Qualla: Pearl Harbor National Memorial

Pearl Harbor National Memorial: Introduction

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0. The visitor center at Halawa Landing sits across the water from Ford Island, quiet in a way that belies what happened here. Galleries trace the arc of the Pacific War. A 23-minute documentary plays in a darkened theater. Then a Navy-operated ferry carries visitors across the harbor to a white structure floating above a sunken battleship, and the quiet takes on a different quality entirely. Pearl Harbor National Memorial, established as a separate unit of the National Park System in 2019, is where the United States goes to remember the morning that remade the twentieth century.

Image: Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America | CC BY-SA 2.0

Pearl Harbor National Memorial: What the Memorial Encompasses

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Waters.Justin, CC BY-SA 4.0. The memorial's boundaries stretch well beyond the Arizona. The site includes the USS Arizona Memorial, the USS Utah memorial on the northwest side of Ford Island, the USS Oklahoma memorial near the USS Missouri, six chief petty officer bungalows on Ford Island, and mooring quays ...

Image: Waters.Justin | CC BY-SA 4.0

Pearl Harbor National Memorial: Designed to Carry Meaning

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NPS photo, Public domain. Austrian-born American architect Alfred Preis designed the USS Arizona Memorial, the centerpiece of the larger memorial complex. The 184-foot structure, dedicated on Memorial Day 1962, straddles the sunken hull of Arizona without touching it -- a bridge between the world above an...

Image: NPS photo | Public domain

Pearl Harbor National Memorial: The Ships That Tell the Story

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0. Nearby but outside the National Park Service boundary, three additional historic sites form a constellation of meaning. The USS Bowfin, a World War II submarine, sits at dock near the visitor center, open for tours. The battleship USS Missouri, on whose deck Japan formally surren...

Image: Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America | CC BY-SA 2.0

Pearl Harbor National Memorial: Pilgrimage and Protocol

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0. More than a million people visit the memorial each year, and reservations for the ferry to the Arizona often fill weeks in advance. Every sitting U.S. president since the memorial's 1962 dedication has made a pilgrimage, presenting a wreath and scattering flowers over the sunken ...

Image: Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America | CC BY-SA 2.0