Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front NHP

rori-7In August, we utilized one of our local Bay Area parks to check off #5 for the year. The Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historic Park in Richmond honors the work of the women who worked in the Kaiser Shipyards during WWII.

This was actually my second visit to the site, both times tacking the visit onto a trip to the Mountain Hardware Employee Store after scoring an entry pass to stock up on some good activewear. The Rosie the Riveter Visitor’s Center is located at the site of a 1930 Ford Assembly Plant, a great old building that now houses businesses such as Mountain Hardware and a restaurant.

rori-1In the Visitor’s Center, there are great interpretive exhibits about the shipyards, the role of women in the workforce, and the town of Richmond. It was interesting to learn about how the town of Richmond expanded almost overnight and became a booming, diverse community, although not without its issues of discrimination. In addition to the main Visitor Center, there are a few other historical sites scattered throughout Richmond, including an original ship, that are a part of the Park.

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The Richmond shipyards, owned by Henry Kaiser whose previous projects included the Hoover Dam, produced more than 700 ships during WWII. For those of us who have had health insurance through Kaiser Permanente, an interesting fact is that it started as the employee health plan for those who worked in the Kaiser shipyards. In the Visitor Center, you can try out a (bolted down) rivet gun, although it was broken this past visit.

I also enjoyed looking at all of the copies of wartime propaganda, including an example by Walt Disney and another that will make you think twice about not carpooling!

Unfortunately, both times I have been to the Rosie the Riveter site, I have had to leave before the talk given by Ranger Betty Soskin, the oldest NPS park ranger who shares her experience in the local community during WWII. I have heard it is a great talk from an amazing woman and hope to make it one day! We also just missed this year’s Rosie Rally, a community gathering of >2000 individuals in their best Rosie gear in a friendly competition with a town in MI to secure the Guinness World Record. Too bad because I’m not opposed to dressing my baby in a Rosie outfit for the cause!

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Pearl Harbor Day: World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument

valr09valr10As today marks the 73rd anniversary of the bombings at Pearl Harbor that catalyzed U.S. entry into WWII, I thought it was a good time to go back into the passport archives for a post. Last year, I was lucky enough to attend a conference in Honolulu (thanks to 100 years of the American Association of Immunologists!), and I had a few hours the morning after the conference to make a trip out to the Pearl Harbor Visitor’s Center. Pearl Harbor, just outside Honolulu on the island of Oahu, is still an active U.S. Naval Station and is headquarters to the National Park Service’s WWII Valor in the Pacific National Monument (other sites are located in AK and CA).

valr06The Visitor’s Center has a museum and is the base for the U.S.S. Arizona, Utah, and Oklahoma memorials, honoring those ships and the people who perished in the attacks. The museum gives the details of the events of Dec. 7, 1941, including the military details of the attack and the day as it played out for the people of Pearl Harbor. There are some interesting artifacts, including a marked up draft copy of FDR’s famous “a date that will live in infamy” speech. The exhibits definitely freshened my memory from that report I wrote in 3rd grade…

The U.S.S. Arizona memorial is thevalr07 “centerpiece” of the monument. The memorial is only accessible by boat with a ticket from the Visitor’s Center. The short boat ride across the harbor is preceded by a film, and then visitors are given time for observation at the memorial, which is built immediately over the ship. Almost 1800 men were lost when the ship sunk and are still entombed there. The names of all those lost in the Arizona are engraved onto a wall at the far end of the memorial. valr08Interestingly, a side panel also lists the names of U.S.S. Arizona survivors who later requested to be interred there. From the observation deck, you can see fish darting in and out of the corroded metal of the Arizona and oil slicks that to this day still rise to the surface.

valr05In addition to the U.S.S. Arizona memorial, there is a small, separately managed naval museum including a small sub available for tour at the site of the visitor’s center. I believe a shuttle will also take you over the U.S.S. Oklahoma Memorial, but the Utah is not open to the public as it is on the active military base.

Helpful hints for visiting Pearl Harbor: 1) You can make reservations in advance for the U.S.S. Arizona memorial on www.recreation.gov, but they also hold back a number of tickets for same-day onsite bookings. As I discovered, some tickets are also reserved in advance by tour companies, and you can request these through your Waikiki-area hotel. While not the cheapest option, this is a good way to go if you also need transportation to the site. 2) No bags of any kind are allowed past the front gate of the Visitor’s Center complex – while lockers/bag check are available nearby for a small fee, best to plan ahead and not bring more than you can stuff in your pockets (and care to take out to go through the security check).

 

State Park Bonus Feature: While most of the rest of my trip to Hawaii was taken up by the conference (the downside of visiting for work), I also got a little bit of hiking in by taking a quick outing to visit Diamond Head State Monument, easily accessible from Waikiki by public bus. The park offers a short (but steep!) hike to the rim starting from the inside of the crater, so you don’t have to climb the entire vertical distance you can see from the beach. There are interpretative signs telling the geological and military history of the crater, and the peak offers phenomenal views.