Pearl Harbor Naval Base

Pearl Harbor Naval Base

Pearl Harbor is a harbor and base of the US navy and US Air Force on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, United States. It has become well known through the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese military forces on the US Pacific fleet during the Second World War. The base of Pearl Harbor is a national Historic country mark.

In 1887 The United States received the exclusive utilization right over the bay, in which later the navy base Pearl Harbor should emerge. Work on the harbor was begun in 1898 after the annexing of the Hawaii islands through the USA. An eleven meters deep canal was completed in 1911, which enabled large ships access to the open sea through a sand bank. The harbor basin possesses a maximal depth of 18 meters and offers therefore also place for larger ships.

Through the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which caused the entrance of the USA into the Second World War, the harbor became universally known. The air attack resulted on the morning hours of the 7th of December 1941 and cast 2,403 US American lives. The feared Kamikaze
Pearl Harbor Attack Approach strategy was used by the Japanese from 1944, which was also used in the Pearl Harbor attack.

At the time they sunk the USS Arizona (BB-39), the garrison sunk with the ship, and lies today as a memorial in Pearl Harbor. Over the wreck of the Arizona, a floating memorial was anchored, that can be visited with a small boat. The oil, that still today one can observe at the water's surface, is named the "black tears of the Arizona".

In direct vicinity of the Arizona Memorial is the museum ship USS Miassouri (BB-63)
USS Missouri Battleship museum. On this battle ship, the unconditional surrender of Japan was signed on the 2nd of September 1945 in Tokyo Bay.

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