Had a young nephew visiting yesterday and decided to take him and a friend's son (ages 11 & 12) the the Battleship Texas for a few hours of climbing around and exploring. Little did we know how special the trip would turn out to be.
Yesterday the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and the folks at the ship hosted a crew member reunion. They had a temp.section of the deck cordoned off for the VIPs reception before they toured the ship. TPWD and battleship staff were all over the place answering questions, telling everyone what was happening and granting special access to the vets and their families.
We got real lucky and was able to meet some of the guys, and listened to a lot of stories about the ship.
We ran across a number of the old fellas sitting below decks with their family and friends telling about the space they were in and how that is where they lived, worked, slept, etc. Some of those guys even got all the way down to just above the engine room, and up to the pilot house.
The daughter of the XO that served on the ship during the Normandy invasion was there with her family, she had not visited the ship since the 40's. The TPWD folks opened up the pilot house for her and her group to enter. We got to tag along, meet her and her son who had brought family pictures from the time his grandfather served. The three of us got to look at actual charts, pictures, and hear him retell a few of his grandfathers stories of the ship when it engaged German shore batteries during WWII. They had pictures of the damage caused when they got hit by a shell right below where we were standing, causing the only combat death the ship ever suffered to the helmsman standing right where we were. Pictures of shell splashes that missed and pictures of the beach they fired on, charts that they used to navigate during the battle. He also had pictures of the Kamikaze plane attacking the ship after she moved to the Pacific to support the invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa.
Lot of the maintenance staff was also on duty yesterday and we got the story on the recent flooding, how they fixed it, the money problems that plague the ship, etc.
This was the next to last reunion scheduled. The next, and final one, will be in two years for the 100th anniversary of the ships commissioning. The staff are not real confident that there ever be as many crew members on the ship ever again, (one member who was planning to attend the event passed last week).
The young men will remember this trip for a long time.
Just hope we can make the ceremonies in two years.
Yesterday the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and the folks at the ship hosted a crew member reunion. They had a temp.section of the deck cordoned off for the VIPs reception before they toured the ship. TPWD and battleship staff were all over the place answering questions, telling everyone what was happening and granting special access to the vets and their families.
We got real lucky and was able to meet some of the guys, and listened to a lot of stories about the ship.
We ran across a number of the old fellas sitting below decks with their family and friends telling about the space they were in and how that is where they lived, worked, slept, etc. Some of those guys even got all the way down to just above the engine room, and up to the pilot house.
The daughter of the XO that served on the ship during the Normandy invasion was there with her family, she had not visited the ship since the 40's. The TPWD folks opened up the pilot house for her and her group to enter. We got to tag along, meet her and her son who had brought family pictures from the time his grandfather served. The three of us got to look at actual charts, pictures, and hear him retell a few of his grandfathers stories of the ship when it engaged German shore batteries during WWII. They had pictures of the damage caused when they got hit by a shell right below where we were standing, causing the only combat death the ship ever suffered to the helmsman standing right where we were. Pictures of shell splashes that missed and pictures of the beach they fired on, charts that they used to navigate during the battle. He also had pictures of the Kamikaze plane attacking the ship after she moved to the Pacific to support the invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa.
Lot of the maintenance staff was also on duty yesterday and we got the story on the recent flooding, how they fixed it, the money problems that plague the ship, etc.
This was the next to last reunion scheduled. The next, and final one, will be in two years for the 100th anniversary of the ships commissioning. The staff are not real confident that there ever be as many crew members on the ship ever again, (one member who was planning to attend the event passed last week).
The young men will remember this trip for a long time.
Just hope we can make the ceremonies in two years.
