When I was in the navy, starting in 1968, I was on a Gearing Class Destroyer. The only place that was off limits was the encryption room, located in the back of the radio room. The radio room door was locked and you really only had access to it if needed. When I signed onto the ship, I had to go to the radio room. Not knowing much at that time, as they were signing my papers, I looked around and started to walk towards the encryption room. I was grabbed by the collar and drug back. "You can't go there" I was told. OOPS ! That was really the only area of the ship that was off limits to the general population. Now it goes without saying you could not walk around officer's quarters and lay down in the captain's bunk. If you knew someone that worked in CIC, you could walk in to say hello to someone on watch and drop off an item of interest to him. That's not to say that you could find a chair and goof off there ! But....you could go almost anywhere on the ship except the radio room which was locked. Barry
I goofed off all the time in CIC on my Destroyer. It got pretty boring out at sea when you weren't on duty. I had an OS friend teach me how to operate a console and I loved tracking targets and writing peoples names on the screen while we were on the LINK.
My first ship was a Gearing Class Destroyer: USS Noa DD841. I got out in 1964. I was an ET so I spent some time in the radio room and the transmitter room.
Am ex Signalman of RAN. ONLY those on Authorized Entry List were allowed into the Radcen / Commcen / offline crypto was there. Literally NO ONE got in, unless the CO approved it first and even then that has never happened. CIC or OPS is a no go zone except for authorised entry list. You needed to be a trained and rated Comms sailor to get Radcen access, or an authorised and trained maintainer.
In commonwealth Navies, Commcen (RADCEN) is only accessible by those on the authorised entry list. Only training Signalman and Radio Operators had free access along with 4 technicians, CO, Senior Comms Officer (SCO), We have a barred window, when people are at the door we pull a curtain around so no one sees in.
Having been on three museum ships so far I can tell you no you dont need to see every berthing compartment. Once youve seen one WWII era berthing compartment youve seen them all. The ones on the North Carolina looks just like the ones on the Yorktown, etc. Its a nice thought online but me and my fiance spent 9 hours on the U.S.S. Yorktown and still didnt see everything the last thing we wanted to do was walk through compartment after compartment of bed racks.
I mean on an active ship, where people make these living spaces, they would be very interesting. It's probably what people imagine when they think of visiting each of them, like seeing different homes. But a decommissioned ship isn't going to have any real living space and is basically indistinguishable as you said.
@@tomparis37 can confirm as someone who works for the Museum hosting USS Yorktown, USS Laffey, and USS Clamagore. They really do all look the same. A Caveat to why on older WW2 Ships that weren't used Post-Vietnam have so many zoned off quarters is two-fold there are areas that are actually dangerous to be in (Methane and Monoxide concerns) and also Abesteses is still in a lot of the areas in the bottom-parts of the ship (much of which we have quartered off. So no one can hurt themselves also). As he said in the video part of it is also true it's just so the self-guided tours are logical.
@@tomparis37 I also personally suggest if you haven't been on the USS Midway that's the only other WW2 era Aircraft-Carrier I'd visit. The rest are really all the same mostly they're all Essex-Class and basically laid out the same.
I was a volunteer on Battleship Missouri. As a member of the amateur radio club on board I was able to be on the ship anytime of the day or night. I have to say that there is no creepier experience than to be the only LIVING person on board a battleship at night. All that subdued lighting just adds to the creepiness, as well as the scuttlebutt that the ship is haunted. Speaking of the ship being haunted, I was active duty when I volunteered on the ship. My office was just across the road at Makalapa and one day I decided to head to the ship to do a little ham radio. Dressed in my khakis, I "moved with a purpose" onto the ship and headed straight to radio where we had our station. About 30 seconds after entering radio I heard a knock on the door. Weird. Nobody ever does that. I opened the door and there was a man standing there and behind him was a woman who looked terrified. Turns out that she saw me and thought I was a ghost since it was pretty rare to see a solo officer on board. We all had a good laugh.
@@JohnDoe-vy5hh I get it, I was a volunteer Electrician on the USS Iowa restoration and was on the ship alone many times even before it had generator power. it is creepy. had to carry 2 flashlights incase I dropped or broke one.
@@jamesbaca6723I can only imagine how dark that would be. My knee jerk reaction was- just wait till daylight. But then realized just how thick, deep and dark a battleship must be if your *inside*.
