Spring lights to illuminate Battleship NC for the Azalea Festival. Here's when to see it
The USS North Carolina Battleship Commission, in partnership with the Friends of the Battleship North Carolina, announced that the Battleship will be lit to impress with spring colors to celebrate the festival, according to a news release.
Here's what to know.
The Battleship's uplighting takes center stage throughout the extended weekend from Thursday, April 3-Sunday, April 6, from 7:30-9 p.m.
The best place to enjoy the uplighting is from across the Cape Fear River in downtown Wilmington.
Viewers and photographers on the Riverwalk, as well as the hospitality locations in downtown Wilmington, will have prime locations to enjoy the illuminated Battleship.
Look for pops of pink, purple, and yellow to highlight the Battleship's historic silhouette.
"As the official sponsors of the Azalea Festival fireworks, we are honored to contribute extra brilliance for the event series," said Dr. Jay Martin, Executive Director, Battleship North Carolina Memorial, in a news release. "Seeing the uplighting in-person is a memorable experience for both locals and visitors, so we are thankful for our outstanding partners with the Azalea Festival."
Battleship grounds, parking lot, and SECU Walkway are closed every day at 5 p.m. and will be closed during lighting. Saturday's Boom & Bloom Fireworks Bonanza is a ticketed event. No outside parking will be available, with grounds and walkway closed.
Battleship North Carolina is a decommissioned World War II warship, permanently moored as a memorial and state historic site on the Cape Fear River at Wilmington. The Battleship commemorates the heroism of U.S. sailors and soldiers from North Carolina during World War II.
Cheryl M. Whitaker covers community news for the StarNews. Reach her at cheryl.whitaker@starnewsonline.com.
This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Battleship NC in Wilmington to get uplighting for Azalea Festival
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River trip across Europe: 500 miles, six countries in 15 days
By Mary Richardson Sometimes travel is like a French meal with seven courses. It tells you about a particular cuisine and immerses you in its deliciousness. Other times, traveling can be like a tray of appetizers. You get a taste of this, a taste of that. The river boat cruise that Joe and I took from Budapest to Amsterdam was full of appetizers. And, like a good appetizer should, it left us looking forward to the whole meal. We know we are going to have to return for longer visits if we want dessert. A trip across Europe via the riverways was one of our dream trips that had not yet materialized. Then our travel agent, Anne Rose, found a speci al, last-minute price of $6,000 — including airfare — for a 15-day river cruise on Emerald Cruises. We booked it immediately. Over two weeks, we traveled almost 500 miles by river, going through six different countries and stopping at 15 different cities. We sailed on three famous, immensely important rivers – the Danube, the Main, and finally, the Rhine when going into Amsterdam. I saw breathtaking beauty, both man-made and natural. Each day had some new wonder. But the greatest takeaway from the whole trip was a realization of the extent of my ignorance — how much I didn't know, didn't understand, and didn't appreciate. My first inkling of this ignorance came from looking at the itinerary. I had never heard of many of the places we would be visiting. Yes, I knew about Budapest, Vienna, Amsterdam and Cologne (kind of), but Bratislava, Melk, Dürnstein, Passau, Regensburg, Würzburg, Wertheim, Bamberg, Rüdesheim, Miltenberg and Český Krumlov? Not so much. And, while I knew something about Germany and the Netherlands, I was pretty vague about Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and even Austria. Each place had a distinct story to tell. Here are just a few of the highlights for me: BRATISLAVA The realization of my ignorance started in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia and a city of about half a million people, nestled on the banks of the Danube and within view of both Austria and Hungary. I was in a city that had gone through World War II on the Nazi side, and had only recently transformed from communism to a democracy. A lovely young woman, probably in her mid-20s, led us through the old part of the city up to the Bratislava Castle. As we looked over the walls toward the modern city and the river, she told us how times had changed. Because of democracy, she knew she had to work for a living, and whether or not she succeeded was up to her. However, she said, her parents had grown up in communism, and it was harder for them to realize that the state was not going to provide for their every need. They missed the old way. Bratislava was not always in Slovakia. It was in Czechoslovakia, which was formed after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of World War I. In 1939, Czechoslovakia was dismantled. It became the First Slovak Republic, a Nazi puppet state. I hadn't known this. We walked down the hill from the castle and came to a plaque on an old stone wall. It read, 'In this house in 1847 Sigmund Steiner established the Antiquarian Bookstore STEINER. The Steiner family lived here from the 19th century (except during the Holocaust) through the first half of the 20th century. The memorial plaque is also in memory of 16 members of the family who died in concentration camps in 1942-44. May their souls be bound up in the bond of everlasting life. Remember and never forget.' During World War II, more than 15,000 Jews were de port ed from Bratislava, and most died in concentration camps. Bratislava's Jewish Quarter was largely destroyed. I hadn't known that. The city was bombed by Allied forces in 1944 and liberated by the Soviet Red Army in April, 1945. Czechoslovakia was re-established. 