Missed Intercept

Sarge is still a tad under the weather, so Prayers are still in the Order of the Day.  I will attempt to entertain and edumacate in the interim.

So,  There I was.....*

In Baton Rouge for some IT training at LSU.  I'd had Sarge put out the Bat Signal to see if I couldn't entice VX into showing me the proper way to consume Barbacon.  (I'm obviously doing it wrong as it seems let's just say a tad harsh to me, and I love Rum).  We've made contact and made arrangements for Dinner at Parrains Seafood Restaurant.  

Unfortunately, a couple of evenings before the meet, he calls and has to cancel as his Mother is ill.  (Prayers are in order there also).  He's got to go take care of things.  

Family comes first, always.

I'm traveling with my office mate, absolutely brilliant and only slightly more than a third my age.  We decide that we'll visit the restaurant and have one for VX.  OK, Blackened Tuna on Fettucine with melted Bleu cheese crumbles is now on my list of favorite recipes.  VX, wish you could have made it, but thanks for the recommendation.  

Interestingly, my office mate had never eaten seafood before other than Gortons.   He's a convert now.

So, a missed intercept.

Rest easy, I'm not going to regale you with tales of geekishness and new ways to parse a database command.  

No, I'm going to talk about DD-661, AKA USS Kidd.

For those of you, other than Skip, who may not know, this is a Fletcher class Destroyer from WWII. While, if you zoom in on the forward stack, you will see a caricature of a pirate, the ship was not named for  William Kidd the infamous pirate.  Rather the ship was named for Rear Admiral Isaac Kidd who died on the bridge of USS Arizona. Launched in February 1943 and commissioned in April that year.  The Fletcher class was the largest class of Destroyers built, with a total of 175 hulls.  The Kidd had a display for each member of the class.  Most were eventually sold to other navies and then scrapped.  However, a lot were reported as sunk in April 1945 off Okinawa.

It continues to amaze me how one reads something and does not grasp the reality of the situation.  Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Kamikaze's bad.  Got it.

When the reality, is much worse. 

"Nineteen were lost during World War II; six more were damaged and not repaired." Source

That's a lot of ships and men.

So, we paid for our ticket and wandered the museum for a bit.  Met an old friend, now gone.

Jeff DeBlanc, Medal of Honor, Guadalcanal

Stepped across to the ship and gave our tickets to the Docent, a knowledgeable guy about my age.  I would have sworn he was a CPO, but he wasn't.  Health issues had kept him from the Navy.  He gave us a map and told us that the forward part of the ship was under repair and therefore closed, but that we were welcome to wander the aft part of the ship.

We couldn't go forward of the amidships passage (about where the shading starts)

One thing that struck me right away was that this thing LOOKED like a warship!  With no disrespect intended at all, USS Kidd DDG-100 deadly as I'm sure it is, looks like a yacht in comparison.

  

There were weapons everywhere.

The dark objects on the right are depth charges,2 x twin 20 mm are forward of them.  Matched on the Port side.

The Aft 5 inch Mounts

Port  20MM, Torpedo launchers (top left corner), mid-Ship 5 inch Mount

Port side quad 40MM mount

Aft 20MM, which was could be aimed, so my office mate practiced shooting Kamikaze trucks off the bridge.

We'd just been able to tour the aft part of the ship, but had seen 16 20mm guns in 8 mounts, 16 40mm guns in 4 Mounts, 3 5 inch, 5 torpedo tubes and easily 20 depth charge stations.  The ship was built for war.

Which is a good thing because all of that, and more was needed.  April 11th 1945, the Kidd was stationed as a radar picket off Okinawa.  The picket ships were posted out away from the main fleet to provide advance warning of Kamikaze attacks.  Radar at the time did not have the extended range of today's ships, so the radar had to be moved closer to the enemy.  The Japanese quickly figured this out and took to attacking the picket ships trying to punch a hole in the radar coverage.

On April 11th, after helping to repel 3 air raids that morning, she is attacked by a single kamikaze who manages to make it through her defenses and strikes the ship just forward of the amidships passage.  The aircraft was carrying a 500kg bomb which somehow penetrates all the way through the ship and exits the port side before exploding.  The attack killed 38 and wounded 55.  (Source)

A picture of the actual aircraft moments before impact.

A picture of the exit hole and portside explosion damage

After Repair, the ship affixed the bronze plaque where the kamikaze hit listing the casualties

We then went below decks to see how the Navy lived.  Tight spaces do not begin to describe.

The Loo (where 4 ship line abreast takes on a whole new meaning)

 Berthing (Skip, if you want to relive it, you can overnight here)

Finally, a picture of USS Kidd in a storm.  I thought DD meant Destroyer, not Submarine.

All in all the Ship and Museum were an interesting distraction and well worth a visit should you ever have some time to kill in Baton Rouge.

Finally, it wouldn't be right if there wasn't a gratuitous photo of an airplane in one of my posts.

*SJC (put that one in first so I wouldn't forget this time, Skip)