Museums worth a stop or specific trip

[John 3rd]

ORIGINAL: btd64

USS Constitution. Oldest commissioned ship in the navy. Boston Harbor. Take the tour....GP

AMAZING Tour and wessel! Don't forget the USS Sullivans is right next door to the Constitution.

[btd64]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

ORIGINAL: btd64

Airforce museum in Dayton, Ohio. Full day easy....GP

5000th

Congrats on #5000!

Thanks....GP

[rustysi]

I've been meaning to visit the Artillery museum at Ft. Sill, OK. They have a lot of self-propelled stuff I'd really like to see.

Last time I was there all the 'inside' stuff was by 'appointment' only. I think not enough visitors?

If you take the time to go there you should stop at the 45th ID museum in OKC. Decent size, though not overly large. Lots of good stuff inside and out. I can easily spend a whole day there and did almost every time I was out there on business. You know they ended up in Munich at wars end, and had been in Hitlers' apartment. At on time they had a lamp made of human skin. Returned it to Germany at their request.

[rustysi]

ORIGINAL: geofflambert

I had been to the ordinance museum at Aberdeen Proving grounds but they moved all the stuff to Ft. Lee, VA. Besides all the vehicles they have some huge railguns.

I thought it was Richmond, or are they really close? Don't know.

Had been to Aberdeen in the mid '80's, then again around 2010, and they had really let the items go to pot. Main reason for the move I believe. They had no funds to maintain the displays.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

ORIGINAL: btd64

USS Constitution. Oldest commissioned ship in the navy. Boston Harbor. Take the tour....GP

AMAZING Tour and wessel! Don't forget the USS Sullivans is right next door to the Constitution.

No she's not, she's in Buffalo [:)]

There is a Gearing down at "Battleship Cove", however.

[Mike Dubost]

I have a couple of suggestions.

Quite a few years ago, I was in the Boston area and I went aboard the cruiser Quincy. My father had been there shortly before and mentioned that he’d gotten a tour of the engine room. When I asked about this, the volunteer I spoke to said that they normally did not do that. However, it was a slow day, and I had asked, so he would. Then we went down the engine room and he proceeded to spend nearly an hour pointing out all the machinery and telling me stories of his time in the engine room of a similar cruiser. I got the impression that I was one of his better recent audiences.

If you are in the San Francisco area and want to see some military sites, the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) has shore defenses of multiple time periods. Everything from Fort Point (right under the south side of the Golden Gate bridge) to the Nike Hercules missile batteries on the headlands north of the bridge.

When I was in grade school, I recall visiting Fort Point and seeing a reproduction of the plans for the fort hanging in the visitor’s center, complete with facsimile of the approval of the plans by Secretary of War Jefferson Davie. Yes, that Jefferson Davis. I later read Richard Henry Dana’s account of his return to California in the late 1850’s, in which he mentioned visiting the fort under construction. The engineer in charge was “the son of the celebrated Mexican War hero” Robert E. Lee!

By going north of the bridge, you can see Spanish American War vintage shore batteries, and some WWII vintage emplacements too. I am not sure what is open to visitors nowadays, but in the 1980’s, when I was a teen, quite a few of them were more or less open, at most, a chain link fence you could squeeze through gaps in.

I do know that the Nike Hercules batteries are open for visitors. If you look at the GGNRA’s website, you can see when they have docents there.

[rustysi]

There is a Gearing down at "Battleship Cove", however.

Falls River, SE of Boston.

Was on the Constitution back in the day when I was stationed up that way. Things like that always send a shiver up my spine when I visit them. The history ya know. Happens every time, even places I've visited multiple times, like Ticonderoga. Took my daughter and one of her friends' through there once when we were up that way. The girls didn't get it. Just couldn't impress upon them the meaning of the place. Maybe now that they're older they appreciate what they saw.

[ushakov]

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

ORIGINAL: btd64

USS Constitution. Oldest commissioned ship in the navy. Boston Harbor. Take the tour....GP

AMAZING Tour and wessel! Don't forget the USS Sullivans is right next door to the Constitution.

No she's not, she's in Buffalo [:)]

There is a Gearing down at "Battleship Cove", however.

To clarify, there *is* a Fletcher-class destroyer in the next berth over from the Constitution, but instead of The Sullivans it's the USS Cassin Young.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: ushakov

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

ORIGINAL: John 3rd



AMAZING Tour and wessel! Don't forget the USS Sullivans is right next door to the Constitution.

No she's not, she's in Buffalo [:)]

There is a Gearing down at "Battleship Cove", however.

To clarify, there *is* a Fletcher-class destroyer in the next berth over from the Constitution, but instead of The Sullivans it's the USS Cassin Young.

Uh, yep. That's even on my Google maps but when the pins are on top of each other... well, I missed it.