A celebration of life for William G. “Burl” Burlingame Jr., a veteran feature writer for Honolulu newspapers and noted Pearl Harbor historian, is scheduled at noon Oct. 20 at Murphy’s Bar and Grill in Honolulu.
Burlingame died of cardiac failure March 15 at his home in Kailua. He was 66.
He had been a newspaperman for more than 35 years, most of them at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, where he was hired in 1979.
He was on the staff of the Today feature section for three decades, with a focus on film reviews and music. However, he also covered a wide range of subjects, including his principal expertise in World War II history.
He left the paper in 2012 to work at the Pacific Aviation Museum Pearl Harbor, now called the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum, holding posts as a research specialist, curator and historian.
Burlingame was born March 4, 1953, in Alaska, the son of the late Air Force Lt. Col. William G. and Connie Burlingame. His father, a pilot, was a veteran of World War II, Korea and Vietnam.
Burlingame graduated from Radford High School and the University of Missouri, where he majored in journalism.
He wrote numerous books on everything from Hawaii’s iconic collectible milk covers and Hawaiian music to scale-model building and military history, including a seminal study of the Japanese submarine attack on Hawaii on Dec. 7, 1941, “Advance Force Pearl Harbor: The Imperial Navy’s Underwater Assault on America.”
Burlingame was also a skilled artist, graphic designer and scale model builder and designer.
He was commissioned to build models for the Hawaii Army Museum at Fort DeRussy and the former Honolulu Maritime Museum.
Just before his death, Burlingame had been working with Daniel Martinez, chief historian for the USS Arizona Memorial, on a model of the original marker for the Arizona, before the current memorial was built. Martinez said he’d see that it is finished as a legacy.
Those who plan to attend the celebration of life are asked to RSVP to mpoole@staradvertiser.com.
