On March 25, 1961, Elvis Presley performed a special concert in Honolulu, Hawaii to raise funds for the USS Arizona Memorial, a tribute to the US service men and women who lost their lives during the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941.
The new 2021 documentary film by the World War II Foundation called Elvis and The USS Arizona tells the story of how Presley literally helped build the memorial that stands today.
A new plaque recognizing Elvis Presley’s role in raising funds to build the USS Arizona memorial at Pearl Harbor was unveiled yesterday. The unveiling took place at a private ceremony at the Hilton Hawaiian Village.
As a fan of both Elvis and Hawaii, I was disheartened when I visited the USS Arizona memorial in 2016 only to see virtually nothing mentioning Elvis Presley’s role in helping build the memorial. With his 1961 benefit concert in Hawaii and the massive publicity it generated, Presley was one of the major impetuses in raising the funds needed to complete the memorial.
Without Presley’s concert, the USS Arizona memorial may have never been finished. As George Chaplin wrote in the Honolulu Advertiser in 1991: “His [Presley’s] Hawaii concert did more than raise money. It created national publicity and revived public sentiment for the memorial. That September, Congress was prodded into voting $150,000; then the Hawaii Legislature added $50,000 to a previous contribution.”
The next year on Memorial Day 1962, over 20 years after the “date which will live in infamy” of December 7, 1941 when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the USS Arizona memorial was dedicated.
This year, Presley will finally get the historical recognition he deserves with a new documentary by the World War II Foundation called Elvis and The USS Arizona. In addition, filmmaker Tim Gray, the president of the foundation, is organizing the creation of a memorial plaque to be displayed in Honolulu to bring awareness to Presley’s role. Funds for the plaque will rely on public donations.
The Elvis News Examiner was granted an exclusive interview with Gray to discuss the project:
For the past several years, TV Land has honored several icons of television by placing bronze statues in various locations around the U.S. In addition to statues recognizing Mary Tyler Moore and The Fonz is one for Elvis Presley recognizing his “Aloha from Hawaii” TV special, the first satellite TV concert which was broadcast on January 14, 1973.
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