Wednesday May 12, 2021.
Temp: 59 (at 4:00am)/50, Humidity: 38/70%, Top Wind: N14mph, Precip – Rainy morning, Miles Traveled: 4 miles on foot
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Our mission today was to go visit a Battleship. We’ve never seen a battleship, so I really wanted to go check it out, and it’s literally RIGHT HERE, like two blocks away! The day started out cold and rainy, and it actually got colder as the day went on. The sun finally broke through the clouds about 7:30 this evening, so tomorrow looks to be a brighter day.
This is the USS Wisconsin, an Iowa class ship from the World War II era. Look at how loooooong she is!
And I couldn’t believe how skinny she is looking at her head-on! Isn’t that weird looking? It looks like a trick photograph where the middle has been removed. But that is an unaltered picture that I just took today! The Wisconsin is 887’ long, and has a beam of 108’. She drafts over 37’ deep in the water, and goes 38mph.
The USS Wisconsin BB-64 is now a museum here in Norfolk. She was one of four Iowa class battleships, commissioned in April 1944. Wisconsin served in the Pacific Theater of WWII, where she shelled Japanese fortifications and screened United States aircraft carriers as they conducted air raids against enemy positions. During the Korean War, Wisconsin shelled North Korean targets in support of United Nations and South Korean ground operations, after which she was decommissioned. She was reactivated on 1 August 1986. After a modernization program, she participated in Operation Desert Storm in January and February 1991. Wisconsin was last decommissioned in September 1991 after a total of 14 years of active service in the fleet, and having earned a total of six battle stars for service. She was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 17 March 2006, and was donated for permanent use as a museum ship. On 15 April 2010, the City of Norfolk officially took over ownership of the ship.
It is really cool to be able to get on this ship and walk around. They don’t do tours so you can just walk around through all of the areas that they have open for observation. There are lots and lots of information boards, and there are tour hosts all around so that you can ask questions. It was very interesting! Look at those guns!
Being a battleship, her primary purpose is guns. BIG GUNS! These two turrets rotate 270 degrees, and those are 16” barrels.
Another turret in the aft of the ship. These nine big guns are 50 cal. They explained the process of loading them, which all happens down below deck with a 2700 pound enormous ‘bullet’ followed by bags of propellant.
Wisconsin’s main battery consisted of nine 16in/50cal Mark 7 guns which could fire 2,700 lb armor-piercing shells some 20 miles! The secondary battery consisted of 20 5in/38cal guns 20 in ten twin turrets, which could fire at targets up to 10 miles away. With the advent of air power and the need to gain and maintain air superiority came a need to protect the growing fleet of allied aircraft carriers; to this end, Wisconsin was fitted with an array of Oerlikon 20mm and Bogors 40mm anit-aircraft guns to defend allied carriers from enemy airstrikes. When reactivated in 1986, Wisconsin had her 20 mm and 40 mm AA guns removed, and was outfitted with mounts for protection against enemy missiles and aircraft, Armored Bos Launchers and Quad Cell Launchers designed to fire Tomahawk missiles and Harpoon missiles respectively.
Here is a picture of what it looked like when the 50cals were fired. Look at the water! That is some significant turbulence! And no wonder the ship has such a deept draft! It needs a giant keel to keep from tipping over when all of those giant guns fire in the same direction, right?
This was looking up some kind of gun barrel.
And these were for the Tomahawk missiles.
There are marks on the turrets for successful strikes. Each mark denotes a mission for that turret.
The links of the anchor chain are bigger than me.
And this is a looong bow with very long anchor chains.
We were able to go inside and down a couple of decks.
We found officer’s quarters.
And we found NOT officer quarters.
We saw mess halls and a variety of rooms. I was surprised at how low the head clearance was in the hallways and how steep all of the stairs were. The foot treads were narrow, so the stairs were nearly ladders, and I had to turn around and go down them facing the stairs rather than facing out.
It was very interesting to see this massive ship of protection! We watched a seven minute introductory film about the ship, and one of the statements made was that when this battleship showed up, the ground troops knew that they had significant support and protection. The ship was deployed in the Gulf War in early 1991, firing at Iraqi forces as part of Operation Desert Storm. Over five weeks, the battleship blasted 24 missiles and 600 rounds from its nine guns. The naval attack along with air strikes and ground troops ended the Iraqi resistance quickly. The shooting stopped on Feb. 28, 1991, marking the last time a U.S. battleship fired on an enemy.
After we toured the battleship, we wandered around the Nauticus, which is a maritime science center, museum, aquarium, etc. There were excellent exhibits, but we were starving so we didn’t stay long. We walked back to the Waterside complex to go find Guy Fieri’s Smokehouse, because we really wanted those pork nachos. NOOOO! We were so disappointed to see that his restaurant is closed, and there was just a little quickie kiosk kind of station, with nobody working. Most of the establishments were empty of people except for the Blue Moon Taphouse, which wanted $10 per glass of beer. Seriously?!
So we walked back down Granby street and pulled into Tap It Local. It’s a big two-story restaurant that only had two people in it. 🤷♀️. It was just like the rest of Norfolk. There are so few people in this place, it’s kind of eerie. There is very little traffic, probably half of the people walking outside have masks on. None of the restaurants have more than a couple of people in them. There are lots of places that just aren’t open. It’s just so odd. We didn’t check to see what the current Covid rules in Virginia or Norfolk are, but it feels like the place is still locked down. We haven’t been treated like we’re doing anything wrong, but it is just really a deserted city!
Here is our night time view. It is a navy and shipyard town, so there is all kinds of industrial noise going on day and night. It just seems like there should be more life!
Tomorrow looks like there could be WIND…(really?)…. but maybe not too bad, we hope? We’re only going to go about 14 miles over to Hampton. Maybe. I just made an on-line reservation this evening, so hopefully they have a spot for us. We won’t leave here until we know for sure. Kenny is looking forward to a couple of breweries and a donut shop. I’m looking forward to touring around Fort Monroe. We balance each other out pretty well. 😏