Places of Interest

[Wild Geese]

OK, not precisely IN New Orleans, but very close.

If you can make your way up to Baton Rouge, the USS Kidd is afloat on the east bank of the Mississippi.
Scary cool.
I had the good fortune of going there early one cool, foggy December Sunday morning about 30 years ago.
Driving towards the river this vessel arises out of the mists, her starboard side towards you.
The radar was rotating, the flags were flying, all guns have canvas muzzel covers & bracing belts, there are ammo cans in all of the ready-ammo cabinets, 5" ammo in the 5 turrets appears to have just come up from below, ropes are coiled & in place, the CIC is ready, with each member's marked helmets sitting at their stations, there's 'food' on the tables in the mess & Betty Grable pictures in crew spaces . . . it appears that the crew JUST walked off, leaving her ready to sail.

She's sitting in a specially built cradle, facing up river, so that in all but the lowest water she's afloat, but allowing one to view her hull when the river is at it's lowest.

And an excellent WWII museum is on shore . . . WELL worth the time . . .

Wild Geese

[redleg]

Thanks for the tip on the USS Kidd, Wild Geese! I didn't know it was there, but I will definitely check it out on my next trip that way. I believe we will be in New Orleans in a year or two so perhaps I will take a little drive!

[redleg]

I had a chance to visit the USS Midway Museum again this past weekend. I’m not going to go into a lot of detail since I posted photos earlier in this thread, but I wanted to provide a word of warning to anyone planning to visit the ship in the next month or so: The ship is decorated for the holidays, and that includes draping Christmas lights all over the aircraft on the flight deck. It’s festive and everything, but if you are looking to take photos of aircraft, it’s kind of a bummer to have them covered with lights.

The ship is still spectacular. I have been twice this year and I will go back many more times, but my photo taking was minimal this visit. On a bright note – I did the Island Tour this visit, which I skipped last time. Well worth the wait to get a guided tour of the bridge, pri-fly, vultures row, the tunnel of love, etc.

While on the bridge a snapped a pic of this board. The bridge and CIC are set up as they appeared during Desert Storm, so they were tracking the ships of these 3 battle groups. What I thought was funny was that the ships seemed to have pretty cool call signs, but Midway was operating as “School Boy”. I asked the tour guide why “School Boy”, but he didn’t know.


And a bonus – the USS Abraham Lincoln was in port across the bay at North Island.