With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

Honolulu museum brings Pearl Harbor Day history to life

The Pacific Aviation Museum Pearl Harbor takes you back to Dec. 7, 1941.

It's early Sunday morning. The red-and-white control tower stands over the Ford Island Airfield in the middle of Pearl Harbor. You feel the percussion of Japanese attackers' bombs as they fall on Ford Island and the ships anchored nearby.

Sailors, soldiers and airmen dodge the bullets as they rip through the glass windows of burning aircraft hangars.

You are there where bravery overcame fear and boys became men. World War II had begun for the United States.

"This new museum opened in December 2006 and is the perfect complement to the other Pearl Harbor historic sites," says Kenneth DeHoff, museum executive director.

Indeed, it is adjacent to the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial; the battleship U.S.S. Missouri, on which the Japanese surrender was signed; and the U.S.S. Bowfin Submarine Museum & Park, honoring WWII submariners.

As we enter the lobby of Hangar 37, a former seaplane hangar that survived the 1941 attack, we step onto a mosaic floor map depicting the Pearl Harbor area and Ford Island...
Read entire article at The Dallas Morning News