Several years ago I visited the battleship USS North Carolina. Thought some of you might be interested in a few photo’s I took. In one of the photos you will see a bearded individual manning a 20mm. That my friends is me. The photo actually came out looking like an action shot. I had asked some older lady who was passing by if she would take my picture at the gun. Well, when she hit the shutter she moved her arm and this photo is the result.
I’d sure hate to be in one of those quad mounds above those 5" twins… I’d be asking, “what did you say?”
Very Nice set of pictures, Laconia.
Thank you for posting them, its’ a pleasure to see them, and you.
Also good to know the old girl looks to be in reasonable condition: there are too few capital ships anywhere these days in good condition, they are very much a dieing class.
Kind and Respectful Regards, Uyraell.
Actually she isin bad need of some significant hull repair.
Same for several preserved warships.
There is quite a difficult issue in moving the NC.
Then there is the funding.
Sadly, all too often the case.
But when those currently in authority are of the generation where mom’s frypan probably shot down 5 enemy aircraft, it’s almost guaranteed the generation in authority have respect only for re-election and budgetary priorities that ignore our history and the preservation thereof: it’s cheaper to render lip-service, then piously “mourn” when the historic entity itself has rotted away due to neglect by those same authorities.
Kind and Respectful Regards Forager my friend, Uyraell.
When I visited, I guess it was about 15 years ago, she looked in real good shape to me. You were able to go in just about all parts of the ship. Everything was like it was in 1945. The old fans, radios, books, furniture from that era, it was real neat. The most impressive was the engineering area. All those steam pipes going every which way. Also, the CIC (Combat Information Center) was pretty neat to see also.
Thanks for posting these pictures Laconia. She’s a nice old ship.