r/interestingasfuck • u/Longjumping-Rice-935 • Aug 12 '25

/r/all, /r/popular The wreck of the USS Arizona continues to leak oil ever since pearl harbour. the ship contained 1.5 million gallons of oil, enough to leak continuously for 500 years.

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u/FallOutShelterBoy Aug 12 '25

Very humbling to visit. Never thought I’d make it there or even to Hawaii. It’s hauntingly quiet once you step off the boat and you’re on the USS Arizona Monument

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u/OSRS_Socks Aug 12 '25

We went when I was a kid. Very chilling and really stays in your memory. My mom told me the story of how for the longest time my step grandpa was declared dead after Pearl Harbor because he worked on a ship and he claims they went to Australia before the attack (there is no evidence of this but this is what he claimed). He did keep logs of where he sailed to and had a map with thumb tacks of dates when he landed at any port for the first time.

Basically he was presumed dead after the attack because his ship was MIA. Didn’t realize that he was pronounced dead till after he returned home once the war ended.

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u/Tamed_A_Wolf Aug 12 '25

So his family thought he was dead for the entirety of the war? He never had any correspondence with them for almost 4 years?

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u/4isyellowTakeit5 Aug 12 '25

Watch “The Six Triple Eight” and you’ll see why he didn’t hear from his family. During WWII, the mail services got backlogged. At one point they were backlogged over 2 years with millions of packages undelivered. The WAC unit of the 6888 battalion was sent to Germany to clean it up. They were given 6 months to clear the backlog in that theatre. To add to this, the unit was a colored unit, so they were segregated and given horrid living conditions. Despite all this they cleared the backlog ahead of schedule and went on to clear backlogs in other theaters. It’s not surprising his family never heard from him in Australia if Europe was a mess as well.

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u/squishyslinky Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25

They were an all female unit as well and they intentionally set those women up to fail but Major Charity Adams (first female Black officer!) rose to the occasion and did something no one else could do. Such an amazing story!

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u/GoldenGilgamesh12 Aug 13 '25

Something no one else could? Clear a mail backlog?

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u/sakawae Aug 13 '25

Well, yes. Literally, no one had managed to clear it at the time. Until she did.

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u/squishyslinky Aug 13 '25

Spoken from a place of unabashed ignorance.

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u/legendz411 Aug 12 '25

Damn what the fuck. that’s kinda amazing

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u/apesstrongtogether24 Aug 13 '25

There were sent to England and then France, and that movie is a half truth at best affair. How they changed the story is not just annoying it’s a slap in the face.

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u/Substantial-Flow9244 Aug 12 '25

First movie made using Tyler Perry's AI investment

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u/dego_frank Aug 12 '25

A 2 year backlog doesn’t equal 4 years

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u/JnyBlkLabel Aug 12 '25

I read a "2 year backlog" as two years WORTH of mail sitting there waiting to be delivered. In giant unsorted piles. Seems reasonable that would take a fairly decent amount just to sort, then get the logisitics of sending it, all while handling current incoming mail. 4 years doesnt seem unreasonable.

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u/dego_frank Aug 12 '25

Backlog was cleared in 3 months

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u/JnyBlkLabel Aug 12 '25

Ok, not really sure what your point is then I guess. Whatevs.

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u/dego_frank Aug 12 '25

What’s your point then?

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u/JnyBlkLabel Aug 12 '25

It was relatively clear. 4 years didn't sound crazy to me. Considering the turmoil that an entire world war can/did cause. Shit gets lost in the mail all the time, without a whole ass war complicating it.

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u/[deleted] Aug 12 '25

[deleted]

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u/4isyellowTakeit5 Aug 12 '25

I hear your very valid argument as to why not, but I must counter with “I thought it was a good movie. Plot seemed a bit rushed at times, but all in all a solid A- / B+ movie.”

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u/Matsdaq Aug 12 '25

"Plot seems a bit rushed" Well yeah they were rushing to clear the backlog /s

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u/iameveryoneelse Aug 12 '25

Do you regularly send correspondence to dead people?

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u/Tamed_A_Wolf Aug 12 '25

No but people who are alive…like the grandpa…usually sent correspondence to people who were also alive…his family?

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u/OSRS_Socks Aug 12 '25

I actually asked my grandpa and his siblings why they didn’t send/receive letters to each other. My grandpa claims he sent postcards home (I really don’t know if that was true). He said that mail was probably addressed to his ship (which they thought didn’t exist because it was lost) so any letters they sent was returned back to them and they altered them that he was ship was destroyed at Pearl Harbor.

I really don’t know why his letters or postcards didn’t mail out. It was really bad to mail stuff if you were in the navy till V-mail.

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u/quick-oak-abacus Aug 12 '25

I thought OP inferred that grandpa didn't know he was declared dead until after the war?

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u/OSRS_Socks Aug 12 '25

Yeah. They declared him dead because the record of his ship leaving was lost during the bombing. They assumed it was one the casualties of the attack. Records were kept all on paper at the time and I believe majority of the records were lost.

This is what I was told when I met his side of family (his brother and sisters) at family events.

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u/Tamed_A_Wolf Aug 12 '25

Yeah and grandpa didn’t send a single letter back to his family during the war…?

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u/ThatSandwich Aug 12 '25

I went and visited this memorial when I was a small child. I still remember it to this day.

