Saturday, April 16, 2011


THE BATTLESHIP USS ALABAMA--

I could only imagine the horrors of battle as I walked the decks of this 680 foot long World War II fighting vessel; in its day, one of the country’s most formidable machines of war.

Imagine the decks pulsating under the rage of its 130,000 horsepower engines driving the ship into battle at nearly 30 mph, thrashing through the waves of a heavy sea with its 48 anti-aircraft guns and 52 machine guns pummeling enemy aircraft and surface vessels.

Under battle conditions she weighed 90 million pounds and could hurl 16 inch explosive shells accurately more than 20 miles into enemy forces.  Those projectiles weighed 2,700 pounds.

There were three turrets in armored barbettes with three guns each having 16 inch bores.  Hold your hands16 inches apart and visualize how wide those shells were.

She could roam 15,000 nautical miles non-stop while cruising 15 knots in her theater of war.

Her maximum protective armor was 18 inches thick.

She was commissioned 16 August 1942, just eight months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor which propelled the US into World War II.

I climbed the ladders between her decks and stepped through the countless watertight hatches trying to understand the horrific noise her seaborne warriors must have endured with her guns blazing as she pounded through the sea while being attacked by enemy war planes.

In July 1945 she hurled more than 1,500 tons of bombardment, obliterating an engineering works on an island 50 miles north of Tokyo.

The war ended in August.

When the war ended she was part of the occupation force of Tokyo.  On 20 September 1945 she headed home with some 3,700 passengers from Okinawa.  She and her 2,500 man crew had earned nine battle stars.

She was retired from service in January 1947.


Today, "History Meets Heroism" at the USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park in Mobile Bay near that city's downtown.  The city raised 1 million dollars in 1964 to purchase the ship from the navy and the memorial was opened in 1965.  More than 13 million visitors have toured the facility.  Her hull's bottom is now resting 22 feet below the bottom of the bay.

http://www.ussalabama.com/about.php

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