The Battleship Park

I have lost count of how many times I’ve driven I-10 past Mobile and seen the USS Alabama without stopping to check it out. Not today. 

Let me get this out of the way: there’s too much to see and think about in just one visit. And on this four hour visit I wanted to satisfy my curiousity about one big thing: what was it like to live on board these ships in World War Two?

The answer to that is not very well. 2500 men fought for years aboard the USS Alabama even going so far as to shell mainland Japan in 1945 and they did it in living quarters that would make your hair curl. But if they did rest assured there was a barber on board. And a blacksmith and an armorer as well as butchers bakers electricians and cooks and on and on. They served food 24  hours a day giving one lot breakfast and another watch dinner at the same time. The mind boggles. 

The crew got around 4,000 planned calories a day in a format that makes no concessions to vegetarianism or celiac’s disease. Grilled liver…not my favorite. Actually I hate liver so that might have been a vegetarian day for me, pile on the corn! 

It costs five bucks to park and the place opens at eight. Then you pay $18 to see the ship and the submarine. For people over 55 and military and students it’s fifteen bucks so the whole experience is absurdly inexpensive. You can walk your dog on the grounds which is fabulous and they have kennels while you do the self guided your aboard. Rusty slept in the 50 degree chill aboard GANNET2.

A B52 bomber just sitting next to the parking lot. Hands up anyone who knew Colombia sent soldiers to fight in the Korean War Police Action?

Then they have tanks and cannon scattered around the place including an Iraqi T55 built in Russia and captured in the Gulf War. 

All the way from Iraq to here: 

A Grumman Albatross known to its crews as a “Goat” owing to its slow flying speed of 110 mph and its persistence, translated as an ability to fly in any conditions. Imagine sitting in that flying over Antarctica on a search and rescue mission for hours. 

But in the end I was frozen and the point here was to see the ship. 

But first as they say…I got distracted by the USS Drum.

I spent an hour by myself checking out the submarine and it was fascinating. I was free to walk through as fast or as slow as I like. 

The interior of the sun looks as cramped and complicated as the International Space Station. All wires and tubes and taps. 

I had no idea what to photograph but below is the famous not seen in all movies: the periscope! I was standing edged on a ladder into the conning tower twisted to get the picture which I left as I took it -sideways! 

Always a picture of the galley! Which in this case looks like it could be found in any Waffle House short order kitchen. Underwater. 

Some of the information panels were obviously written by a crew member with find memories and a sense of humor. 

Your work space: 

Electricity in submarines appears as important as it is in van life. 

And if you’re lucky to get to share a bunk with alternating with another crew member next to a spare torpedo. 

The impression I got was that you kept busy and followed training and routines to avoid thinking about claustrophobia and sudden drowning. I suppose too you had to just assume that the worst wasn’t going to happen to you. 

If the sub were to get stuck on the bottom in less than 200 feet you could possibly escape with a Momsen Lung invented by an d finder of that name. You put oxygen in the lung mixed with chemicals to clean carbon dioxide as you breathed and you made a slow ascent to the surface without going to fast or holding your breath and bursting a lung. That display gave me pause. 

In the end I r joyed the submarine more than the battleship I think. But I’ll save that for tomorrow as this post has gone on quite long enough.