Trip to Charleston, SC

MountaineerTom · April 4, 2002

Last Friday, me and my som took a trip down to Charleston, SC. We visited Patriot's Point and Fort Sumter. I had been to both before, about 13 years ago, when my parents came down here to visit me for the first time, but J.T. had never been.

Patriot's Point has some retired Navy ships, including the USS Yorktown (CV-10) aircraft carrier that was used during WWII through the Vietnam War. The USS Laffey (DD-724), a WWII Destroyer that was attacked by 22 Japanese planes and hit by 4 bombs and 6 kamikazes during a single hour in combat off Okinawa on April 16, 1945. Not only did it survive, it shot down 11 planes during the attack. And the USS Clamagore (SS-343), a desiel powered attack submarine, the last US desiel powered sub. It cruised the Atlantic and Mediterranean waters for nearly thirty years, including critical patrols at the height of the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. There was also the US Coast Guard Cutter, Ingham (WHEC-35), that has a very impressive history as well, but we didn't get a chance to look at it up close like the others.

And of course, Fort Sumter is where the Civil War started.

Anyway, we had a great time and J.T. got to see some "history". Here's some pics from our trip.

My little bomb loader, standing with a MK-82 "Snakeyes". Those fins that pop out on the back are designed to slow the bomb down, so the pilots had enough time to get out of the way during low level bombing runs. We used to use them in the Air Force several years ago, but have newer and improved methods of doing it now.

Fort Sumter. Originally 3 stories high, but has deteriorated down to only one level of the original Fort.

Hey, how'd that get in there? (Yall didn't think I was going to take a bunch of pictures and not take one of my truck did you? )

Yont283 · April 4, 2002

Interesting information! Glad yall had a great time!!

gandolphxx · April 4, 2002

Looks like you both had a blast - nice trip

antig24 · April 5, 2002

Looks like you had a lot of fun

Shaners · April 5, 2002

Looks like fun Tom!!! I took my son to the Pittsburgh Carnegie Science Center a year or so ago, and we took the tour of the USS Requien (sp?). It's an old WWII (I think) submarine. It's actually floating in the Ohio river in Pittsburgh. It was a pretty cool self guided tour. They actually let the Boy Scouts go there and spend the night on board if they would like...

Unfortunatly, we don't have cool stuff like you guys saw though...

MountaineerTom · April 5, 2002

Thanks all, we did have a great time. Charleston is a beautiful city, and I'm not that much of a big city kind of person. There is so much history there.

Stepside Z · April 5, 2002

Looks like you two had a great time.

General Lee 01 · April 6, 2002

Cool pics Tom. Looks like you and your son had a fun day.

My BSA Troop does alot of neat stuff like that.I may try and dig up some pics.

Zane · April 6, 2002

Very cool Tom!

Looks like you and the son had a great time.

sincityZ71 · April 7, 2002

Sweet, those are some great pics. Glad to hear you had a great time. Looks like the kinda place that I would like to visit someday. I love military history.