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Pacific Aviation Museum

The Pacific Aviation Museum is located on Ford Island in the middle of Pearl Harbour.  The hangars that house the museum survived the Japanese Imperial Navy's surprise air attack on December 7, 1941  The museum has a web site that can be found here.

When I visited only Hangar 37, a 42,000 square foot former seaplane hangar, was open to the public.  The museum also has Hangar 79 a larger facility which has at each end, towering door whose blue glass windows are still riddled with bullet holes left by the Japanese attack.  The museum uses Hangar 79 as an aircraft restoration and exhibit construction facility but has since opened it to the public.

Like the USS Missouri access to the Pacific Aviation Museum is via shuttle bus, in fact the same one that took you to the USS Missouri.

One very pleasant feature of the Pacific Aviation Museum is that they had not crammed in the maximum number of aircraft but rather laid them out with various dioramas.

As you enter the museum one of the first displays is this recovered aircraft, the wreckage of Naval Airman 1st Class Shigenori Nishikaichi's Japanese Zero that crash-landed on the Hawaiian Island of Ni'ihau.  It is displayed as found with a diorama representing the surroundings.

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Mitsubishi A6M2 Model 21 Type 0 Zero displayed as it would have appeared on the deck of a Japanese Aircraft Carrier.

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Two views of a Grumman F4F-3 Wildcat on display representing a member of the “Cactus Air Force” during the Battle of Guadalcanal.  Cactus was the code name for Guadalcanal

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Two views of the Douglas SBD Dauntless “in flight”, representing aircraft that took part in the Battle of Midway.

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Another aircraft suspended from the roof “in flight” is this Curtiss P-40E Warhawk representing the type based at Pearl Harbour in 1941.

Rather more colourful is this Boeing N2S-3 Stearman trainer, this is the actual aircraft in which former President George H. W. Bush soloed.

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Two views of a North American B-25B Mitchell displayed as one of the Doolittle Raid aircraft on an Aircraft Carrier.

The final aircraft on display is this Aeronca Model 65TC  light civilian plane that was aloft above Oahu during the attack on Pearl Harbour and was shot at by the attackers, the backcloth of the diorama represents the attack.

It is one of four Gambo Flying Service Aeronca Model 65TC that were in the air during the Japanese attack.

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Outside of Hangar 37 is the old Ford Island control tower known as Building S84.

The Red and White tower is a water tank with the actual control tower facility at the top.

The lower control tower on the roof of Building S84 was created as an aerological tower but until the upper control tower was built it acted as an interim control tower.

It is currently undergoing renovation, see here.

The tower is sometimes described as a navy submarine diving tower, this confusion probably occurred because Pearl Harbour did have a navy dive tower - on the submarine base.

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