Memorial Day at Punchbowl

Today we visited the "Punchbowl," the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. It covers 116 acres and was selected at the end of WWII as one of two burial places for casualties from the war.  Originally it was a secret burial place for the ancient Hawaiian "alii."

The first interments were for the 776 casualties from the December 7, 1949 Pearl Harbor attack by the Japanese.  Original burials included 11,597 identified bodies and 2,079 unidentified WWII dead from the Pacific.  There are also 848 unidentified U.S. servicemen buried there who died fighting in Korea.  A total of 33,255 are buried in the cemetery.

Thousands of the graves were decorated with flower lei's collected by Boy Scouts from all over the island.

Here is a picture of downtown Honolulu taken from the entry to the Punchbowl.  Diamond Head is shown in the background.