OT - USS North Carolina

[bighinvegas]

I was able to visit the USS North Carolina in Wilmington. Here are some pictures.

[bighinvegas]

Here are the missions and awards earned in WWII. Nine shore bombardments, one merchant ship sunk and twenty-four planes confirmed shot down.

[bighinvegas]

A look from the bow toward the main armament.

[bighinvegas]

Ships bell.

[bighinvegas]

Fire control room and fire control radar.

[bighinvegas]

Gun controls

[bighinvegas]

Chapel in the mess room.

[bighinvegas]

engine control panel.

[bighinvegas]

By the way the ship is very secure in her berth, it is guarded by alligators!

[bighinvegas]

Here I am posing by the ship's bell of her predecessor, the Armored Cruiser North Carolina.

[paulderynck]

I was there in October 2009. A better tour than the Missouri in Pearl Harbor, as much more of the ship is accessible. Not all that far to drive to Charleston while your at it, and see the Yorktown (II).

Would have been a great ship to serve on - active from the beginning (for the USA) to the end of WWII and 10 killed out of a complement of 2500.

[Viktor_Kormel_slith]

It´s far away from me but I´d love to visit it!

[Klydon]

Great pictures!

Notice in the back ground of the fire control picture, you see a slit to look out. This picture is inside the armored tower (14 inches thick) and looking at the slit, you get an idea of how thick it is.

Ship does have a lot of access compared to some others I have visited, but I also suspect the access is a bit different on each ship. I have visited the USS New Jersey. Part of the deal with that ship is she was modernized for service in the 1980's, so for instance, the flag spaces have been completely changed. One of the coolest things was access to get into #2 main turret into the local fire control positions in the aft end of the turret. A trip to the New Jersey site is worth it as not only can you visit the New Jersey, but Admiral Dewey's flagship, the USS Olympia, is right across the river along with a WW2 sub that was part of the GUPPY conversion program.

One of my best visits was to tour the Mikasa (flagship of Admiral Togo) while I was in Japan.

A final note. Several of these museum ships had parts stripped from them when President Reagan ordered the 4 Iowa class battleships back to service and the parts were needed to get the Iowa's fully operational. (They used original equipment for gun fire control, etc).

[michaelbaldur]

we (Denmark)have no surviving WWII ships. that is really a shame.

but they were all sunk/scrapped

[gw15]

My father helped build that ship and the Alabama. We visited both and he would point out the steel plates he had welded on. He worked at the Mobile and Norfolk yards. In 1944 he was called up and fought the Japanese across the Pacific. Not really fought but followed close behind in a rescue boat for downed flyers. It was like a PT boat but did not have torpedos. He wanted to join the navy but in talking with the army they told him they had more boats than the navy so he joined the army. He did almost encounter some Japanese in a cave when sovenier hunting. They came out the next day and surrenderd but he didn't know they were hiding in there. He found a battle flag in that cave but it got lost over the years.
He was scheduled to invade Japan and then the bomb dropped. I guess I wouldn't be writing this if atomics were not used.