service announced Wednesday that the much-awaited reopening of the memorial to walk-on access will take place this Labor Day weekend.
“The National Park
Service is excited to welcome our visitors back to the USS Arizona Memorial very soon,” Pearl Harbor
National Memorial Acting Superintendent Steve Mietz said in a news release.
“It is a great honor to share the stories of the men of the USS Arizona, and all of those who served, suffered and sacrificed on Oahu on Dec. 7, 1941,” Mietz said. “That is the cornerstone of our mission here, and restoration of public access to this iconic place is critical as we continue to tell their stories and honor their memory.”
Three adjacent nonprofit museums — the USS Bowfin Submarine Museum and Park, Battleship Missouri Memorial and Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum — will
be happy with the reopening, too, with part of their patronage derived from
the gravity of the Arizona Memorial.
The park service said that since May 2018 when the memorial closed to
foot traffic because of damage to an attached dock, multiple phases of a repair project have been completed including analysis, contracting, design, environmental compliance,
mobilization, unexploded ordnance screening, resource preservation and project execution.
“The National Park Service’s announcement that Arizona will reopen this Sunday is great news for our Hawaii and our country,” said U.S. Rep. Ed Case, D-Hawaii. “While repairs took much longer than originally planned, it was crucial to get this right for all of us that so cherish this living memorial.”
U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono also applauded the reopening. In March Hirono asked Interior Department Secretary David Bernhardt for monthly updates on the status of dock repairs.
Hirono, also a Hawaii Democrat, in March noted that after previously estimating it could reopen
the Arizona Memorial by December, the park service pushed back the date to March and then said by
the fall.
The National Park Service oversees the memorial at ground zero of the surprise Japanese attack on Dec. 7, 1941, that sought to cripple the U.S. Pacific Fleet — and in the process drew America and its industrial might into World War II.
A total of 1,177 men were lost on the Arizona, which still ranks as the Navy’s single greatest loss of life.
The sunken battleship memorial, one of the most visited attractions in the state, sees 4,000 to 5,000 people a day. In 2018 nearly 1.8 million people visited the Pearl Harbor site.
Access to the memorial was suspended in May 2018 when park staff noticed minor damage to its attached floating concrete dock where boat passengers disembarked. Inspection of the dock revealed a failure of its concrete-block anchoring system, which allowed too much lateral movement.
A series of “helical” pilings were screwed into the seafloor, and synthetic rope was attached to a corresponding dozen points on the 105-foot dock as part of a more than $2.1 million fix, officials said.
