Photo Credit: Sami Dickerson[/caption]As the USA gets older and more entrapped in the digital age, people can forget that there is more to life and more to history than cell phones and computers. The country that citizens know and love today was not always glamorous and sometimes involved making due with the means that were given to them. This meant war could not always be avoided and got messy, especially in World War II. Because of maintained pieces of history, like the battleship USS North Carolina in Wilmington, which was used in WWII naval fighting in 1942, citizens have a way to look back at some of the ways American citizens lived during wartime and how they kept the freedom that Americans cherish today.
Stepping onto the battleship North Carolina, or Showboat as she was called during wartime, is like stepping into a huge time machine. On the top deck, 20 mm gun mounts that had to be operated by four men and a Kingfisher airplane line the platform. Although these are pretty spectacular, the most obvious and astounding parts of the top deck are the massive cannons that rocket into the sky to do the most damage to enemy ships as possible.
Although the top deck is impressive and held the most advanced weaponry at the time, the lower decks are a different story. As soon as you go below deck, it is like a whole new world. The first part of the lower deck includes the mess hall, kitchen, movie section of the mess hall, the general store, the mail room, and the church. The mess hall was a large room that would hold hundreds of men if necessary. Because of the number of men on the ship, the kitchen had to support that number, so the kitchen is quite large as well. The church, on the other hand, is a very small section of the mess hall and holds a small pulpit.
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Photo Credit: Sami Dickerson[/caption]The third deck holds the crew’s quarters (including bathrooms), offices for the higher ranking officers, and different shops for the men who needed repairs, such as the laundry, cobbler, tailor, and print shops. In this deck, during the summer, it is extremely hot and uncomfortable. Even for a visitor who walks around the deck for a mere thirty minutes, it is stifling and unbearable.
On the third deck in the men's quarters, hundreds of men had to sleep side by side on small cots that hung from the ceiling. Other men had the privilege of sleeping where they worked. The bathrooms are completely open with no doors and no privacy and there was no toilet paper like citizens have today. Men who were wounded would get to sleep on a lower platform in isolation, so as not to infect the other crew members. Higher ranking officers had their own quarters that were spacious and came with the privilege of their own bathroom.
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Photo Credit: Sami Dickerson[/caption]Even though many would not think the battleship NC a fit place for people to live today, it was home for 2,300 men who served for the country in World War II. These men do occasionally stop by the battleship with their families to reminisce and tour the boat. Some men were recently present for the battleship’s reunion in May 2014.
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