My Scout troop stayed on the Yorktown back in the 90's. Every night of that week I would sneak out of my bunk to explore the off-limits areas that weren't sealed. Some corridors leading from the hangar were a little eerie, but the flight deck was awesome at night.
Haha, i'm surprised the radar was in a good enough shape to be able to transmit. Usually the navy removes all that equipment. Maybe the equipment was old enough that the navy had moved on to better technology so they just left it all there?
Heard that as well- output was enough to cause enough interference with Logan airport that had to temporarily divert some flights . Ship was not heavily stripped like MA and some others so a lot of the equipment is still intact. Also bring 40s-50s technology it was pretty out of date . Very worthwhile tour if she’s open .
When the USS Little Rock came to Buffalo the AN/SPG-49 Tracking Radar and the AN/SPW-2 Guidance Radar for the Talos was still hooked up, the cables had never been cut. My neighbor was an ET2 on the ship when he was active duty and an ETCS in the reserve and he used to service those radars. There was no power on the ship and they removed the controllers
I guy I worked for was on the USS Albany in the mid 70s. The Albany was a heavy cruiser in WWII that was converted to a guided missile frigate. Doing some work in a berthing area, they found a wallet that slipped behind a bulkhead many years earlier. It belonged to a WWII sailor who was KIA.
My uncle was aboard a vessel with such a name, however, I know there was a sub and a surface vessel with the name Chicago. I know he was aboard a sub, however, he was mainly aboard a surface vessel, and I really do not know much more than that. I know he served during Nam, as well. @@glennrishton5679
the hidden compartment rumour came from HMS Warspite having a WW2 refit in the states and when they were looking through they found a compartment that had a do not open on it, and when they entered they found it still had Damage in it from the battle of Jutland in 1916.
@@SpiritOfMontgomery the story of Warspite, its autobiography if you will. i think it was roskill's story of a famous battleship, but its been a long time since i read it. Warspite was went over to the USA for a refit, and when it was checked over they saw a compartment with a door painted shut with the words "do not open" on it, of course it was opened, and it was found to be badly damaged, the only time Warspite had been under fire enough to cause the sort of damage that was found was when she was fired on at Jutland and had her keel bent with the damage, i could be wrong but she got approx 16 heavy caliber hits because the turning spot for the formation was right under the guns of the Germans and her rudder locked, from that day on she had rudder problems that they could not fix and was renowned for breaking out of formation, having a bit of a dance and then falling back into line.
Back in 2002, I had my navy retirement ceremony held onboard the USS Wisconsin. It was held on the stern just under the barrels of the number 3 turret. That was a great experience. Unfortunately, at the time they weren't allowing anyone to go inside the ship. They also wouldn't allow anyone to go forward of the capstans on the foc'sle do to trip hazards. As a Boatswain's Mate the foc'sle was like my second home. I would love to tour any one of the Iowa's and see what it was like to serve on one. I tried to get orders to any one of them but they were never available when I was up for orders. So I was relegated to FFG's, ASR's and CG's. Oh, and a few shore duty assignments. I did my last tour on an LCU at ACU2 out of Norfolk, Virginia. Hard to believe that I have been retired almost 20 years now. It seems like it was just yesterday.
@@edwardrhoades6957 I retired in July of 02. I was on LCU-1654 at that time. We rode the Nashville on our last deployment during the winter of 2001-2002.
@@bradjames6748 Thank you! I did throw out a lot of acronym's there. If you served you full on understand those. If you didn't serve just ask and I'll explain them to you...
I'd command the ship for a day,,, fire off a ton of ordnance in a safe weapons range- go rogue but take the Court Marshall and discharge- totally worth it, steam fast for some speed runs once the boat has lightened up. Make it quality training for the crew, open her up on the return trip with a big 🇺🇸 on the front. I'd hop in that gun pit for a few special rounds, take a picture with a shell.🇺🇸💪
What you say is true. Stress goes wlth command, hard work and long days.certain rare people seem to thrive on it. Perhaps a curator's tour would be en8ugh.
@@daleeasternbrat816 Yeah I've been in charge of stuff and people throughout my career. You really get to know the good and bad in everyone as well, along with the responsibility. You would be responsible for EVERYONE's LIFE running a battleship.
Curator for a conventional fleet carrier would be equally awesome. I was on the USS Lexington in Corpus Christi in Feb 2020 before the pandemic really kicked off. Really amazing, a small city at sea for sure.
