Sunday morning started similar to Saturday, with a nice breakfast at the hotel. Our plan for the day was to see some more sights, then get on the highway before noon.
Our sight of the day was the USS Yorktown at Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum. Just getting there turned out to be an adventure. We followed Route 17, which took us across a very cool suspension bridge, as seen in background of the photo below.
From the brochure:
The Yorktown (CV-10) is the tenth aircraft carrier to serve in the US Navy. She was named for the Yorktown (CV-5), lost while repelling the Japanese Fleet at the Battle of Midway in 1942. Built in Newport News, Virginia, as an Essex-class carrier, the new Yorktown was commissioned on April 15, 1943. Yorktown played a significant role in the Pacific offensive which began in late 1943 and ended with the defeat of Japan in 1945. Yorktown received the Presidential Unit Citation and earned 11 battle stars for World War II service. Yorktown was featured in the 1944 Academy Award-winning documentary motion picture “The Fighting Lady” and in the 1970 picture “Tora! Tora! Tora!”.
The 888-foot Yorktown displaced 27,100 tons during WWII and carried a crew of 380 officers, 3,088 enlisted men, and an air group of 90 planes. In the 1950s, she was modified with the addition of an angled deck for jets, which increased her displacement to 41,000, and then she was converted to an antisubmarine carrier. In this capacity, she served in the Vietnam War in the 1960s and in 1968 recovered the Apollo 8 astronauts, the first men to reach the vicinity of the Moon. Decommissioned two years later, the Yorktown was towed from New Jersey to Charleston and dedicated as a museum in 1975.
Once onboard, we were greeted by a very nice veteran. He handed us a brochure and told us all about the ship. He recommended that we tour the flight deck first before it got too hot outside.
The flight deck tour was my favorite – big surprise. Not only did we get to walk among some fabulous jets, we also got to go up into the “island”, including the radar room and the bridge. Andrew enjoyed sitting in the captain’s seat.
The next tour included the main hangar bays and the engine room. The hangar bay included some WWII classics, including the Hellcat, Corsair, Avenger, Wildcat, and Dauntless. There was even a B-25 Mitchell hanging from the ceiling over the snack bar. Down below, we got to see the furnaces that were used to generate steam to turn the 22 inch candy-striped propeller shafts that drive the giant ship through the sea. We quickly learned that the staircases are very steep, narrow, and tricky to navigate.
The final tour included the living and working areas. Andrew loved the elevator room, with its huge engines that drove the hangar bay elevators up and down. We walked past the brig – where they lock up prisoners – and found that one prisoner was long forgotten; all that was left of him was his bones. We were surprised at the number of dentist offices. I was amused by a recipe that was hanging on the wall – 10,000 chocolate chip cookies. Can you imagine that?
Once completed, we quickly toured the USS Clamagore submarine that was parked next to the Yorktown. From the brochure:
The 322 foot diesel-powered submarine Clamagore (SS-343) was commissioned at New London, Connecticut in June 1945, a few weeks before the end of WWII. She spent her 30-year career operating out of Key West, Charleston, and New London, modified first to Guppy II and then to Guppy III, the final configuration attained by the diesel submarines before the introduction of nuclear submarines. She is the only Guppy III surviving as a museum ship. Clamagore was decommissioned at Philadelphia in 1975 and towed to Patriots Point in 1981.
Before leaving for home, I ordered a pork sandwich from the snack shop, hoping to fulfill my craving. It was good, but by no means great. So, after two days in South Carolina, I’m still longing for a good barbecue sandwich.
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