39th Anniversary - USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park

Feb 18th, 2004

Thursday, January 9, 2004 marks the 39th anniversary of the opening of USS ALABAMA (BB-60) Battleship Memorial Park. Eighteen years to the day since she last ran under her own power, the World War II heroine was dedicated in Mobile, Alabama to the memory of Alabama veterans of all branches of the armed services, Navy, Army, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard.

Dedicated by then Under-secretary of the Navy, Paul B. Fay, ALABAMA played host to more than 2,000 people who crowded her decks to celebrate the campaign to bring her "home" to her namesake state. Sixteen different military organizations contributed to the festivities that cold January 1965 day.

The Battleship was received on behalf of the citizens of Alabama by Governor George C. Wallace. Before his death a few years ago, the late Governor fondly remembered the event as though it was yesterday: "On the day we were piped aboard by the U.S. Marine Band from Washington, tears welled up in my eyes, and chills went down my spine, as I thought of all the boys killed in World War II, and who died and were dying in the Vietnam War, and that this was a tribute to them for us to save this ship as a lasting monument."

Only a few years earlier in May 1962, ALABAMA had been sentenced to be scrapped along with her South Dakota class sister ships, USS SOUTH DAKOTA (BB-57), USS INDIANA (BB-58), and USS MASSACHUSETTS (BB-59). Other than BB-60, only MASSACHUSETTS (BB-59) remains, the other two sister ships scrapped in 1962.

True to the fighting spirit the ALABAMA had demonstrated since her commissioning August 16, 1942, while earning nine WWII Battle Stars, the State of Alabama "Save the Battleship" committee organized a statewide fundraising campaign that saw more than $ 800,000 collected in spring 1964, enough to bring the ALABAMA to Mobile, and to start what today is the 175 landscaped acres of Battleship Memorial Park located on Mobile Bay just off I-10.

It took almost three months to tow the 35,000 ton dreadnought from her Bremerton, Washington home base down the West Coast toward Alabama. Scrapping through the Panama Canal, where she had eleven inches of clearance on each side, and into the Gulf of Mexico, she entered Mobile Bay September 14, 1964 to complete her 5,600 mile voyage "home," the longest non-military ton/mile tow in history.

Alabama's school children will always be associated with bringing the "Mighty A" home to her namesake state. More than one million students raised approximately $ 100,000 in nickels and dimes from lunch money and allowances to help the cause, an incredible effort in the days when the minimum wage was $1.00 per hour and a new 1964 Cadillac was a whooping $3,000.00. Each received a free pass to the Park, and even last year, in 2003, more than fifty of those passes were redeemed for their free admission.

Since opening to the public January 9, 1965, more than twelve million paid visitors have graced her decks. Battleship Memorial Park has generated more than $165 million dollars in direct economic benefit for the Mobile area, and over $345 million dollars in indirect economic impact throughout the State from admission receipts alone. Not bad for a successful statewide effort that grew from an almost unthinkable thought of bringing Battleship ALABAMA "home."

An independent agency of the State of Alabama, the USS ALABAMA Battleship Commission, composed of eighteen members from all over the state appointed by the Governor, oversee operations at the Park. Open 364 days a year, closed only on Christmas Day, the Park includes the 12 Battle Star winner World War II Submarine USS DRUM, ranked eighth in enemy tonnage sunk, which is now displayed above ground, an aircraft pavilion dedicated to the 28 Alabama recipients of the Medal of Honor, 24 vintage warplanes from all the flying services since World War II, a third historic vessel, a Vietnam era PBR River Patrol Boat, and equipment and artifacts from World War II, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and Desert Shield/Desert Storm. The Park also features new memorials to the Korean War Veterans and the Vietnam War Veterans.

Current Commission members are: W. H. "Bill" Porter, Gulf Shores, Chairman; Robert Edington, Mobile, Vice-Chair; John Tyson, Sr., Mobile, Secretary; B. C. Jackson, Hope Hull, Treasurer; Terry Ankerson, Mobile; David Baker, Opp; Scott Callahan, Mobile; Andrew Cooper, Gulf Shores; Judge Dwight Fay, Huntsville; Barney Gass, Gulf Shores; Donna B. Givens, Loxley; Lee A. Hallman, Tuscaloosa; J. B. Horst, Orange Beach; Pfilip Hunt, Jr., Mobile; George Krietemeyer, Mobile; Kelly McGriff, Montrose; John W. Schmidt, Troy; Judge Herman Thomas, Mobile, and; Paul Wesch, Mobile. The Park's Executive Director is Bill Tunnell, Pam Jeffcoat serves as Assistant Director.

All Alabama citizens as well as all Americans should take pride in the fact that none of their taxpayer-generated State General Fund dollars, or any other state tax revenues, have ever been used for daily park operations. The Park has been self-sufficient since opening those long thirty-nine years ago.

Standing tall against the passive mirror-like serenity of the waters of Mobile Bay, a mighty warrior, who defended her nation well against enemy oppression in times of turmoil and strife, now reflects the pride of a Grateful Nation who hopefully will never forget what her sailors and millions of other Americans did to insure the precious freedoms the United States enjoys today.

Battleship USS ALABAMA, a legend in her own time, never losing any of her sailors due to enemy fire, her guns never again to fire in anger, a final and lasting memorial and tribute to the Greatest Generation.

For more information, visit, http://www.ussalabama.com