Greetings Family and Friends,
First museum ships on the road trip and the order to abandon ship is given as I am driving up to the site. Its August in Omaha, Nebraska. The temperature is in the low 90s with humidity criminally assaulting anyone who dares to venture outside. Inside the ships, the volunteers are contemplating an upgrade to a sweatshop, hence the order to abandon ship. However, I am able to get permission to do a double time walkthrough of the site and snap a few photos.
Before reminiscing further on the museum ships and prior to the visit, I made a stop in Lincoln on the drive from North Platte to Omaha, to grab a few pics of the state capitol building. Starting back in much younger days, whenever I get a chance to take some photos of capitol buildings, I do so. And the capitol building for Nebraska is not the standard dome, so even of more interest on my part. And just across the street is the Governor’s Mansion.
First adventure after arriving and getting settled in Omaha was to head back westward on I-80 to Ashland. There one finds the Strategic Air Command (SAC) museum. And quite thankfully, almost all of the exhibits are indoors within two giant hangars with ample AC. Given its focus is SAC, lots of bombers, transports, tankers, and reconnaissance aircraft. But a few fighters are scattered amongst the big boys.
The museum does have a B-52 “Stratofortress” but it is not the biggest bomber they have exhibited. That would be the B-36 “Peacekeeper” also known as the “Magnesium Monster”. It is the largest production bomber and surprisingly was never engaged in bombing during combat. Maybe the name of “Peacekeeper” was prophetic. In the photo gallery below, look for an enormous bomber with three intakes on the front of each wing and the corresponding propellers on the back of each wing.
Another noteworthy exhibit is that of the B-25 “Mitchell” which was the medium bomber used in the Doolittle Raid of Tokyo in World War II. The exhibit has not only an intact bomber but also one of just the fuselage with its metal skin removed so that one can see the interior of the aircraft. There is also a replica display of a fallout shelter which might be considered nostalgic or maybe not.
Lastly, one of the hangers has a restoration gallery where one can view (behind a rope) the aircraft that are in the process of being restored. One of the aircraft being restored is an F-117 “Nighthawk”. Another is the British Avro “Vulcan” with its distinctive full delta wing (hard to see unless looking at the aircraft from above). Both planes are at the very end of the photo gallery.
As noted in my introduction, my visit to Freedom Park with the USS Hazard (AM-240), a minesweeper, and the USS Martin (SST-2), a training submarine, was reduced to a brisk walkthrough of the site due to the extreme heat/humidity especially within the ships. Typically when one visits museum ships that are of substantial size, the ships are found afloat in a harbor or a river. There are a couple of cases, and Freedom Park is obviously one where the ships are exhibited on land.
I was able to walk the decks of the USS Hazard and take a number of photos. Unfortunately, any interior spaces that would normally have been open to exploration had already been closed down. Unfortunately, the USS Martin, being a sub meant that it was pretty much all closed down but I was able to pop into the entryway to get a single pic of the darkened boat beyond.
There are also pictures below of some of the other exhibits at Freedom Park, including an A-4 “Skyhawk”, a Coast Guard helicopter, and various naval guns. On the walk out of the park, I spoke with one of the volunteers – a mere 76 years old! A Navy veteran and submariner who served on two diesel and three nuclear subs. He pointed out the shell for the main guns of an Iowa-class battleship and noted that they were roughly the same weight as a Volkswagen Beetle. Whenever one of the battleships would fire their main guns, the observation would be made that they were shooting VW Beetles.
That’s it for now. As always, feel free to share this link with anyone who expresses an interest. Next stop is in the state that seems to compete with Nebraska for being the home state of cornfields.
Until later,
Papi