A problem: it is just too dark inside the hangar deck display area for successful shooting with a cheezy flash camera, so I don't have much to show from there. There are myriad models and artifacts that are lit better, but they're all behind glass, which also doesn't help. But here's some tidbits...
A weary-looking Skyhawk, probably very happy to be resting aboard "the Fighting I" rather than having been shoved overboard or mothballed in the desert somewhere...
Well, I'll be... seems you can't visit an aviation-related museum without finding some tribute to young Fozzer's early flying exploits!
There's a whole lot more to see inside, but forget trying to photograph it with what I've brought. so let's step out onto the grounds at street level.
Here's the Fighting I's neighbor, the USS Growler. This small sub carried two Regulus guided missiles with nuclear warheads, kept in watertight hangars on deck. You can see one there, on its launcher.Commisioned in 1958, she furtively patrolled the deep as a nuclear deterrent for only 6 years, when the Polaris-equipped subs rendered her kind obsolete. She was towed 6,500 miles(!) in 1988 for conversion to museum status. It's an amazing vessel to visit, but the line was way too long, and it's so cramped inside, pictures are nearly impossible.
Here's a mighty M60 "Patton" tank- not sure of the history of this one...
And a Soviet-built T72, captured from Iraqi forces in 1991 by the USMC...that's a hunk of the Berlin Wall there on the left...
Here's something new since my last visit: a modest 9/11 memorial made from debris of the Twin Towers.
Next (finally): The Flight Deck!
