USS North Carolina (BB-55) Memorial

USA / North Carolina / Belville / Battleship Road Northeast, 1
 memorial, Second World War 1939-1945, battleship, NRHP - National Register of Historic Places, historic landmark, United States Navy, museum ship
1 Battleship Road Northeast
Wilmington, NC 28401
(910) 399-9100
www.battleshipnc.com

Laid down in 1937 at the New York Navy Yard, the USS North Carolina was the namesake ship of her class of Battleships, the first of the so-called 'Post Washington Conference Design', the first Battleship built by the United States since WWI, and the first post-Dreadnought design made by the US Navy.

USS North Carolina was launched in June 1940 and commissioned into US Navy service on April 9, 1941. By the time she first put to sea for trials, she had earned the nickname 'Showboat' for her immense public popularity, especially with world events growing steadily more ominous during her first year of service. The North Carolina was in the Carribean Sea conducting excercises when Pearl Harbor was attacked, and upon completion of her excercises and a brief stopover for provisioning and minor refits, she sailed immediatlely for Pearl Harbor as a member of the Pacific Fleet arriving on June 10, 1942, when many of her sibling Battleships were still being pulled from the mud of Pearl Harbor.

The North Carolina would remain in the Pacific Theatre for the duration of WWII, lending her extensive AA batteries and high speed to screen Carriers and using her massive 16in guns to shell dug in Japanese positions on countless islands as well as unfortunate members of the Imperial Japanese Navy. During the war, she saw action in the Guadalcanal campaign, the Battle of the Eastern Solomons, the Gilbert Islands Operation, the Marshall Islands Campaign, the assualt on Saipan, Tinian, and Guam, action in Papua New Guinea, the Phillipines Campaign, the Okinawa assault and finally found herself engaged in the shelling of Tokyo and the Japanese Home Islands in the summer of 1945. When WWII ended, the North Carolina remained in Japanese waters until mid-September when she embarked veterans and headed home, arriving in Boston on October 17, 1945, her war finshed, with 15 Battle Stars to her record.

Following WWII the North Carolina and her sister South Dakota were used to train midshipmen from the US Naval Academy for 2 years until she was decommissioned in June 1947 and placed into reserve at Bayonne NJ where she remained until 1961.

Following a fundraising effort mounted by schools across the state, the USS North Carolina was sold for $300,000.00 to the people of North Carolina to serve as a floating museum and memorial to North Carolinians who gave their lives in service to all branches of the military during World War II. The ship officially began her new life on April 29th, 1962, when she was dedicated at Wilmington. The ship was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1986 and is open for tours to this day.

www.navsource.org/archives/01/55a.htm
Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_North_Carolina_(BB-55)
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   34°14'11"N   77°57'16"W

Comments

  • My daughter and I love this ship. Our trip to Bald Head Island isn't complete without a visit to this ship. It can get a little hot during the summer.
  • Her sister was the Washington, not South Dakota.
This article was last modified 4 years ago