I did the USS New Jersey experience and overnight with my sons Cub Scouts two or so years ago. Brought back some vivid memories of being on a float on a different ship when I was in the Marine Corps. It's amazing how that smell and sounds of a ship hit you even years later. I really enjoyed the guided and unguided tour but the part of me the loves big machines and engineering would love to get a tour of the machine spaces, boilers, engine room and all that. That ship is an American icon and a wonder of engineering. Y'all do a great job, keep up the good work!
I got out in '98. That red phone is an encrypted radio. I think the box with a black face, colored knobs and toggles is an IFF receiver, but I could be wrong. The box between them is an intercom, where the numbers in dials connect you to different stations around the room or ship. . The big radar box is the old surface search /navigation radar; I believe that one is the same piece of shit we had on Yard Patrol craft at the Naval Academy.
@@jeffzaun1841 What I meant was you were correct on identifying the equipment not that it was necessarily a piece of shit. It worked fine in the 80s when I used it.
1 - The Gamma ray emitter station. 2 - The hypersonic missile bay. 3 - The Meson Gun collimator. 4 - The Bio-weapon assembly module. 5 - The cutlass rack.
@@pacificostudios The Cutlass rack is for anyone that makes it on board from a speedboat. If they reach the rack they are allowed to duel the captain for control of the ship.
I recently worked on the modern ships, when a compartment was finalized they Locked them down so no one could enter. Once there was some work that needed to be done, permission had to be acquired for each person to enter the compartment along with a Government overseer standing over you the entire time. Once I was in a compartment and a Ship Supervisor passing by heard work going on and screamed at me for being there and told me I was fired, the Government employee showing his ID told this person to stand down that ( I had full permission to be there) and he needed to not come in the compartment with us or he would be the one fired.
@@operands respond to the job posting and have the correct clearance. To enter into restricted spaces, one must be escorted, have one's clearance verified, sign the sign in and sign out sheet and a few other annoyances. If one's on the access list, one still has to sign in and out and arm and disarm the alarm, sign the log for the secure door being opened and when you resecure the area and heaven help you if anything is insecure inside after you leave if it's not authorized for open storage. The higher the security level, the more of a PIA it is to deal with and well, rightfully so. With some things restricted to a minimum of two personnel being in visual contact at all times and with some, approach alone and literally risk being shot.
@@spvillano Once it's on the list to be secured, it's that way through the life of the ship, you also have to have the security person watching your every move while your in the compartment.
came back for like the millionth time on Saturday. The Engine Room restoration is outstanding (coming from an engineer who sailed steam). I would love to see a steering gear room. OR, have some small exhibit/frame explanation illustrations on piping diagrams. Piping diagrams are pretty important for us grease monkeys, so it'd be cool to kind of showcase some of that!
OOh lucky you! Don't think they had the engineering spaces open when I was there at the tail end of 2015. There were still asbestos pipe wraps and various weird hydrocarbons that they were cleaning up. :)
Keep making these videos! You do a great job, and I, for one, like your style. It's genuine, and reminds me of the ship tours I've taken before COVID-19. And you have great choice of subjects, and the video editing is really worth every bit of the effort put into it! I remember walking around a decommissioned T-AGOS that my school bought, it had been heavily damaged in a fire on the pier, and had not had much equipment salvaged, everything was just lying around in disrepair... until we got to the sonar room. It was completely empty. The Navy even cut holes in the bulkheads to remove cables. It was the only space on the ship that was clean... and it was *very* clean. So, I was really curious, clicking on this video, as to what could possibly be put into an IOWA-class recently enough to still be classified, and not be removable with a bit of national-security motivation and a lot of manpower. As I suspected, nothing!
When I was a boy scout we toured a SSN sub. They had covers on a few things that are classified and we couldnt see the reactor. I did do 6 years in the navy. But as a seabee. Only ship i was on was USS Trayer battle stations 21 at RTC Great lakes. We were the first recruit division to go to the new battles stations
Right before I moved from New Jersey my friend managed to get me and a few friends a tour of the USS Kitty Hawk as her dad is a Naval Master at Arms, stationed at the Surface Warfare Center at the PNY
For active ships, good luck getting into Radio and unless a planned visit where they can cover up/secure key pieces of equipment and materials you most likely will not get into CIC.
