Yet again a bright sunny day, although a little cooler first thing. We eventually climbed into the low 70’s.
This morning we headed about 40 miles NW to Mobile (pronounced Mobeel), in search of the USS Alabama, a WW2 battleship. It wasn’t quite where the TomTom said it should be, but we were close enough that we could find it.
Driving into the parking lot we were greeted by an number of out door exhibits including tanks, fighter jets and bombers. There was a B52 there, which is a pretty large 8 engined bomber, I have no idea how they got it there, but there must be an interesting trip report somewhere.
The main attraction was the Battleship weighting in at 35,000 tons with 9 16″ guns and countless smaller guns all over the place. Three designated tour routes were laid out within the ship which took you through the living quarters, combat areas, galley, engine room etc. The sleeping quarters for enlisted men were an eye opener, bunk beds 4 high packed into any available space below decks, no privacy or personal space at all. The exhibit was very well done, with very little added display areas, they simply showed the ship as it was.
Next stop was the aviation hangar, this houses mostly fighters ranging from WW2 through to present day. In addition there was an A-12 Blackbird, which was the predecessor to one of my favourite planes the SR-71 Blackbird, a reconnaissance aircraft capable of Mach 3.5and flying at over 100,000ft
Next stop was a tour of a submarine. After seeing the accommodation on the battleship, I figured it must be much worse on a sub! Although the sub was small, and every piece of space filled with equipment, the living / sleep area seemed more spacious.
The hatches between each of the compartments was only about 2.5 ft by 4ft, with the bottom of the opening about 18″ off the deck. Finally manged to get through them without damaging my head or shins!
All in all an excellent set of exhibits, well worth visiting.
As we were now in the big city of Mobile, there just happened to be a few craft shops that Lyn had noticed in her Internet searching. Luckily I had been pre-warned and brought a book with me!!