Battleship North Carolina

Today, Uncle Mait rode his bike to work so we could have his car to go to the Battleship North Carolina.  We got there by 11 AM.  It was super quiet with very few people around.

Andrew was so excited to see all the guns so after we tortured him with the movie and the scale models of the 5 ships named North Carolina we finally made it to the ship. 

We also learned that the Battleship began being built in 1937 and she was commissioned in April of 1941.  she participated in every major naval offensive in the Pacific during WWII.  She earned 15 battle stars.  She carried out 9 shore bombardments, sank an enemy ship, destroyed at least 24 enemy aircrafts and assisted in many more.  One of the kingfisher pilots helped rescue 10 Navy aviators.    She was only hit once by a Japanese torpedo in September of 1942.   She lost only 10 men and had 67 wounded.  She was decommissioned in June 1947.

First thing Andrew saw...

this gun.  He was ready to shoot down the enemies.

 We stood at the front of the ship and saw this Coast Guard ship across the river.

 When we turned around, we saw this.

We went into a gun turret and saw how they loaded the cannons.

 Then we headed down below to see the engine room, the mess hall, laundry, post office, bakery, chapel, butcher shop, galley, barber shop, prints shop, head, sick bay, dive locker, ship's offices, machine shop, plotting rooms, magazine and projectile storage, coding room, radio central the racks (sleeping quarters/berthing areas) and lots more.

I didn't get any pictures because they were all heading in different directions and I was trying to read and learn something too.

We got back on deck and we saw this sign about a pelorus.  I want to learn more so I took a picture to remind me.

 The kids climbed into another gun mount.

 Then another gun - Andrew and Skylar liked this one especially because they moved around to shoot down airplanes.  It took 8 people to run this gun.

 After touring the ship we visited the gift shop for postcards and smashed pennies.  Then we went to get lunch since it was after 2 PM.  We grabbed lunch at Taco Bell and then went to the park to run around.

When we got home, we played with the dogs, created pictures with stickers, ate dinner, watched a little TV and headed to bed.  Uncle Mait and Jenny had a holiday party to attend so we didn't get to see them tonight.