I was CTO and we would occasionally get requests for VIPs to tour our comms center. We had large sheets made of muslin that we would hang over all the xmitters and receivers. Other than the noise of a teletype clacking away, it was pretty much like walking thru a cloth cave with a desk, a couple of operator chairs and some filing cabinets.
I worked at PSNS back in the 70s. When a ship was scheduled for an overhaul, we sent on ship check visits where we took the plans with us to compare to what was actually on the ship. There were lots of differences between the plans (updated during every yard period) and the actual ship including compartments that were not on the plans. Those were generally spaces where older compartments had been divded by ships crew. My original branch had responsibility for stowages and fittings and I remember going into tanks on the carriers to measure them to see if they matched the plans - they often didn't. On the conventional ships there were no spaces that I was ever restricted from going into, but the nuclear ships were quite different. The reactor spaces were highly restricted and you needed not only the right clearance level but also a valid reason to enter those spaces.
1978-79 USS Coral Sea yard period in Bremerton. Sick Bay caught on fire in the yards and destroyed our medical records. Had a prisoner escape off the Aft while in dry dock. MarDet, 77-80. Truly enjoyed that city.
I remember the armored belt video, one of my favorites on the channel. Have you found many spaces/construction oddities that don't match the plans/refit documents? Have you ever had someone on a tour group that served on the ship point out something like this? (A "we could make it better so we did" kind of moment?)
There are a few unauthorized ship alts, as we say, but they are generally small "we added a shelf" or a door or whatever. We will find that structurally the plans are off by a hair once in a while but its a small difference.
Im from the UK, i wish we had one of our old battleships to tour like this. the fact your team will lay on guided tours for guests to see special stuff is really impressive.
I am pretty sure I have worked with, or on, every piece of gear in that scene .... with lots of emphasis on the IFF gear (UPA-59) and the SPA-25 (the Coke Machine never broke) - Maybe excepting the status board. I can't even write well enough forward and would have wasted the navy's time trying to write legibly backward! :) Thanks for another great video, Ryan! :)
Same here. Except I think I saw a tag on the indicator that said it was a 25F, which is after my time. I was a radar ET in the Navy, 77-87, ending up as an IFF tech, and just retired from 34-1/2 years as a contractor supporting IFF. But I haven't worked on indicators since the Navy. That's a UPA-59A in the video. All my indicators had IDI's, but it is a plugin, so I guess there are applications that don't bother with it.
My wife and I took a tour of the USS Alabama in September 2019 after returning from a cruise which sailed from Mobile. I think my favorite places on the Alabama were in the 16" turrets or the citadel. It was amazing to me how heavily armoured the battle bridge is. Seeing your video about the Battleship New Jersey's gun houses I remember there was slot of difference in how the Alabama's gun houses looked so I'm wondering if the gun houses on the Alabama are missing things or if they are just not restored. The Alabama was the first naval museum ship I'd ever been on and I plan to return and take my kids because I don't think I saw all of it. I don't remember seeing the magazines, the inside of the turrets below the gun houses or the engine room. We did also tour the USS Drum which is also in Mobile next to the Alabama. I also plan to see the Missouri in Hawaii probably next summer and if I even go to your neck of the woods I'll tour the New Jersey too.
I just did the Alabama and Drum last week for the first time. I was able to see most of it but the wife kept saying how cold she was and wouldn't take my flannel.... so we left a little earlier than I wanted lol. I looked up the history of the Drum and was amazed how much action she saw, and that she was nearly destroyed by depth charges more than once. I couldn't imagine the feeling of being in that little boat while being shaken to pieces underwater, knowing the next charge might be your last. Brave men they were.
Ryan, great channel and thanks for the tours. I am curious about fresh air getting pumped throughout the deep areas of the ship, such as the room your in now. Both, when the ship was active and now while you explore it.
The ship has a pretty decent ventilation system in place, so if a space had been closed off it would need to be ventilated with forced draft blowers and tubing and what not. If it was in regular use by the navy then they'd have done that already and today the space is left open all of the time and does not have issues with that.