'The people welcomed the Russians,' our guide told us. 'But we didn't know they were going to stay and occupy us.' Then came 1989. A huge public, student-led demonstration against the Russians began in Bratislava and Prague. It was called the Velvet Revolution because of its peacefulness; no shots were fired. I hadn't heard of it. Our young guide remembered another political split — the Velvet Divorce, so called because it was also non-violent. She recalled a morning in 1993. 'I woke up and my mother told me we were no longer Czechoslovakians,' she said. 'We were now Slovakians.' She explained that the two most powerful men in the country had both wanted to be prime minister. 'So they decided, just the two of them, to divide the country,' she said. Overnight, they created Slovakia and The Czech Republic. 'I was pretty surprised,' she said. I was, too. 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Speaking in Chinese on Douyin, China's domestic version of TikTok, Kato recounted scenes from the film: "People were lined up along the river and then the shootings began… A baby, the same age as my daughter, was crying in her mother's arms. A Japanese soldier rushed forward, grabbed her, and smashed her into the ground." He said he had seen many people on the Japanese internet denying the Nanjing Massacre had happened, including public figures, even politicians. "If we deny it, this will happen again," he continued, urging Japanese people to watch the movies and "Iearn about the dark side of their history". The video quickly became one of his most popular, with more than 670,000 likes in just two weeks. But the comments are less positive. The top-liked one quotes what has already become an iconic line from the movie, uttered by a Chinese civilian to a Japanese soldier: "We are not friends. We never were." For China, Japan's brutal military campaign and occupation are among the darkest chapters of its past – and the massacre in Nanjing, then the capital, an even deeper wound. What has made it fester is the belief that Japan has never fully owned up to its atrocities in places it occupied – not just China, but also Korea, what was then Malaya, Philippines, Indonesia. One of the most painful points of contention involves "comfort women" - the approximately 200,000 women who were raped and forced to work in Japanese military brothels. To this day, the survivors are still fighting for an apology and compensation. In his video, Kato seems to acknowledge that it's not a subject of conversation in Japan: "Unfortunately these anti-Japanese war movies are not shown in Japan publicly, and Japanese people are not interested to watch them." When the Japanese Emperor announced on 15 August that he would surrender, his country had already paid a terrible cost – more than 100,000 had been killed in bombing raids on Tokyo, before two atom bombs devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan's defeat, however, was welcomed in large parts of Asia, where the Imperial Japanese Army had claimed millions of lives. For them, 15 August carries both freedom and lingering trauma – in Korea the day is called 'gwangbokjeol', which translates to the return of light. "While the military war has ended, the history war continues," says Professor Gi-Wook Shin, of Stanford University, explaining the two sides remember those years differently, and those differences add to the tension. While the Chinese see Japanese aggression as a defining, and devastating, moment in their past, Japanese history focuses on its own victimhood - the destruction caused by the atom bombs and post-war recovery. "People I know in Japan don't really talk about it," says a Chinese man who has been living in Japan for 15 years, and wished to remain anonymous. "They see it as something in the past, and the country doesn't really commemorate it - because they also view themselves as victims." He calls himself a patriot, but he says that hasn't made things difficult for him personally because their reluctance to talk about it means they "avoid such sensitive topics". "Some believe the Japanese army went to help China build a new order - with conflicts occurring in that process. Of course, there are also those who acknowledge that it was, in fact, an invasion." China fought Japan for eight years, from Manchuria in the north-east to Chongqing in the south-west. Estimates of the Chinese who died range from 10 to 20 million. The Japanese government says around 480,000 of its soldiers died in that time. Those years have been well-documented in award-winning literature and films – they were also the subject of Nobel laureate Mo Yan's work. That period is now being revisited under a regime that holds patriotism as central to its ambitions: "national rejuvenation" is how Xi Jinping describes his Chinese dream. While the Party heavily censors its own history, from the Tiananmen Square massacre to more recent crackdowns, it encourages remembering a more distant past – with an outside enemy. Xi even revised