March 1-2, 2015 U.S.S. Alabama Memorial Park

Today’s journey took us to the USS Alabama Memorial Park.  The park consists of the Battleship – USS Alabama; Submarine – USS Drum; Aircraft Pavilion; Military Equipment, and Park Memorials.  This park is HUGE!

Our first stop was the Battleship USS Alabama:

“USS Alabama (BB-60), a South Dakota-class battleship, was the sixth ship of the United States Navy named after the US state of Alabama. Alabama was commissioned in 1942 and served in World War II in the Atlantic and Pacific theaters. She was decommissioned in 1947 and assigned to the reserve duty. She was retired in 1962. In 1964, Alabama was taken to Mobile Bay and opened as a museum ship the following year. The ship was added to the National Historic Landmark registry in 1986.”

More information can be found here:

http://www.ussalabama.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Alabama_(BB-60)

There are three self guided tours thru the ship and we took all three. 

The ship:

My captain – :

Since it called for rain today, we decided to do the outside of the ship first. The ship was open to the eighth level and we explored every level.

So many guns and they were huge:

Armament:

• 9 - 16"/45 cal. Guns (3 turrets)
• 20 - 5"/38 cal. Guns (10 mounts)
• 48 - 40mm Guns (12 mounts)
• 52- 20mm Guns

Can you imagine what the sound must have been like when they were being attacked!

This is the entrance to the conning tower – notice the 16” thick armor plate. When the ship was under enemy attack, the captain would command the ship from inside this tower.

Officers cabin:

One of the eating areas:

One of the bunk areas:

There were over 2000 men that served on this ship at one time.  When I saw those bunks, all I could think about was those WWII movies where the ship is always rocking and water spraying up over the deck.  Can you imagine what it must have been like to live here?  I have so much more respect for our servicemen after doing these tours.

A first:

The infirmary:

Never knew this:

As we walked around, we also thought about all of those men who lost their lives on a ship like this, especially Pearl Harbor.

Very emotional!

Some of the ships visitor’s:

After our tours, we had lunch and then went to the Submarine – USS Drum  (http://www.drum228.org/):

The forward torpedo room:

Control room:

In the above picture, notice the ladder on the left. We were able to go up that ladder into the periscope tower.

Here is the entrance:

Yep, it was a tight fit but it was COOL!:

One of the bunk areas:

Another control area:

Very, very, tight quarters! 

We made our way into the Aircraft Pavilion.  One of the displays – A-12 Blackbird – the fastest jet airplane in the world:

A few of the outdoor displays:

What a great place!  I highly recommended going here if you are in this area.  It gave me a greater understanding and respect for our servicemen and women.  One day is not enough to see this whole park so if you go, do the ship, sub, and pavilion one day.  Another day do all the outside displays.  The cost for the outside displays is only $2.00 for parking.

There is an app available at the Apple Store and the Google Play entitled USS Alabama which gives you all the information and pictures of the tours, ships, displays, etc.

By the time we got home, we were pooped!

The rains came in later that night and on Monday, 2nd, it rained off and on most of the day.  So I did some cleaning and laundry and made plans to stay here until Friday.

So stay tuned for more adventures and enjoy today.