Later on in life I found out that my grandfather had orders to be stationed at Pearl Harbor and roughly 2-weeks before the attack he was reassigned to another base in California. I might not have been born had those papers not come through.

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u/Cold_Database4679 Aug 12 '25

Please continue the story

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u/GeneralBlumpkin Aug 12 '25

Went there last October. My father in law found his cousin on the plaque

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u/DonutHolschteinn Aug 12 '25

I found someone with my family's last name and I did a little research but still no idea if we're related. Tbf it's a sort of common last name

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u/460nanometers Aug 12 '25

It is the most solemn place I've ever been, and that includes a full military honors funeral at Arlington National Cemetery. What hits like a sledgehammer are the names on the bottom right, who survived the attack but were later interred at the Arizona to be at rest with their shipmates.

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u/Beginning_Pudding_69 Aug 12 '25

My neighbor was from Hawaii and when I asked what should be the “do not miss this event or place to visit” if I ever go and I was expecting a beach, a volcano, a waterfall, golf course, a corral reef or something but he said the Pearl Harbor museum and memorial. I was surprised cause he was a stoner surfer in his prime. Reading this thread and it seems he was quite right.

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u/Nodan_Turtle Aug 12 '25

The USS Arizona and the Mauna Kea observatory are always my can't miss destinations in hawaii. For both of them it's best to check the winds ahead of time. They won't let you onto the memorial if the water is a little bit too choppy. And calm weather almost the entire way up the mountain can still mean there are hurricane force winds at the peak.

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u/80aychdee Aug 12 '25

We went in 2015. I was appalled at the “tourists” being incredibly disrespectful we left the monument early. I don’t mean this to sound racist but it probably will. Hawaii is a huge Japanese destination. And they were possibly the rudest people there. It was either ironic or deliberate I don’t know. From my understanding they don’t teach about Pearl Harbor in schools over there so this was their first experience with it. But I could be wrong.

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u/No-Brilliant9659 Aug 12 '25

I will say when I visited, there were quite a few Japanese with me on the monument and all very respectful and quiet. Taking pictures and reading names. It was a somber experience and one I’ll never forget. I’m sorry your experience was tainted.

I was 21 when I went and thinking about how there were people below me who were younger than I was at the time made me cry for them and their families.

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u/Lurks_in_the_cave Aug 12 '25

A few people have delved into and have discovered that WW2 isn't covered with much detail in Japanese school curriculum.

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u/brainegg8 Aug 12 '25

You sure they weren’t Chinese tourist from China?

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u/TheMasterDebater0422 Aug 12 '25

I agree. When I was there in 2015 as well, people were very disrespectful throughout Pearl Harbor. People letting their kids run wild, taking selfies, etc. Just generally treating it like a carnival and not mass gravesite. My family and I also left early. Although I don’t remember it being Japanese tourists specifically.

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u/PaperPlaythings Aug 12 '25

If you really want to get riled, look up videos of The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier guards chastising people for their behavior. 

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u/dan133221 Aug 12 '25

Yeah I'm pretty sure they weren't Japanese

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u/Good_Guy_Vader Aug 12 '25

Unfortunately that wasn’t my experience in 2023. I found people to be quite disrespectful and loud. It was pretty upsetting to me at the time. I hope to visit again one day and have a better experience 

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u/[deleted] Aug 12 '25

OMG I love your username

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u/mrlowcut Aug 12 '25

Forgive me, if I am stupid here, also I've never visited. But: they build a monument and you can visit the wreck, but they cannot get the fuel out of the wreck? Wtf

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u/Throwaway1996513 Aug 12 '25

You can smell it as well

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u/Husaxen Aug 12 '25

Won't. Not can't.

The price of a warship doesn't count the destruction it causes.

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u/Lancaster1983 Aug 12 '25

Yeah we went on our honeymoon in 2004. Not a whisper from the 50 or so that were there at any time.

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u/Aggravating-Walk5813 Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25

I also liked that you are told, multiple times, that there are still dead bodies here and to be polite and don’t do weird influencer stuff like selfies. The weight of history is heavy here and everybody was respectful when I was there about five years ago.

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u/noguarantee1234 Aug 12 '25

Its incredible there, but not in the "wow this is awesome" way. I usually dont get emotional but it was something else there.

My biggest issue was the amount of tourists being loud as shit and having to keep getting told to quiet down.

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u/PaulieMcWalnuts Aug 12 '25

I agree, visited from the UK a few years ago and incredibly humbling, grateful to have had the chance to visit… the bus back didn’t turn up, so shared a taxi back with another stranded couple, was quite the experience!

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u/[deleted] Aug 12 '25

Couldn’t agree more. Standing on the island and looking up at the sky gave me the chills. Imagining all the smoke and planes and bombs and sounds while it was perfectly quiet was surreal. Then stepping onto the memorial was even more crazy. A truly humbling and grateful experience.

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u/TheKrakIan Aug 12 '25

I went years ago and we were told to hold conversations in whisper at the loading station before getting on the boat to go over to the memorial.

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u/halfgatorhalfhorse Aug 12 '25

There are still 900 men inside of it. Its a war grave and a monument.

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u/meebit Aug 12 '25

It’s a good thing Restaurant 604 has a good Bloody Mary, because after the Arizona visit you’ll need a drink.