the date the war with Japan started – the Chinese government now counts the first incursions into Manchuria in 1931, which makes it a 14-year war, rather than eight years of full-fledged conflict. Under him, Beijing has also been commemorating the end of World War Two on a bigger scale. On 3 September, the day Japan formally surrendered, there will be a major military parade in Tiananmen Square. Also in September, a highly-anticipated new release will focus on the notorious Unit 731, a branch of the Japanese Army that conducted lethal human experiments in occupied Manchuria. The date of release – 18 September – is the day Japan attempted its first invasion of Manchuria. That is apart from Dongji Rescue, a film inspired by the real-life efforts of Chinese fishermen who saved hundreds of British prisoners of war during Japanese raids; and Mountains and Rivers Bearing Witness, a documentary from a state-owned studio about Chinese resistance. And they seem to be striking a nerve. "That one generation fought a war on behalf of three, and endured suffering for three. Salute to the martyrs," a popular RedNote post on Nanjing Photo Studio reads. "We are not friends...", the now-famous line from the movie, "is not just a line" between the two main characters, says a popular review that has been liked by more than 10,000 users on Weibo. It is "also from millions of ordinary Chinese people to Japan. They've never issued a sincere apology, they are still worshipping [the war criminals], they are rewriting history – no-one will treat them as friends", the comment says, referring to some Japanese right-wing figures' dismissive remarks. Tokyo has issued apologies, but many Chinese people believe they are not profuse enough. "Japan keeps sending a conflicting message," Prof Shin says, referring to instances where leaders have contradicted each other in their statements on Japan's wartime history. For years, in Chinese history classes, students have been shown a photo of former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt kneeling before a memorial to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1970. The Chinese expect a similar gesture from Japan. This wasn't always the case, though. When Japan surrendered in 1945, the turbulence in China did not end. For the next three years, the Nationalist Kuomintang – then the ruling government and the main source of Chinese resistance against Japan – fought a civil war against Mao Zedong's Communist Party forces. That war ended with Mao's victory and the Kuomintang's retreat to Taiwan. Mao, whose priority was to build a communist nation, avoided focusing on Japanese war crimes. Commemorations celebrated the Party's victory and criticised the Kuomintang. He also needed Japan's support on the international stage. Tokyo, in fact, was one of the first major powers to recognise his regime. It wasn't until the 1980s - after Mao's death - that the Japanese occupation returned to haunt the relationship between Beijing and Tokyo. By then, Japan was a wealthy Western ally with a booming economy. Revisions to Japanese textbooks began to spark controversy, with China and South Korea accusing Japan of whitewashing its wartime atrocities. China had just begun to open up, and South Korea was in transition from military rule to democracy. As Chinese leaders moved away from Mao – and his destructive legacy – the trauma of what happened under Japanese attack became a unifying narrative for the Communist Party, says Yinan He, associate professor of international relations at Lehigh University in the US. "After the Cultural Revolution, Chinese people for the large part were disillusioned by communism," she told the BBC. "Since communism lost its appeal, you need nationalism. And Japan is [an] easy target because that's the most recent external [aggressor]." She describes a "choreographed representation of the past", where commemorations of 1945 often downplay the contributions of the US and the Kuomintang, and are accompanied by growing scrutiny of Japan's official stance on its wartime actions. What hasn't helped is the denial of war crimes - prominent right-wing Japanese don't accept the Nanjing massacre ever happened, or that Japanese soldiers forced so many women into sexual slavery - and recent visits by officials to the Yasukuni Shrine, which honours Japan's war dead, including convicted war criminals. This hostility between China and Japan has spilled over into everyday lives as nationalism online peaks - Chinese and Japanese people have been attacked in each other's countries. A Japanese schoolboy was killed in Shenzhen last year. China's economic rise and assertiveness in the region and beyond has changed the dynamic between the two countries again. It has surpassed Japan as a global power. The best time to seek closure – the 1970s, when the countries were closer - has passed, Prof He says. "They simply said, let's forget about that, let's set that aside. They've never dealt with the history – and now the problem has come back to haunt them again." Japan's 75-year pacifism hangs in balance as new threats loom China and Japan: Seven decades of bitterness Disfigured, shamed and forgotten: BBC visits the Korean survivors of the Hiroshima bomb Japan was the future but it's stuck in the past
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Oasis faces backlash in South Korea over controversial sunrise video
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