Battleship Alive Schedule:
Saturday, 8:00am-5:00pm, December 1, 2007
ABOARD SHIP
Free with Admission
8am - 5pm BATTLESHIP ALIVE FEATURING THE LIVING HISTORY CREW
Living history interpreters bring the Ship to life by enacting daily duties and drills.
Come see what Christmas 1943 was like aboard the Battleship!
The crew will be forming up on the ship's fantail (behind #3 main gun turret) around 7:45 am. After morning colors, the crew will disperse to their various duty stations around the ship. The following areas will have living history crew members doing what the WWII sailors would have been doing in those spaces:
- Engineering - ship's boilers and turbines
- Sick Bay - the ship's hospital - taking care crew members who report for sick call (at the time noted on the Plan of the Day)
- Combat Information Center (CIC) - the ship's radar room
- Navigation Bridge - the ship's chart house and bridge, where the crew steered the ship
- Post Office - mail clerk sorting holiday mail
- Marine Compartment - USMC crew component
- EX Office - ship's administrative "heart" where the records of the more than 2,000 sailors were maintained
- 4th Division - maintenance and operation of one of the ship's 40mm anti-aircraft batteries
Saturday's program, Christmas on the Battleship, looks at how the sailors spent that special day. We have chosen to interpret December 1943 for this event. The ship was in Havannah Harbor, Efate in the New Hebrides from 12 through 25 December 1943.
You'll notice there is a choir practice scheduled for the day, and at 1600 (4PM) a Christmas service will take place with singing and scriptural readings.
8am - 5pm AZALEA COAST HAM RADIO CLUB
Local Ham Radio Club will be inside the ship using Morse code and original ship's transmitters to "talk" with "Mac" McCullough, one of the ship's WWII radio operators.
Visit the radio room and talk with Mac and the club and try Morse code!
Noon - 4pm FAMILY FUN IN MESS DECKS
Enjoy trying Morse code, semaphore, typing on vintage typewriters. Try on a WWII uniform, helmet, life jacket, and sound powered phones. Make a signal flag necklace.
Holiday Book Signing:
Saturday, December 1, 2007 - Noon to 4:00pm Battleship Gift Shop, FREE
The Battleship hopes to make holiday shopping for your favorite reader a little easier! Come to Holiday Book Signing at the Battleship's gift shop, Saturday, December 1, noon to 4pm. Meet the following authors and have them personalize a book for that special someone on your shopping list:
- Danny Bradshaw - Ghosts of the Battleship NORTH CAROLINA
- Philip Gerard - Secret Soldiers
- Wilbur Jones - A Sentimental Journey: Memoirs of a Wartime Boomtown
- Wilbur Jones - The Journey Continues: The World War II Home Front
- Melton McLaurin -The Marines of Montford Point
- Cindy Ramsey - Boys of the Battleship North Carolina
- Ralph Lee Scott - The Wilmington Shipyard
- David Stallman - Echoes of Topsail and Women of the Wild Blue
- Beverly Tetterton -Wilmington Lost But Not Forgotten
- Cliff Tyndall - Greetings from Camp Davis
- Leo Bednarczyk - DVD about life aboard a LST in the Pacific
Signed copies of Susan Taylor Blocks' Wilmington Then and Now will be available.
The book signing is one of several events occurring at the Battleship that day as part of Battleship Alive. For more information, contact Kim Sincox at museum@battleshipnc.com or 910-251-5797 extension 3006.
Make a Veteran a Christmas Card!
Saturday, December 1, 2007 - Noon to 4pm, Battleship Snack Bar, FREE
Get into the Holiday Spirit this by making a cheery Christmas card for one of our hundreds of veterans who will spend the holidays at one of four North Carolina Veterans Affairs Medical Centers. The four hospitals, located in Fayetteville, Asheville, Durham, and Salisbury, have beds for 1,039 veterans. Junior Girl Scout Troop 440 of Wilmington will lead the FREE activity in the Battleship NORTH CAROLINA snack bar located in the Visitors Center. Card makers will also sign a holiday banner for the veterans and hospital staff. We also encourage schools, churches, scouts, and other groups to make cards and bring them to the Battleship by Wednesday, December 5, and the Battleship will mail them.
The card making activity is one of several events occurring at the Battleship that day as part of Battleship Alive, including local authors signing books For more information, contact Kim Sincox at museum@battleshipnc.com or 910-251-5797 extension 3006.
Step onto the stage where history took place and experience the thrill of the Battleship NORTH CAROLINA, the most decorated US battleship of WWII. Located at the junction of Highways 17/74/76/421 on the Cape Fear River across from historic downtown Wilmington, North Carolina.
OPEN EVERY DAY from 8:00am to 5:00pm (Labor Day to Memorial Day Weekend) and 8:00am to 8:00pm (Memorial Day Weekend to Labor Day). Ticket sales stop one hour before
