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I had a wonderful tour today of the huge battleship, USS Iowa, which is temporarily at the Port of Richmond CA on its way to Los Angeles. Yeah, I know I'm nuts, but I swear I could sense the music of all the Navy Bands that have served on that gigantic vessel. Like myself, many of the visitors were in their mid-70's. We choked up when we saw Old Glory on the stern blowing proudly in the stiff ocean breeze. It's an experience I'll not forget.

Ace

bloke wrote:Along with the incredible sense of history and shadows of people gone by, the scope of these engineering feats leaves one speechless.

You're right, Joe. My notes indicate this wonderful ship displaces 58,000 tons, is 887 feet long, and has a beam of 108 feet.

Ace

goodgigs wrote:Ace, surly you've toured the USS Hornet ?
Did you know it was built in less then one year ?
I mention this because it is permanently docked in Alameda and
It is the most decorated ship in US Naval history.

Built in less than one year? Incredible. It's been docked there for quite some time. I didn't know it was the most decorated ship.

Ace

bloke wrote:Along with the incredible sense of history and shadows of people gone by, the scope of these engineering feats leaves one speechless.

I agree...about 7 or 8 years ago my son and I stayed over night, with his scout troop, on the USS New Jersey, which is permanently moored in the Delaware River near Campden, NJ. A very impressive vessel,which I believe is also an Iowa class battleship.

ken k

Not so long ago, the Hornet and the Missouri were docked at the shipyard in Bremerton. Used to see them all of the time. They only had the Missouri open for tours the last few years it was in Bremerton. I agree that it (and the other big battlewagons) are quite the engineering feats. They are the most advanced ships of their type in history.

Those ships are awesome. In the mid 80's, I was lucky enough to play the re-commissioning ceremony for the USS New Jersey, in Long Beach CA, while assigned to Navy Band San Diego.

While I have yet to set foot in one of those big navy ships, we do have an air and space museum about 30 minutes from my house. My dad has volunteered up there doing restoration for going on 15 years now and occasionally I get to go up there and help out. Crawling around in those planes is simply amazing! There are what probably add up to miles and miles of cables, wiring, tubing, etc. It boggles my mind that anyone could put something like that together! (obviously it's not just one person) It just seems like there are so many things that could go wrong! It is simply astounding to me, and so those ships are simply all the more amazing!