RV Lifestyle USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park xplore the mighty WWII battleship USS Alabama At the USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park, the and the submarine USS Drum. Both are National Second World War battleship and submarine are the Historic Landmarks. An aircraft pavilion is filled highlights of the bayside park. Many historic warplanes Ewith more than 25 historic planes and military vehicles, are also on display. A Vietnam Memorial and a Korean including the Mach 3 A-12 Blackbird super-secret spy War Memorial honour veterans of those wars on the plane. park grounds. The USS Alabama earned not only nine battle stars, but On self-guided tours of the 175-acre military attraction, also the nickname “Lucky A” from her crew of 2,500 you can view the cockpits of some two dozen aircraft, because she emerged unscathed from the heat of each check out tanks from years gone by, inspect a Vietnam battle. The Alabama saw action in the Atlantic for a year patrol boat and take the controls of a lifelike flight before joining the Pacific Fleet in mid-1943. simulator. There she fought at such key locations as Leyte, the Gilbert USS Alabama Islands and Okinawa. The Alabama served in every major engagement in the Pacific during the Second World War. After the signing of the war-ending surrender documents in September 1945, the Alabama led the American fleet into Tokyo Bay. Displacing more than 40,800 metric tons, the USS Alabama battleship measures 207 metres from stem to stern, half as long as the Empire State Building is tall. Armed with nine, 40-centimetre guns in three turrets and Submarine USS Drum 20, 12-centimetre, .38-caliber guns in 10 twin mounts, her main batteries could fire shells as heavy as a small car accurately for a distance of more than 32 kilometres. The submarine USS Drum (SS-228), a Second World War veteran with 12 Battle Stars is credited with sinking 15 ships, the eighth-highest of all U.S. submarines in total Japanese tonnage sunk. USS Drum is the oldest American submarine on display in the world. 26 | www.snowbirds.org.