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USS North Carolina

USS North Carolina (BB-55) was the lead ship of North Carolina-class battleships and the fourth warship in the U.S. Navy to be named for the State of North Carolina. She was the first newly constructed American battleship to enter service during World War II, and took part in every major naval offensive in the Pacific Theater of Operations; her 15 battle stars[4] made her the most decorated American battleship of World War II. She is now a museum ship and memorial kept at the seaport of Wilmington, North Carolina. (wikipedia)

Entry and Museum

These first pictures are of outside the museum, and inside the museum. In the picture showing the superstructure, the crane is not mounted on the ship, they were doing some dockside work.

Once inside, I took a couple of photos of the display model of the North Carolina, and a couple of the colonial-era North Carolina. Unfortunately, because of the reflections & glare, they didn't turn out so good.

Climbing Aboard

Going up the gangplank, I stopped and took a picture of the boat boom. This particular boat boom is on the after end of the ship, around the fantail.

Once aboard, you come upon this half-wall, with several 20mm guns.

This is a cable that was wrapped around turret 3 several times. I wanted to get a close-up of the eye the cable made, as well as the heart that the cable is wrapped around.

I thought the aircraft crane was interesting. You'll notice that, right above where the wing of the Kingfisher aircraft passes in front of the plane, there's a hydraulic cylinder on the crane structure. However, I didn't see a piston that would normally be associated to a hydraulic cylinder.

This is a twin 40 mm gun tub. [DSC00102] Around this gun was some bolted-together structure (part of fire direction control?), and those nuts & bolts were big! I took this picture, using a quarter as a reference, to give an idea of how big the bolts are.