The California Side Trip: The USS Hornet Sea, Air and Space Museum; and picking up Patrick

While killing time until we could pick up Patrick, aka Thing One, from the Oakland Airport; we decided to tour the museum that uses the decommissioned aircraft carrier, USS Hornet CVS12 as its home.

Finding it, from our hotel in Emeryville, proved a bit daunting as Martha had some trouble divining the route prescribed by Google Maps.  Suffice to say, we saw parts of Oakland that were "sketchy".  

Soon as we figured out the "tunnel" used to cross the 580 into Alameda though, it was a night and day transformation.  From sketchy surroundings to normal looking neighborhoods.  Troubling.

Regardless, we found the ship and did the self-guided tour.  One happy event, while Martha was using the restroom, the docent she'd asked for directions and I talked.  I mentioned I'd been Field Artillery and had always wondered how gunners aimed their guns aboard a moving ship.

The docent's eyes lit up and he told me he'd been a Fire Control Technician in the Coast Guard and would we like a little private tour?  Of course I said yes and once Martha returned we set out to a pair of gun emplacements on the ship's starboard side:

The guns we got a briefing on...

Fire Control center for the guns we saw

A very interesting briefing to be sure and I learned quite a lot about how they aimed those guns during the anti-aircraft action against Kamikaze attacks during WWII.  We also got a look at the central control room for all guns, the instrumentation was huge and archaic but I guess it got the job done back in the day.

Note: CVS12, was the second carrier named Hornet.  The first carrier with the name was the one from which the Doolittle Raiders took off for a bombing run on Tokyo during the first parts of the was with Japan.

The carrier we toured was commissioned about a year+ after the sinking of the first Hornet named carrier in the Battle of Santa Cruz Island.

Anyways, after our informal tour, we basically walked about the ship with the aid of a paper map and some signage.  Here's some of the stuff that caught my eye:

Several planes of course in the hangar deck which 

was of course huge.

We both were drawn by the surprise existence of an RV camper in the hangar deck:

Used by the crew of Apollo 11 upon their return

from the moon landing.

I believe this is one of the models prior to the one

that actually went to the Moon.

Since it had just been Halloween, the docents had

adapted several of the displays accordingly.

Hospital Bed Compartment, one of several.

Where torpedoes for the planes were serviced.

We arrived at the fantail or aft end of the ship and could see the San Francisco cesspool's skyline:

Some heavy processing was involved in the above two pics

The carrier's "island"

One of only two aircraft on display on the flight deck.

A heavily processed closeup of the cesspool's skyline

Entering the carrier's island, one sees this:

An escalator on a warship?  What the heck?

We wandered to the front or bow of the carrier and ended up in the Forecastle where the anchor chains are maintained/housed.

Back on the hangar deck, there was a mural painted by one of the docents of the aircraft that had flown off of the carriers with the Hornet name:

A very nice museum, well worth a visit if you're in Alameda, CA!

We picked up Patrick after a lunch at a Panera's in Alameda near the airport.  Then it was a two hour long slog in heavy traffic to the city of Modesto to visit "Grandma Lish".  More to follow.