Bookable
An Apollonaut travel guide
A harbour of memorials.
An introduction to Pearl Harbor and Ford Island, where the Missouri is moored among the memorials of the Pacific War.
On this page
Read the harbour from the water
Ford Island lies in the middle of Pearl Harbor, on the island of Oʻahu. It is part of an active U.S. Navy base, so visitors reach the Missouri by shuttle from the Pearl Harbor Visitor Center.
A guide can give context without turning a place of memory into a backdrop. Notice how close the Missouri lies to the USS Arizona Memorial, and how the working harbour continues around them.
A ship built for war
The Missouri is an Iowa-class battleship, with three turrets of 16-inch guns, armoured decks and a tall superstructure of bridges and masts.
Begin with a detail and ask how it was built, crewed and maintained. A photograph alone cannot tell you who served at a gun or the conditions in which they worked.
A Missouri chapter
The Missouri shows one chapter of Pearl Harbor’s story: a battleship that saw the end of the Second World War and later returned to service, before becoming a memorial here.
Look at the meeting of the two: a ship of war, and a harbour where it is now remembered.
Make room for context
Pair this reading with the ship’s history and the Journal. This is an introduction for visitors, not a claim that our team manages these places or represents the Navy or the memorials.
Read at the source
Sources & further reading
- Wikipedia: USS Missouri (BB-63)
- National Park Service: Pearl Harbor National Memorial, safety
- Battleship Missouri Memorial: plan your visit
Links lead to the original publishers.