New shuttles for memorial

By Jaymes Song
Associated Press

Hawai'i will receive $10 million in federal money to replace the four aging passenger boats that the Navy has used to ferry millions of visitors to the USS Arizona Memorial, U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta announced yesterday.

The new clean-fuel ferries will have the same 150-passenger capacity as the old diesel boats, but will run quieter and more economically and will be more environmentally efficient. They will be designed, built and in service within a few years, Navy officials said.

Mineta said the white boats now in use, some 20 years old, have passed their prime.

"As you can see, these ferries are critical links serving veterans, their families and their friends who come to the memorial to pay tribute to the fallen comrades," Mineta said. "And to keep these ferries in good order is the least we can do."

The state's Department of Transportation will receive $5.15 million to add to the $4.8 million allocated last year.

Mineta visited the USS Arizona Memorial, a gleaming white structure built in 1962 to honor the 1,177 crewmen killed in the Dec. 7, 1941, attack. Some 900 servicemen are still entombed in the battleship's rusted hulk sitting on the Pearl Harbor floor beneath the memorial.

In all, 2,388 Americans were killed during the attack that plunged the United States into World War II.

"Being here today ... is a profoundly moving experience," Mineta said. "Seeing the watery grave of so many proud and brave Americans is a poignant remembrance of the history of which carries many parallels to today's circumstance.

"Our world has once again changed forever by a deadly, unprovoked, enemy attack on American soil. And once more, brave men and women have answered the call to preserve our liberty and our way of life."

U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawai'i, said that with 1.6 million visitors annually, the USS Arizona Memorial hosts more visitors than the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the Arlington national cemetery.

"This is the major memorial attraction in the United States," Inouye said. "It is not a Hawai'i attraction. It is a national monument and a national memorial."

Daniel Martinez, the National Park Service's historian at the memorial, said officials want the new boats to be built in Hawai'i.