Chapter 50

Wednesday afternoon Lorrie, Vicky, Ching Lee, Takeo, Sara and I flew on Marine One to the landing pad behind the office. I wanted to spend a little time with the boys, Jenny and Marcie before I left for the South East Asian conference. I made up for being away. After the conference I was going to spend the following weekend at home, and possibly Monday as well.

Air Force One picked me up at midnight at Morton Field and then began the long flight to Manila. It was a twenty-hour flight. Because of the international date line crossing, I would arrive in Manila on Friday at 2000 or so - depending on the winds - an hour or two either way. The first meetings were Saturday morning after an international breakfast. The meetings had been extended to Wednesday.

All the staff was going with me as well as the military chiefs. There were big happenings after the conference that would complete the agreement for our use of the former military bases. That was happening on Thursday or Friday, depending on the conference timeline.

It was 10,300 miles from Morton to Manila International Airport. Inflight refueling would take place just pass California. I could have landed and refueled on the ground at one of the military bases in California, but it was a time thing. If I landed, it would have required all kinds of meetings with political leaders and military leaders lest they would feel slighted.

I would land on the way back to refuel, shake all the hands and salute the right officers. There would probably be a trip to Camp Parks and to look at some of the low-income housing that was being built to end the homeless problem that was no longer making news print.

After reading all the updates marked urgent, I went to the rear of the plane. I took a hot shower and went back to bed on the king size bed, listening to the hum of the turbines.

I slept very well; even the change in the turbines to slow down for the refueling didn’t wake me up. When I woke up, I noted we still had ten hours to go as I went to the cafeteria for breakfast. Yes, Air Force One has a kitchen and cafeteria. I had fresh cooked eggs, scrapple and pancakes.

There were now eight hours left and just a couple until we crossed the International Date Line. I went to the flying ‘Oval Office’ and started my day as usual, reading today’s updates. I was happy with several of them.

The USS Missouri had been dredged free yesterday. A repair ship was inspecting the hull and making sure it was watertight for the tow through the Panama Canal to Chesapeake Bay, then to Annapolis. The West Coast states were screaming, wanting it on the west coast somewhere - anywhere on the west coast.

Their senators and representatives had proposed all kinds of bills, motions and resolutions for that affect, some of them threatening the Navy Department. It was all set and decided and there was no changing it. It was a done deal.

McLean Contracting was already at the Naval Academy, dredging and driving heavy sheeting, creating a place to berth the USS Missouri. The dredge materials were going to the Poplar Island restoration project just a few miles away from the Academy.

They were going to run heavy electric service to the berth so there would be the possibility of moving the turrets and possibly a light show the same as the North Carolina. It was a popular tourist attraction. The light show simulated a night battle.

While it’s on its way to Annapolis, the Missouri was doing a stopover at NNSB docks at Navy Yard for hull painting and upper structure cleaning and painting to repair the damage to the ship from all the volcanic ash that was on it for so long.

The New Jersey had painting and hull work just a few years before at the Philadelphia Ship yards. The experts from that exercise were going to assist NNSB to properly positioned the ship in the drydock since they had a more recent experience.

I had learned there was a lot more to putting a battle ship in a dry dock and pumping the water out. Blocks had to be positioned to properly support that tremendous weight. They had to be placed at strong points built into the ship during construction so the ship would not bend or sag as the water was removed. The barbettes, turrets, magazines and armor surrounding them weight thousands of tons.

Weights had to be properly positioned on deck so she settled on the keel blocks evenly. The stern was the lowest part and the heaviest. Without that as the dry dock was drained of water there was the potential that the bow would slam down hard on the keel blocks and do all kinds of serious damage to the ship.

The other note was on the removal of the artifacts from the Arizona. Initially they were going to pump the cofferdam around it dry, but smarter minds prevailed. Now they were going to lower the water level one deck at a time and remove everything of historical value on that deck.

Everything removed would be submerged in plastic crates filled with sea water until the items could be properly dried, preserved and restored. The process was going to take time - a lot of time and cost. But without it, all would be lost forever and that was close to happening now.

The National Park Service employees had watched over the Arizonia for decades. They had done many dives around the ship documenting decay and discovering new things from the attack and were on hand to assist.

Every artifact was to receive special handling as well as any remains that were found. Over a thousand had perished on the Arizona, how many were vaporized from the massive explosion was an unknown.

How many remains would be found was another unknown, was there enough DNA to identify them, would the dog tags still be around the bones? The final resting place for them would have to be decided in the future, return them to their families or to intern them altogether at Arlington National Cemetery?

All these people were staying on a Navy ship anchored closely off shore and traveling by small craft back and forth. The broken Memorial had been lifted onto a barge for transport to Annapolis along with many other pieces of the ship for the new memorial.