USS Alabama and friends

Tuesday, January 8
There is an old WWII destroyer tied up alongside Mobile Bay just next to the City of Mobile. She is the USS Alabama and along with her is the WWII submarine the USS Drum and some military aircraft. Seems like a good way to spend our last day in the area, so off we went down the Interstate about 20 miles. We crossed Mobile Bay and turned in to the park where the Alabama is housed. Admission to the park is $4/vehicle and the admission to the ship and displays is $13 each.

Highway 19 (Battleship Causeway) heads across Mobile Bay parallel to the Interstate.

Lots of fish camps and restaurants along this stretch of road.

Interstate 10 crossing Mobile Bay

Massive cranes at the container port.

The USS Alabama

The USS Alabama was commissioned in 1942 and saw action in the Pacific until the end of the war. She has been tied up here in Mobile since the late 60's. She is nicknamed the 'Lucky A' as she was never hit with any significant enemy fire, such as the dreaded Kamikaze planes. Once during a bombing raid against her a bomb skipped across her bow to explode harmlessly in the ocean. She did have one tragic incident when one of her 5 inch gun batteries accidentally fired into another of her batteries killing six and wounding 11 others.

The Alabama is 680 feet long and 108 across. She weighs in at 45,000 tons when equipped for battle. Her 130,000 horsepower engines can move her at 32 mph and has a range of 15,000 miles. You don't want to mess with her, she has nine 16" guns that can fire projectiles 21 miles. She also has twenty 5" guns, forty eight 40mm guns and fifty two 20mm guns. Wow!

Bristling with guns. 

The ship was welded together. This display shows the multiple passes required to weld two steel plates together.

She shot down 22 Japanese planes and participated in 6 different bombardments of Japanese occupied islands in the South Pacific.

One of the three 16 inch gun turrets. Three guns per turret.

You can see the rifled barrel in the lower center.

Toward the bow.

All those 20mm guns to help shoot down attacking Japanese planes.

Six of the massive 16" guns

40mm guns were very effective shooting down planes.

The rear deck.

Original shrapnel hits from the 5 inch gun incident.

Another shrapnel hit

The back side of the 5 inch gun turret that was hit by a neighboring gun. This is the replacement turret. The shell would have hit in the upper left corner.

The turret on the right shot into the turret on the left.

Inside the five inch gun turret.

The loading mechanism for the 5 inch gun.

The elevator that raised the projectiles from the lower decks to the guns.

16 inch projectile

This crane on the rear deck was used to lift a seaplane onto the deck after it would land near the ship.

The launching catapult for the seaplane.

40 mm gun mechanisms.

Firing platform for the 40mm gun.

An amazing ship above decks and the lower decks are equally impressive. This is a big ship and fully loaded had 2500 men and officers aboard.

Bakery

Kitchen

Bunk room. They slept three deep.

The Brig. You have to do something with a drunken sailor!

Barber shop

Laundry

Spare 20mm gun barrels stacked around the 16 inch gun turret.

Navigation room

Damage control. The officer could monitor ship damage such as water-flooded areas.

Some of the engine room

The projectile elevator loading 

Stockpile of 16 inch projectiles

Powder loading room and elevators that moved the powder to the guns

Three powder charges per firing

One of the powder charges

Surgical unit. 

After looking her over from bow to stern and top to bottom it was time to say goodbye and head over to the USS Drum, the submarine. Certainly not as roomy as the battleship. She was commissioned in 1941 and was involved in 12 battles during WWII. She had a compliment of 72 men and officers. that served and lived in VERY tight quarters. She is 311 feet long and 27 feet wide.

USS Drum

Lots of on-deck guns. Not sure how they operated after being submerged.

Forward torpedo tubes

Torpedo

Not a lot of room on a sub. 

Steering mechanisms.

Periscope

Kitchen

Bunks

Electrical monitoring. The sub ran on batteries when submerged and had to surface to run its diesel engines to recharge.

Engine room

Inside the vertical-opposed cylinder.

Propulsion control

Aft torpedo tubes.

There were some interesting aircraft and other displays on the grounds as well.

Goo ol' DC-3

Mitchell bomber.

Tuskegee P-51 Mustang. The Tuskegee Airmen were an all-black unit and gained a reputation for excellent flying and dependability in escorting bombers in WWII.

When the President was onboard this helicopter was 'Army 1'.

Corsair and a Blackhawk.

WWII-era PT boat

Civil war era submarine. It had a shaft that was turned by a crew of 8 men. Top speed was about 3 mph.

It traveled just barely submerged.

Single gun on the lower bow.

Tire from a Blackbird spy plane after three landings.

Vietnam-era patrol boat

A PBY like Jimmy Buffet flew.

An interesting tour. First time we had been on a battleship or submarine. We headed back to the campground and began packing up. Tomorrow we say good bye to Sweet Home Alabama.

I10 across Mobile Bay

....and that was Our View From Here!