We spent the day at USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park.
The park is dedicated to Alabama Veterans, and has on display the USS Alabama,
the submarine USS Drum, and lots of aircraft. We started on the Alabama.
The first self-guided tour took us all round the above decks
and superstructure, including looking into the gun turrets, on the bridge and the
battle bridge – 16 inch thick armour plating. We climbed up to level 8 above
deck, with probably another 3 levels above that. The first thing you notice on
the tour is the ships guns. Her main guns are nine 16 inch / 45 calibre and
accurate to 21 miles. The shells were nearly as tall as a person. She also has twenty
5 inch / 38 cal guns, forty-eight 40mm guns and fifty two 20mm guns. That’s a
lot of guns… It took a crew of 2500 to manage all of that.
Following the above decks tour we did the stern section
below decks tour – a fascinating look into life aboard a WW2 battleship. We saw
the accommodation (pretty packed in), mess halls, the brig, laundry, butchers,
bakers, (no candlestick makers). There was even a tribute to the HMAS Perth and
some info on the Australian naval input into the War in the Pacific.
The Alabama was nicknamed the Lucky A as she survived the war
unscathed, and in fact the only casualties were 5 men killed when one of the
Alabama’s guns accidentally fired into one of her own gun turrets.
We then toured the aircraft pavilion then onto the USS Drum.
The tour takes you down via the forward torpedo room, through the sub, then out
via the after torpedo room. It was interesting, and a little claustrophobic at
times! The Drum is the oldest US sub on display.
Fun fact: The Alabama was used as a set for the movie “Under
Siege”.
Back at the RV park, and apparently the super bowl is on. We
aren’t watching, but we can hear it all play by play.
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