Quote:
Originally Posted by W9CMG
Pensacola Naval Air Station has a great naval air museum.
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I'll say. If you have a week or so you could probably see most of it.
And don't miss Battleship Park in Mobile Bay, with USS
Alabama (ww2 battleship), USS
Drum (ww2 submarine) and lots more.
Then there's Pelican Island in Galveston TX, where you can tour USS
Cavalla (ww2 submarine) and a destroyer escort whose name, as we say in Florida, I disremember.
Cavalla is particularly meaningful for me because my father was aboard her on 6/19/44 when she sank IJN
Shokaku, Japanese aircraft carrier, with a spread of six torpedoes as part of the Battle of the Philippine Sea. (
Shokaku was one of the six carriers that attacked Pearl Harbor on 12/7/41.) I believe it was my father, a chief radioman, who transmitted the famous message
Believe that baby sank reporting the attack. "That baby" did sink, but the US Navy couldn't be sure until it was confirmed by a POW some months later. It was a particular thrill to me to tour
Cavalla and sit in the seat my father sat in and touch the radios he used.