Well, I have just had a very exciting & moving day. This afternoon we visited Pearl Harbor again, took lots of photos there, then earlier this evening, staked a good viewing spot for the second annual Pearl Harbor Memorial Parade. The parade was truly wonderful. There were a vast number of school and community groups, with marching bands and great range of performances. Everything from gymnastics to hotrods, custom motercycles, and even some Low Riders. I do love the lowrider vehicles. They are just so impractical and bizarre that you gotta appreciate the damn things.
Unfortunately, no vintage or classic military vehicles. The U.S service personnel were splendid in presentation and drill. The stars of the show were undoubtedly the Pearl Harbor Survivors. My hands are gonna be sore tomorrow from all the clapping, thats for sure.
I was lucky to top the evening of with a good long chat with the gentleman I described in the previous post. He is Mr Alexander Dyga, and he was on shore on the morning of December 7th, 1941, and was initially in the vicinity of the fuel storage facilities which despite being identified as a prime target, were not bombed. Mr Dyga has served in the military for an extended period beyond WWII, and spoke about his time working with missiles at Vandenberg AFB and other locations, all the way up to the 1960s. I happened to have brought a book to read on the flights, about Gallipoli, and to cut a long story short, I gave it to Mr Dyga because he is interested in military history but had not heard about ANZAC or the Gallipoli campaign. In return, I was given a really good tip about where to eat cheaply in Waikiki.
invaluable!
Attachment 53648
Bought a whole heap of stuff at Pearl Harbor, including copies of significant WWII newspapers, a couple of really neat military vehicle (Sherman & M16 half track) models in 1:32 scale, the mandatory T-shirt and a U.S flag which was flown over the Arizona memorial earlier this year, on Memorial Day.
Its now 2210hrs and time to retire to bed. Tomorrow morning I try the restaurant Mr Dyga told me about.