I love your videos. I enjoy reading the comments of former sailors and their memories of being aboard ship and what they recognize. I was always fascinated by ships. I was a Marine from 1988-1994. I spent time on the New Orleans, Schenectady, and a LSD I don't remember. I had to hunt shirkers aboard the Schenectady, and even on that small "gator navy" ship, I was amazed at how much space there was for a sandbagger to take a day long nap in. I found one in the engine room. Even then, I was amazed how the squids knew where everything was and could find any space aboard, if told to. I stayed in my berthing area, mess deck, and manned a station on the weather deck for repel boarders. I have only visited the Alabama, but your series of videos want me to visit the New Jersey. Thanks.
Ya know......... I'm really not even that interested in this subject matter but Ryan and the way he narrates/produces(?) these videos makes me want to watch more. He really does bring a bit of "spark" to the whole thing.
I think a collection of "extreme" spaces would be cool. You've done some already. Farthest aft, farthest fwd, lowest, highest, most outboard, dirtiest, noisiest, quietest, etc.
Interesting. I would guess nothing except for limiting access to equipment still being used in the military (like the Phalanx, Tomahawk launchers, etc) ... but I'd also imagine that the Navy would have ripped out any classified components/hardware.
@@GrasshopperKelly i could see that, or just older models that are broken beyond repair internally that way they are authentic, just junk. Pretty junk lmao.
dummy missiles, but authentic boxes and tubes...plug the CIWiS ammo feeds and make the 16” and 5” guns unable to target while removing every round from them so only blanks could fire. the rest is just making it look nice but not doing more than rotate
@@bostonrailfan2427 The 16" and 5" Batteries on Wisconsin do still have wired connections to CEC. It's the power trains that have been disconnected or cannibalised. But yes pretty much anything the Navy deemed necessary to stop anyone potentially touching the wrong buttons, they did. Anything the Navy still used, and could pull out the doors to use as spares or on new boats, the pulled. Half or which was quite literally ripped out. There's a fair amount of cut cables for equipment like the various search radar control boxes etc.
Electronic warfare was always locked on my ship but I would think the equipment there is very old or has been removed. There's jamming equipment and the WLR-1 a receiver that could pick up all kinds of signals. When no one was watching us we would tune in a radio Danang in Vietnam.
In the U.K. there’s a similar myth to your hidden WW2 rooms. This concerns war time airfields particularly ex bomber airfields, there’s always 3 Lancasters buried somewhere on the site, heard this so many times 🥴 good video very informative keep up the good work
Oh to choose a dream tour day with Ryan... So much on the list!! Obviously the guns, turrets, and all the decks associated. Conning tower, every level, plus CEC, bridge, COs cabin etc. Boilers and engineering spaces. Shaft alley. Steering room. Would like to do some crawling and see obscure stuff, like armor belt and its connections, graduations, etc. The keel too of course. The list just keeps going!! I could literally keep Mr Curator busy for days!!!🤣😂 The cool thing is that Ryan has taken us to so.many of those places already!!! Thanks Ryan!!
It would actually be far safer if the asbestos were still in place. Undisturbed asbestos is perfectly safe, it’s only one it gets airborne that it’s dangerous. It mainly depends on how well it was removed.
Maybe in some of the deepest, hardest to get to places on the ship there could still be some but the navy was pretty good at getting nearly all of it in the 80's.
11:54 Even if you didn’t find anything cool in that makeshift office, the paperwork must’ve been a semi-exciting find? what was the kind of paper work you guys found and what did it talk?
I plan on visiting the Battleship in late spring. Having been a crew member in the eighties, I’m hoping to be able to see some of the spaces I worked in as well as my berthing compartment. I was in 3rd division, and my berthing compartment was on the 3rd deck below the mess decks, on the starboard side……Most of my work spaces were on the main deck from the super structure to the stern on the fantail.
Ryan, great videos. Thanks! My son and I toured the Yorktown last year. I thought I remember the tour guide telling us the gear boxes that reduce the rotational speed between the steam turbines and the propeller shafts were still owned by GE, and must be returned to the company if the ship were ever scrapped. Also thought he said they didn't want inspection covers removed to show the inside the gear boxes to the public. Is this true for the Iowas as well?
The gear boxes being returned to the company is a common story we hear that we can't confirm the truth of. But we can show them to people if we want, and we plan to, MA already does.
@@BattleshipNewJersey i served in #3 #4 engine rooms from 1986 to 1989 knowlege was that these items were on a 99yr.lease.from ge or westinghouse both suppliers of these parts.
