Navy divers install mooring anchors and containment buoys around the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, May 20, 2025. (Blake Midnight/U.S. Navy)
The National Park Service will begin taking advanced reservations on Monday for tours of the USS Arizona Memorial for visits beginning Nov. 1 and beyond.
Advanced reservations were temporarily paused in July as preservation work began on the memorial and made access for visitors too unpredictable to plan in advance.
“This is a critical project that will temporarily impact boat operations, and with winter break and the holiday travel season approaching, we want to ensure visitors have the opportunity to get their tickets early,” Tom Leatherman, superintendent of the Pearl Harbor National Memorial, said in a news release Tuesday.
The U.S. Navy, in coordination with the park service, is removing a pair of mooring platforms that were welded to the Arizona during salvage operations after the Dec. 7, 1941, attack that sank the battleship.
Ferries, barges and ships were tethered to the platforms as workers stripped parts needed for the war effort.
In October 2023, staff with the Pearl Harbor National Memorial discovered the smaller of the two platforms had shifted and begun sinking into the harbor.
Navy and park service divers assessed the condition of both platforms, and officials concluded that they should be permanently removed to prevent damage to the Arizona’s hull.
Those platforms are expected to be entirely removed over the next two months, the park service said in a news release Tuesday.
The Navy-operated boats that shuttle visitors to and from the memorial have been disrupted by the preservation work.
Boat access by visitors will begin on a first-come, first-served, same-day basis as soon as operations can be performed safely, the news release said.
Information about obtaining advanced tickets is at www.recreation.gov/ticket/233338/ticket/16.
The USS Arizona Memorial opened in 1962 and honors the 1,177 crewmen who died there. The remains of 900 sailors and Marines were entombed in the doomed ship as it sank.
Surviving crew members had the option of placing urns holding their cremated remains inside the ship.
The last remaining Arizona survivor, Lou Conter, died in April 2024.
Previously, the memorial received more than 2 million visitors each year.
