USS North Carolina

While Connie stayed home working, Ed did this tour alone. I did the full ship tour, it was really cool.

Construction started on October 27, 1937, New York Navy Yard, Brooklyn, New York. She was the first battleship to be constructed in sixteen years and first of 10 fast battleships. The USS North Carolina was launched June 13, 1940 and commissioned on April 9, 1941.

The North Carolina is 728 feet long and 108 feet wide. Fully loaded, she displaced 44,800 tons.

This huge battleship’s armament included nine 16-inch/45 caliber guns in three turrets, twenty 5-inch/38 caliber guns in ten twin mounts and sixty 40-mm/56 caliber guns in fifteen quadruple mounts.

She was crewed by 144 commissioned officers and 2,195 enlisted men, including 86 Marines.

The USS North Carolina comes out of WW2 as the most decorated ship in the US Navy. She participated in every major naval offensive in the Pacific area of operations and earned 15 battle stars.

Imagine commanding this ship.

The guns

The shells are over 2,000 lbs and deadly – a salvo of 9 can destroy a square mile.

The halls and stairs

All the rooms – fun fact: all the food and papers were left when the last crew left the ship. Wanna try a 70 year old Milky Way?

Major food making every day. 1,500 loaves of bread a meal.

Mass celebrated in the mess.

The average age of the sailor was just 18 and they didn’t earn much to defend the world.