USS ALABAMA (BB-60) BATTLESHIP MEMORIAL PARK FUN FACTS

1 - She was called the Lucky A because, during World War II, she lost no American lives aboard her due to enemy fire. She was also known as the “Mighty A”.

2 - Coffee in the morning took 4 big 80 gallon pots to make 320 Gallons of coffee. How’d you like to have that last cup of joe?

3 - Battleship ALABAMA shot down 22 planes.

4 - The battleship is known as BB-60, the naval identification for battleship # 60.

5 - BB-60 had 4 different types of guns, 129 guns in all.

6 - The cooks had to prepare more than 7,500 meals a day, over 50,000 a week, and more than 2.5 million meals a year, ALL IN THE MIDDLE OF THE OCEAN!

7 – Average age of the 2,500-man crew was only 21 years old, the same ages of the Battleship Crewmates today.

8 – Each 16 inch Big Gun could shoot a 2,700-pound shell up to 21 miles and still hit a dime, but you never could find the dime.

9 – Each time the big guns shot, the shell weighed up to 2,700 pounds, and it took 540 pounds of black gunpowder (six 90 pound bags for each shot) to shoot it, the equivalent of shooting a small automobile each time, and the big guns could shoot at least once every 30 seconds.

10 – It took 140 men to man each of the big gun turrets, which were 5 levels deep on the ship.

11 – When the big guns were firing, more than 58,000 pounds or 29 TONS left the battleship each minute!

12 – It took 3,000 men and women working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for 30 consecutive months to build Battleship USS ALABAMA (February 1, 1940 - August 16, 1942) - completed nine months early - a new record!

13 – She is the fifth newest battleship ever built, and no more battleships will ever be built.

14 – Battleship ALABAMA cost approximately $80 million dollars to build in 1942.

15 – The battleship was only used 37 months during World War II. She was almost new when she retired, only has 218,000 miles on her, just broken in good!

16 – Today she weighs about 40,000 tons, or 80 MILLION POUNDS! When she was loaded in World War II, she weighed more than 90 million pounds, in excess of 45,000 tons.

17– She is 108 feet 2 inches wide, and when she came through the 110-foot wide Panama Canal coming home to Mobile in August 1964, she scrapped through, with only 11 inches on each side of the canal to spare!

18 – She is 194 feet tall, taller than a normal sized 20-story building.

19 – ALABAMA’s first Captain, George Barry Wilson, went on to help plan the D-Day invasion.

20 – At full speed, the battleship could go more than 32 miles an hour (28 knots top speed)!

21– In 2002, a watertight cofferdam, costing more than $4.2 million, was built surrounding the battleship. In 2003, 4 million gallons of water was pumped out so the ship’s hull could be fixed, while she still sat in Mobile Bay now surrounded by dirt! The water came back after the repair.

22 – Battleship ALABAMA won 9 Battle Stars!

23 – Submarine DRUM won 12 Battle Stars!

24 – Battleship ALABAMA was commissioned on August 16, 1942, and is now 65 years old!

25 – The crew of the battleship was normally 2,500, bigger than most towns in Alabama.

26 – The crew of the submarine was only 72, 7 Officers and 65 enlisted.

27– The food was really good on both vessels.

28 – Battleship Memorial Park’s first 75 acres was created from the channel dug to bring the battleship here in 1964.

29 – More than 13 million visitors have come since the Park opened on Senior Bowl Saturday, January 9, 1965. The Park celebrated its 42th birthday in January 2007.

30 – The impact of the Park on the economy of the State of Alabama has been more than $ 403 million dollars since opening January 9, 1965 (as of December 2006).

31– 22 planes from the past seven decades are featured in the Park, including a super secret spy plane than could fly more than 5 times the speed of sound. (3,000 miles per hour).

32 – The bottom of Battleship ALABAMA actually is 22 feet under the bottom of Mobile Bay. The Submarine now sits on dry land, having been moved out of the water in 2002, one of the few submarines in the world displayed above ground.

33 – The battleship last ran under her own power in 1946.

34 – Submarine USS DRUM is longer than a football field and weighs more than 3 million pounds.

35 – Battleship ALABAMA is longer than 2 football fields, 680 feet long!

36 – The battleship was towed 5,600 miles from Bremerton, Washington to Mobile in summer 1964, still the longest non-military tow per mile tow in history.

37– Submarine USS DRUM (SS-228) was commissioned on November 1, 1941.

38 – The DRUM was towed from Washington, D.C. in May 1969. She was dedicated on July 4, 1969. DRUM’s sponsor was Mrs. Jolane Edwards, wife of Congressman Jack Edwards of Mobile, who served in Congress from 1964 to 1984.

39 – On the Battleship, an average Beef Stew meal for 2,500 men used 1,000 pounds of beef, 37 pounds of fat, 100 gallons of water, and more than 2,100 pounds of other ingredients, all for just one meal.

40 – The channel dug to bring the battleship to the Park was two miles long, 120 wide, and 32 feet deep. The cost to dredge the channel and build the first 75 acres of the Park was only 7 ? cents per cubic yard for the 2.7 million cubic yards dredged, but totaled more than $ 225,000 in 1964 (when the minimum wage $ 1.00 per hour and a new Cadillac was about $ 3,000).

41– The school children of the State raised $ 100,000 to bring the ship here in Spring 1964.

42 – The B-52 Bomber actually flew into Mobile in 1985, and was brought to the Park by barge from Brookley Field.

43 – Battleship Park has many rare aircraft: one of the six existing A-12 Blackbird spyplanes; one of the three remaining OS2U Kingfishers from WWII; one of only four F-86L Sabre Jets; one of the two ever built YF-17, the prototype for the F/A-18 Hornet, currently flown by the Navy & Marines, to mention only a few of the rare warbirds on display.

44 – The big gun turrets on the battleship could turn up to 270 degrees, but were not attached to the ship in any way, so if the ship turned over, the turrets would fall out!

45 – ALABAMA’s most famous sailor was Robert “Bullet Bob” Feller, who was chosen Major League Baseball’s Best Right Handed Pitcher in the 20th century! Feller, an All-Star with the Cleveland Indians before Pearl Harbor, enlisted and served 34 months aboard BB-60 as a Chief Petty Officer in charge of one of the 40mm gun mounts, before returning to baseball and an outstanding career.

46 – 6,322 men served aboard Battleship ALABAMA during her 4 ? years of active duty. The integrated crew lost only 5 men in combat situations during that time, none to enemy fire.

47– The picnic area at the Park is modeled after a typical South Pacific village.

48 – The Park’s Vietnam River Patrol Boat (PBR) goes faster than 40 miles per hour and can turn 180 degrees in its own length of less than 40 feet!

49 – Vietnam veterans designed, financed, and built the Alabama Vietnam Veterans Memorial in the Park. The black granite walls honor the 175 Mobile and Baldwin County deceased, as well as the 1,213 Alabama Vietnam veterans who made the ultimate sacrifice. The new equally impressive Alabama Korean War Veterans Memorial was dedicated on June 25, 2002, and stands next to the Vietnam Memorial, with 752 Alabamians remembered on the gray granite.

50 – The Park’s Wall of Honor inside the Medal of Honor Aircraft Pavilion honors the 9,583 Alabama citizens who have died in combat for our country since World War I in the 20th century. The Aircraft Pavilion honors those 29 Alabama citizens who have received the Medal of Honor, the highest award given by the United States of America.