Forts and more forts(12-8-12)

Both Fort Morgan and Fort Pickens were built pre-Civil War. Fort Morgan was placed to protect Mobile  Bay and Fort Pickens guarded  Pensacola Bay.

Fort Morgan was held by the Confederacy at the beginning of the Civil War, but the Union knew that taking Mobile bay was important to the outcome of the war.  One major battle was fought there- the Battle of Mobile Bay.  Union Admiral David Farragut arrived with his fleet of wooden ships and ironclad Monitors (small warships).  As the first of the vessels entered the harbor,  the lead ship quickly sank. It turns out the harbor was littered with torpedoes.  In the 1800s a torpedo was more like what we would consider to be a mine.  They were essentially bombs, sitting beneath the surface of the water. When Farragut was informed of the torpedoes, he reportedly made the decision that taking the bay was more important than the risk and yelled out “Damn the torpedoes- full speed ahead!”. Pushing through the Confederate defenses allowed the Union to get into position to capture the fort.

Fort Pickens is located on Pensacola Bay and was held by the Union for the duration of the war.  Across the bay, Fort McRee and and Fort Barrancas were held by the Confederates.  For months the soldiers in these forts essentially had staring contests, with no movement, skirmishes or battles fought. 

 In late 1861, the Union finally started the action by bombarding the two forts with cannon fire.  Unfortunately they were so far away that the cannon balls all landed in the bay.  Most of the damage that was done to the opposing forts was accomplished by the warships that arrived to help.  After two days of bombardment, over 6000 cannonballs had been fired, and in the end, the situation was essentially the same.  The following year the Confederates decided that the forts were not worth defending, and their troops were needed elsewhere, so they abandoned Fort McRee and Fort Barrancas.

Paul and I have seen quite a few of these pre-Civil War forts across the country, and it turns out many of them either saw no action, ever, or very little.  It has boggled my mind that time after time we find out that it took 12 –30 years to build a fort, and then that fort never fired a single shot in battle.  I got my answer at Fort Pickens on the guided tour we took. At the time these forts were built, warfare hadn’t changed in any essential way in 100 years, so these forts were built solidly and painstakingly to withstand the weapons of the day and were expected to be viable for years to come.  Unfortunately, by the time of the Civil War, advances in weapons had taken place that rendered these forts vulnerable and obsolete. One of the advancements was rifled cannons, which were much more accurate and could fire a projectile that traveled much further than their smooth barreled predecessors.

In later years some of the forts were modernized, creating a fort within a fort, to keep them viable for modern warfare.

What’s wrong with this picture?  Although it was 77 degrees the day we arrived at Fort Pickens, the following day the weather took a turn for the worse and the high was only in the low 50s.  Paul and I rode our bikes to the fort from the campground wearing our winter gloves, hats and jackets!

NAS, Pensacola, Florida (12-4-12)

We’re not staying in Florida yet, we’re actually staying in Summerdale Alabama, at an Escapee’s park about a half hour from the beach, but we took a day trip to Pensacola to visit the Naval Aviation Museum.

The Museum has two hangars full of airplanes,memorabilia and historical displays.

The NAS (Naval Air Station) in Pensacola is also home to the world famous Blue Angels.  Although we didn’t get to see them practice, I did watch two of them take off and fly around.

 

Inside the museum there were many Blue Angel displays, and interactive exhibits.  There were several cockpits that we could climb into….

This is me in the cockpit of a vintage Blue angel plane.  There were also several flight simulators, but you had to pay extra- anywhere from $5-$20 depending on what you want to experience.  We decided it wasn’t worth it for us.

I admit that I pretty quickly had information overload.  Paul has more of an interest in military information than I do, but this display, part of a larger Vietnam exhibit,  brought back memories! The case is full of MIA-POW bracelets that were sold back in the 1970s.  Each bracelet is engraved with the name of a Vietnam vet who was either a POW, or Missing In Action.  A bracelet would be bought and worn by someone (lots of teenagers bought them) until the soldier came home.  Over 5 million bracelets were sold.

My favorite part of the day was the trolley tour.  Our driver, Dave, is retired military and had a great sense of humor.  As we drove around looking at planes, he not only told us the history and significance of each aircraft, he told us many anecdotal stories about them.  Of course, he also told us that some of the stories may not be true.

This plane is the SNJ Texan, which was flown during World War II.  The story is that before the U.S. entered the war, Canada asked us to sell them these planes, but we felt that politically we needed to maintain a more neutral stance so we refused.  However, soon thereafter, a small fleet of these planes was flown north, close to the Canadian border.  The pilots then took a lunch break, leaving the planes alone- and when they got back, the planes were gone!! Dave said he wasn’t sure if the story is true, but said years ago he gave a tour to a veteran who said he was there when it happened.

When landing on an aircraft carrier, a plane goes from 150 mph to zero in about 2.5 seconds. Its really more of a controlled crash than a landing.  In 1963 the Navy wanted to find out if a C-130, with its 130 foot wingspan, could land on a carrier. They borrowed a plane from the Marines to use as a test, and, off the coast of Massachusetts, were actually successful landing the C-130 on the carrier 21 times, clearing the on deck control tower by only 15 feet.  The Navy concluded that although do-able, it wasn’t practical, so no other C-130 has ever landed on an aircraft carrier.(This story IS true, and this is the actual plane that did the landing)

When this plane first took to the skies in the 1960s, the government received numerous phone calls that told about a UFO that had picked up an airplane and was flying off with it.

We spent most of the day at the museum and didn’t see everything.