Pearl Harbor Redux

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When we were here five years ago, we went to Pearl Harbor to visit the USS Arizona memorial. Much has changed since were last were here. The entire visitors center is new; apparently last time, the exhibits and gift shop were housed in temporary tent-like buildings. I do not remember noticing this, but I do know that what's there now is completely different from what was. All, that is, except for the Arizona Memorial, which is the same as it was since it was dedicated in 1962. It is the same rusty hulk lying on the bottom of the harbor and the same tiny trickle of fuel leaking. The experience at Pearl Harbor, for me, pulls up the whole jumble of what I "know" about WWII, perceptions and misconceptions alike. I have had trouble in the past articulating the juxtaposition of the impression I have of the 1940s and of the actual knowledge I have of the 1940s, at once the state-of-the-art, yet primitive. I do not expect I'll do any better this time.

It's a weird cognitive dissonance I have of this time period, because I really do find myself thinking of WWII in terms of the technology being extremely advanced (blame Robert Heinlein for his stories written shortly before and after the war), and the romance of American Ingenuity at work solving problems. Yet, when I see, for example, the radar oscilloscope that was actually in use at the time, I cannot get over the bakelite, the steel and just the size of the thing. Consider that we can look at a computer-processed image of weather radar superimposed on a digital map on our phones. Now, consider that the radarman of 1941 looked for blips (changes in amplitude of the signal) on an oscilloscope to detect incoming air traffic. Yet, to me, that radar seems super advanced to me.

This is what going to Pearl Harbor makes me ponder. I acknowledge the horrors of war and the hell that people went through at that time, but it's hard to make it personal for me; my grandparents didn't and don't talk about it much. My mom's dad largely missed it; he was born in 1925, and spent the last couple of years of the war training in the AAF, but it ended before his training did. My dad's dad spent some time in the pacific (Guam specifically), but the only thing I know of what he did was that he and his buddies squashed pennies, and they saw some action there.

So, what I know of WWII, I learned from reading and watching the history channel et al. In any case, Pearl Harbor was sobering. Again.

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