I was in Charleston, South Carolina for a cousin's wedding. To be specific, I was in Mount Pleasant, which is right across from the peninsula of the city.
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The day after the wedding, I wanted to see some of the sights. But the day couldn't start off right without a trip to the Huddle House.
If you haven't been to a Huddle House, picture a Waffle House, and take away all of the sophistication and class. If you haven't been to a Waffle House, well, I feel sorry for you.
Yum.
So after breakfast it was off to the main attraction ... the Patriots Point Naval and Maritime Museum!
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This facility is best known as the permanent home of the decommissioned USS Yorktown, a World War II-era aircraft carrier that served in the PTO during the last couple years of the war and then again in Vietnam, before being deployed to retrieve the astronauts of the Apollo 8 mission in 1968. It was the tenth aircraft carrier to be commissioned by the U.S. Navy, and was called "The Fighting Lady," for reasons that are not explained on the brochure. It also appeared in the 1970 movie Tora! Tora! Tora!
As one would expect of an aircraft carrier, it's large. So large that there are in fact several museums within its expansive hull. But the really interesting things are the self-guided tours you can take of the innards of the ship's actual facilities, which have been meticulously preserved, more or less, since its decommissioning in 1970. Not everything is on a tour, but the parts of it that are are pretty cool.
My tour started on the hangar deck, about midway up the carrier, which we'll get to later. I decided to start touring the ship by going up. On the way to the flight deck I passed through the pilot's ready room, where the crews of the fighters and bombers would get instructions on their upcoming mission, and where now visiting tourists get a place to kick back and watch a little TV.
The fun of doing these tours was to stroll down the corridors, pretending that at any point I might need to respond to an attack. Anchored in South Carolina, it's hard to say who would be attacking us, except maybe some disgruntled dolphins.
Sneaking along the corridors meant that periodically I would be creeped out by the wooden people manning the control stations, including this one, the Master Indicator Control Room, just one of the many radar equipment stations I would pass on my journey.
As with most museums, they don't let you have any real fun.
And really, who can resist climbing up on one of these?
Of course, there were no posted instructions telling us we couldn't climb on the guns.
This one I don't have much comment on.
But I couldn't dally on the flight deck, partly because the sideways rain was starting to get to me. Onwards and upwards to the bridge.
It was nice to know that even in the heat of battle, the officers could enjoy a civilized cup of tea. I would probably want one too if I had to drive this thing.
I guess captain of a Navy aircraft carrier was never a career choice I considered very seriously, yet it felt pretty comfortable.
Here is where all the important flag messages came in.
I learned that even though these were tough Navy guys, they weren't ashamed to get a little assistance in the vertical transportation department. Of course, it wasn't without it's hazards, as you can see.
Back down on the hangar deck, they went all out to demonstrate the importance of aviation in the history of America and the military. This effort included a replica not just of the Wright Brothers' plane, but a replica of Orville Wright himself.
Also there were the quasi-inspiring words of Lieutenant Commander John C. Waldron. If you can't read the framed text, it says, "If there is only one plane left to make a final run-in, I want that man to go in and get a hit. May God be with us all."
Also on the hangar deck there was a plane you were allowed to climb on. When I went up there in the cockpit and started playing around with the control stick like a 6-year old boy, I could have sworn I felt some part of the plane move.
And what hangar deck would be complete without a snack bar?
The next segment of the tour involved the "living" parts of the carrier. These were the places where crew members ate, slept, and of course, washed up and shaved. This was the Navy, after all.
Of course now it includes more modern facilities.
And now, the joke that has to be made: How did the aircraft carrier's cafeteria keep its prices so cheap?
Speaking of food, the tour did contain some examples of the food that would be consumed by the crew members, including these several gallons of apple sauce. Unclear whether they added these to the tour for flavor, or if they were in fact left over from 1970.
Obviously the crew members couldn't survive on apple sauce alone. They needed a little something more. But what could do the job of satisfying over 3,000 hungry men?
Want to see what 10,000 unprocessed chocolate chip cookies look like? Why am I even asking?
And in case you need help at your next party ...
I suppose it's no wonder that the crew members found themselves here from time to time.
This sign was pretty cool. It looked like something I might see at MIT.
I also took a tour down into the belly of the beast. This is a glimpse into the engine itself. I believe this is the place where they keep the dilithium crystals.
And heavens help me if I could figure out what any of this stuff was.
It was a fun tour and just about everything was educational in one way or another, even on some topics that really had nothing to do with aircraft carriers.
And where was this educational tidbit located? You guessed it.
Who says military museum curators don't have a sense of humor?
Anyway, the carrier was enormous but I also needed to get a look at the other ships on site. This was the USS Clamagore, named of course for the cocktail often enjoyed by submarine officers after they had passed safely into international waters. Just kidding, I have no idea what or who "Clamagore" was. But the ship is a diesel-powered Guppy class sub that patrolled the dangerous depths between Connecticut and South Carolina from 1945 to 1975.
This was a much easier, much more linear tour as there is only one way in and one way out of the sub, fore to aft. It started in the forward torpedo room. Yes, those are bunks above the torpedos. Yes, the crew members slept above their torpedos. Insert your own joke here.
Again, even in the toughest of conditions, the officers still had a sense of class.
These are the so-called Captain's Quarters, which look like they could just about accommodate a quarter-captain. Ha! Ergh, sorry ...
Next up was the destroyer USS Laffey, known as the "Ship That Wouldn't Die." Sounds like a horror movie, right? Well actually, it got its name from a battle that occurred off Okinawa on April 16, 1945, in which the ship was hit by five kamikazes and three bombs, and managed to stay afloat and get away. It continued to serve the U.S. Navy until 1975.
Unclear whether this sign was installed while the ship was in service, or if it was put up after the ship was decommissioned and turned into a museum. I'm guessing the latter, based on the polite usage of "please."
One of the fun things about this particular ship's tour is that the signage is much more colorful and descriptive. Somewhat disarmingly so.
The name Laffey comes from Seaman Bartlett Laffey, who served in the Civil War. The ship includes an exact replica of what Bartlett Laffey actually looked like. That, or a department store mannequin with a mustache glued onto it.
And this is where you drive the ship.
In the navigation room, where I believe there would normally be radar equipment, there was a plotting of the positions of the aircraft that attacked the Laffey on that fateful day in April, 1945.
This one was a bit of a puzzle to me, but I'm sure someone can interpret what this signifies.
Here of course are the guns that helped the Laffey stand strong under enemy fire and survive. Here they specifically forbade climbing on the guns. In case you can't read it, the blue sign just above the bench says "KEEP OFF!"
Here was a particularly interesting part of the tour for us nerds. According to the sign, this is an actual Mark 1 computer, assembled by the Ford Instrument Company. This would make it one of the first models of digital computer ever created. Like, the kind that was invented at Harvard and programmed by Grace Hopper using one of the first compiling programming languages ever. The information they had on it was a little vague, but I'll take their word. No, I couldn't touch it.
And finally, just a little more of that colorful and poignant maritime museum curator's prose.
The day wore on so I left before checking out the other attractions, including a Coast Guard cutter and a true-to-scale recreation of a Naval Advanced Tactical Support Base in South Vietnam. Bummer! But I did get to examine an aircraft carrier, a submarine and a destroyer. All I need is a cruiser and a battleship, and I'd have a whole fleet.
God bless you, God bless the United States of America, and expect to see more on my next journey.
