Cool pix!

Is Lee Harvey smiling in this photo?

 

If he was it wasn't for long!

 

The USS Oklahoma after being righted.

How did the turrets stay in place after she capsized? I thought that they would’ve slipped out of their emplacements like they did when the Bismarck sank and capsized as it was on the way to Davy Jones Locker.

 

It appears that by the time the turrets might have slipped out, they may have been supported by the bottom.

As I understand it, Bismarck went completely inverted, allowing the turrets to drop out. Presumably, some compartments in the bottom of the ship would remain watertight for a time while the upper decks and superstructure flooded completely.

Speaking of German ships, the battle cruiser Derffinger was scuttled at Scapa Flow in 1919 and raised in 1939. She came up upside down and remained floating that way for seven years - probably a record - British ship repair facilities being rather busy in the interim.... I wonder what happened to her turrets?

 

Derflinger's turrets remained in place, as did all 11" & 12" turrets of the scuttled German warships. Only Bayern(or was it Baden) whose 15" turrets fell out.

Nagato's are still in place at Bikini Atoll.

Been a while, but worth a read.
History and Technology - Do Turrets really fall out if a Battleship capsizes? - NavWeaps

 

WW2 Paratroopers sitting across from themselves in the plane that dropped them over Normandy 44…

 

Corsairs and Hellcats…they should have leaf dropped these pictures over Germany and Japan…

 

Looks like a trio of SB2Cs & 2 Lockheed or Beechcrafts at the very back in the upper right corner.

 

Tustin by the looks of it.

 

It wasn't really "there" in the 70's...

All 3 hangars burnt in 1945, and did not leave much(mostly made of wood), except the ends which were concrete.

Today, there is even less. Just the one concrete support for one side of the doorway of one of the hangars.

After the base closed, it has mostly been re-purposed.

 

Ahh...You were at the Goodyear Blimp Hangar in Pompano Beach. That is still active, but was built in the 70s.

I was thinking NAS Richmond, just south of Miami, which was where the Navy blimps were stationed in WW2.


Looks like Biak beat me to it.

 

Excellent website on US WW2 blimp bases and what remains of them today.
NAS Blimp Bases

 

One of my earliest memories is of the blimp hangars at Moffett Field, especially Hangar 1. We were there in 1954-55 when my father commanded VX-5, so I was about 3 years old, Probably have some pictures around here someplace.