Tuesday, July 30, 2013

USS Iowa

We are lucky enough to have a battleship permanently docked at the Port of Los Angeles.  The USS Iowa docked just a shade over a year ago and has been a destination spot since its arrival.  We took a tour of it over the summer.

What a fascinating place!  The ship is enormous and with all of the gun turrets and missile launch sites on board, there's absolutely no doubt what this ship was built for: war.  We were amazed to see all of the components of the ship, but were particularly intrigued by the living quarters.  On one of the decks above, we saw the officers quarters.  While not too bad, we definitely found them to be fairly cramped.  However, as we later discovered in seeing the enlisted mens quarters, the officers quarters were luxurious by comparison!  The enlisted men were stacked three bunks high and directly faced an identical stack of three bunks.  Their lockers were slimmer than most lockers you see at a high school, and about three quarters the length.  I can't imagine having that teeny-tiny space as my only space to put my personal belongings.  Then we discovered that these quarters were luxurious as compared to what they looked like before their last makeover.  During World War II the enlisted personnel's quarters were stacked FIVE high, not their current three!  It's hard to imaging living that way.  But how lucky are we that there were so many men who signed up to fight for our country and to protect our way of life.  Truly the Greatest Generation.

Here are a few photos of our adventure:















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