USS Arizona: Warship - Tomb - Monument
Author MacKinnon Simpson first visited the USS Arizona Memorial with his wedding party in 1970, aboard the Admiral's Barge, courtesy of then-CINCPAC Adm. Donald "Red Dog" Davis. It was an experience that was both fascinating and haunting, and one that ironically brought to life the death of the ship and most of her crew. He has returned many times. A native of the tiny village of Pottersville, New Jersey, as a small child Simpson immersed himself in history, discovering Leni-Lenape flint arrowheads and a Revolutionary War-era belt buckle in the woods and fields around the family's 18th century farmhouse. An alumnus of Princeton University, Simpson stepped off the corporate ladder in 1982 and began writing full-time. "This book - and Hawaii Hmoefront: Life in the Islands During World War II - were both labors of love as I have long had a passion about the war here in the Islands where it started. The impact of the bombs at Pearl Harbor were not nearly so great as the impact of the social and economic changes caused by the war, eventually culminating in Statehood and a very different social fabric." Simpson has two grown children, Malia and Alika, neither of whom have inherited any of his foibles - astonishing, considering the sheer number available.