Tuna
Friday 16 February 2024
We didn’t mean to, but we kinda have, it wasn’t planned. Our San Francisco stay has turned into a bit of military related sight seeing. We saw a boat, the USS Jeremiah O’Brien, a couple of days ago and then the Nike missile site yesterday. Today’s effort was an aircraft carrier, the USS Hornet (CV-12). We spent hours wandering around on the Hanger Deck (loaded with different types of planes and choppers), 2nd Deck (lots of rooms) and Flight Deck (where they take off and land). There were lots of old blokes that were happy share information and stories. Three different blokes told us where the toilets were.
Here are some of the interesting stuff, from the Tuna point of view:
- It is big, like really big. Grey on the outside and a pale green or yellow on the inside.
- There is a constant humming which is the power, which would probably give me a headache if I had to live on the boat.
- There are no windows below the flight deck.
- The sleeping spaces for the general marines is small and often the bunks are three tiers and short. If you are over 5ft 10in you aren’t going to fit.
- The Albatross didn’t hit his head once on the pipes that seemed to be mostly hanging down around 5ft 10in to 6ft.
- Neither of us fell down the very steep stairs between levels.
- We walked the entire length of the boat through the 2nd deck with was the different types of rooms (sleeping, eating, planning) and the length of the flight deck.
- We saw Maverick’s plane from Top Gun. Well, not the actual one but same class, F14 I think.
- Play a big role in WWII in the Pacific region and Vietnam and Korean wars.
- Not this USS Hornet CV-12, but the previous one (USS Hornet CV-8) launched the bombers who were part of the Doolittle Raid into Japan. They took off from the boat, bombed Tokyo and then landed in China, as they didn’t have enough gas to get back to the boat. It was to show the Japanese that they were vulnerable to American air attack, have the Japanese fear American, but also to boost American morale.
- On 4 July 1969 it was the recovery vessel for the Apollo 11 mission and picked up the Apollo 11 astronauts, Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and Mike Collins.
- In November of that year, they picked up the Apollo 12 astronauts.
- Decommission in 1970 and opened to the public in 1998 in Alameda (across the bay from San Francisco).
We ate our packed lunch in the car park looking at the USS Hornet. Not a bad day and it didn’t rain.
