MovieChat Forums > Battle 360 (2008) Discussion > The Navy Museum

The Navy Museum

posted 16 years ago by mark-1306
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This Show Ticks me Off Why? Because they couldn't save this amazing ship and turn it into a museum to be enjoyed by the people it served for decades to come. The Intrepid is cool and all, but it's not the "Big E".

I've got a pretty heavy interest in Naval history, especially WWII. My interest spiked recently when I moved to Pensacola to work as an air traffic controller. 90% of the aircraft I work are Navy and Marine primary students who will eventually be serving on carriers and ships.

One of the highlights of being here is the Naval Aviation Museum. If you're ever in the Florida panhandle, you need to visit this place. It's free to the public and open 7 days a week. I've been to quite a few aviation museums in my time, but this one is my favorite. Unlike, say, the Udvar-Hazy Smithsonian Annex at Dulles, you can actually walk up to and touch the airplanes. You can feel the fabric of a Dauntless' wing, or literally kick the tires of a Hellcat. Also, the people who serve as guides are actually Navy veterans, many of whom actually flew these planes in combat.

My favorite part of the musuem is the exhibit dedicated to the "Big E". They have an extremely impressive model of the ship along with artifacts from the ship and it's crew.
http://www.navalaviationmuseum.org/getdoc/d4dfe455-a9d9-4c87-a660-c47e 08458d24/USS-Enterprise.aspx

[–] xerses13 16 years ago

Thanks for the link to that great site. It was to bad about the ENTERPRISE not being preserved. Must have caught in some sort of political spat and the country lost out. Same thing happened in Chicago. We had a WWII USS SILVERSIDES (SS-236) but the political party in charge at the time and its Mayor did not feel that its history was culturally relevant to them so now it is in Michigan.