Uss Alabama Battleship Memorial Park Sign

Title

Uss Alabama Battleship Memorial Park Sign

Artist

Catherine Sherman

Medium

Photograph - Photography

Description

"USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park Sign" by Catherine Sherman

A sign announcing the USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park stands against the skyline of downtown Mobile, Alabama. On top of the sign is a F-4 Phantom fighter jet.
Battleship Memorial Park is a military history park and museum located on the western shore of Mobile Bay in Mobile, Alabama. It has a collection of significant aircraft and museum ships including the South Dakota-class battleship USS Alabama and Gato-class submarine USS Drum. USS Alabama and USS Drum are both National Historic Landmarks; the park as a whole was listed on the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage prior to that time, on October 28, 1977.

In May 1962, USS Alabama had been ordered scrapped along with her South Dakota-class sister ships, USS South Dakota, USS Indiana, and USS Massachusetts.

Alabama citizens raised funds through the "USS Alabama Battleship Commission" for the preservation of Alabama as a memorial to the men and women who served in World War II. Alabama's school children raised approximately $100,000 in nickels and dimes from lunch money and allowances to help the cause.

McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II is a tandem two-seat, twin-engine, all-weather, long-range supersonic jet interceptor and fighter-bomber originally developed by McDonnell Aircraft for the United States Navy. Proving highly adaptable, it first entered service with the Navy in 1961 before it was adopted by the United States Marine Corps and the United States Air Force, and by the mid-1960s it had become a major part of their air arms. Phantom production ran from 1958 to 1981 with a total of 5,195 aircraft built, making it the most produced American supersonic military aircraft in history, and cementing its position as an iconic combat aircraft of the Cold War.

After entering service, Alabama was briefly deployed to strengthen the British Home Fleet, tasked with protecting convoys to the Soviet Union. In 1943, she was transferred to the Pacific for operations against Japan; the first of these was the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign that began in November that year. While operating in the Pacific, she served primarily as an escort for the fast carrier task force to protect the aircraft carriers from surface and air attacks. She also frequently bombarded Japanese positions in support of amphibious assaults. She took part in the Mariana and Palau Islands campaign in June–September and the Philippines campaign in October–December. After a refit in early 1945, she returned to the fleet for operations during the Battle of Okinawa and the series of attacks on the Japanese mainland in July and August, including several bombardments of coastal industrial targets.

The Alabama assisted in Operation Magic Carpet after the war, carrying about 700 military personnel home. The ship was decommissioned in 1947 and assigned to the Pacific Reserve Fleet, where she remained until 1962 when she was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register. A campaign to save the ship from the breakers' yard succeeded in raising the necessary funds, and Alabama was preserved as a museum ship in Mobile Bay, Alabama.

Featured in "New FAA Uploads" group (07/01/2021); "Signs" group (08/18/2021)

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June 24th, 2021

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