Jack & Jackie's Travels

3. Baton Rouge, LA June 1,2014

We arrived at the Yogi Bear RV Park for a three night stay.

Saturday was pretty much a washout with rain on & off all day. So, we did some house cleaning and reorganizing our stuff. Jackie did the Laundry (Yup, you gotta do those things even in a motorhome.)

Sunday the weather was more contusive to sightseeing and we went to Baton Rouge. We wanted to see the Old State Capital, the USS Kidd and the Capital Building, especially the observation deck which is on the 27^th floor.

We found the Old State Capital was closed so we took pictures from the street and walked around the building. On the grounds were a couple magnificent oak trees. In fact the town is loaded with very impressive trees.

We did find a tower that was on the National Register. It looked like an old water tower to me. I’ll have to do some research and find out what makes it important.

There were interesting sculptures and a car from a French reconnaissance train

We did get a little lost and stumbled upon the Old Governor’s Mansion. (I guess this is where the old governors go).

Then it was on to the USS KIDD. The exhibit includes a museum with memorabilia about and from the ship the sea and many model ships of all kinds

The KIDD is a destroyer, launched February 28, 1943 and was named in honor of Rear Admiral Isaac Kidd. He was killed on the bridge of his flagship the battle ship USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor. There are pictures of the plaques that contain more information.

There is a brochure to follow with 39 stations to tell the visitors what they are looking at. It also helps the flow of visitors. The has 5inch, 20mm & twin and quad 40mm guns, depth charges and torpedoes.

Here is a picture of one of the 5” guns and below decks one of the loaders

The picture (above) is the bridge.

I found the torpedoes to be interesting. In the movies they show a destroyer launching torpedoes from tubes that angle away from the ship. This ship had five tubes. I didn’t see any spare torpedoes so maybe they had to contact a supply ship to reload. The torpedoes were apparently driven by steam.

As you might imagine conditions are cramped and there is little privacy. Here’s a couple of pictures of the crew and officer quarters. It was kind of humorous; I overheard some women asking about where the ladies restrooms were.

All was peaceful until someone yelled “Battle Stations”.

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The KIDD was in action at Okinawa on April 11, 1945 when it was hit by a Kamikaze. 38 were killed and 55 wounded. In the museum there is a display of the airplane parts, a picture of the plane and a Japanese flight suit.

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The losses American in men and material would have been extremely high if they would have invaded Japan. Fortunately……………………..

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The story of the museum is interesting by itself. The were financial and technical problems to be solved. The people came up with good technical solutions for securing the ship in tides that went to approximately 40 feet.

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The model ships were terrific. There was a full scale model of Old Ironsides gun deck. And, an example of what parts of the trees were used to make the various beams of the hull.

On last stop of the day was at the Capital. Although it was Sunday the Senate and House was in session so we couldn’t go into the chambers. We did get to the observation deck and here are some pictures of the view we had.