It's mundane, I guess, but one of the things that always fascinated me about these rooms are the guys that stand behind the clear plex and write backwards so the important people in the room can read it. Those guys are pretty important too, because you have to learn how to do that. It's not a job that you can just throw any rando into, especially in the urgency of a casualty situation.
I remember getting a "new" desk in my work center at NAS /key /west in the 80's it had paperwork from the Cuban missile crisis in some of the drawers. The Navy never seems to throw anything away.
I’ve visited Iowa & Missouri, but never NJ. On each of those ships, though, I really wanted to check out the upper levels of the foremast, especially the gun director up top, as well as inside the turrets and down below in the shell hoists & handling rooms.
I live less than five miles from the USS Yorktown and have visited this WWII Carrier on multiple occasions, but born and raised in Clifton, NJ, I would love to visit this historic battleship one day. Also, a Navy veteran, I am peaked at the effort that these ships provide (in operation and planning that was involved in their creation and preservation).
Another great video Ryan. On my list would be the chain locker, “Catacombs“, both of which you have done already and to stay a night in the “Penthouse“ would be amazing.
I had thought you might say something about the uppermost loading area of the 16" gun turret. You didn't show it on your episode about that area of the ship and I saw it on an active duty tour of the USS Missouri in the late 80's at Long Beach while I was in the Marine Corps. The brass ammo loading slides in there were beautiful.
This space, CIC, was also where our NGFS team planned, plotted and tracked our 16" projectiles fired, for example, on 8 Feb 1984 when we fired 288 rounds 23 miles inland into the Bekaa Valley east of Beirut, where we blew up all the Syrian generals inside a farmhouse during their invasion of Lebanon. The NGFS chart used on that day I kept and donated the the USS New Jersey a few years ago ... and hope someday to see finally displayed, perhaps on the very table in CIC where it was originally located when actually used on that historic day.
@@robertkarp2070 ... No, I'm afraid the name is not familiar. I checked our cruise book and didn't find his name, either. He might have come aboard after the Lebanon cruise and after I left the ship.
@@FatherVampire He and I attended OS "A" school together. He was first in class and I was 2nd and the New Jersey was on the list, so he chose the New Jersey, this was in January 1982. I went to the USS Coronado (AGF-11) it was the flagship in the Persian Gulf at the time and counted as double sea duty and almost guaranteed choice of duty station afterwards, so I chose it for another chance for the New Jersey, but after my year out there, the New Jersey had no billets available so I went on the USS Long Beach (CGN-9).
@@robertkarp2070 ... I was in OS "A" school beginning April 1983 and also finished 2nd in my class, thus choosing the Jersey, as well (the 1st-in-class chose a comfy shore billet). Had I been 1st, I STILL would have chosen the Jersey! And congrats on your service aboard the Coronado (wow!) and the Long Beach (what an unusual ship!). Again, I can't find an OS Hart aboard during my time there. Don't know if maybe he was already off ship by the time I got there September 1983.
@@FatherVampire Something might have happened to him. He was a good guy. When I was on the Long Beach, I was sent to be Mess Decks Master At Arms, and fell down a trunk breaking my ankle after 2 and a half years on there, so something similar may have happened to him.
People don’t understand that ships are dangerous. They are a huge collection of steel boxes with limited ventilation. Pitch dark when the light is off. Hatches and scuttles and protrusions.
@@onlythewise1 none of which do you much good when you fall through a floor hatch, break a leg, and probably go unconscious from the pain (and hopefully don't bleed out).
I've seen this magnificent ship from the plane when I fly in/out of PHL. When I know I'll have time, I'll definitely want to hit y'all up for the curator tour.
@@BattleshipNewJersey Was a baby ever born on board? During the various rescues and repatriation trips, there must have been at some time a child born on one of the ships.
This video answered my question. As a former machinists mate on a fast attack submarine, and current commercial nuclear operator, I have great interest in crawling around a ship like this. I was going to email and ask if there's a donation level at which I could do that, and you answered that with the curators tour. I'll definitely be reaching out about that very soon.
Wonder if a sound system could replicate the machinery in operation. Perhaps there is a recording somewhere either for posterity or sonar training, interesting.
When I was in the Navy Radio, Missile houses, CIC and EW were need to know and visit only. Plus if you are not assigned to a work area, you better be invited or assigned to work there so I understand why there are limits to accessibility even in museum ships. Have a Happy New Year!🎉🎉🎉!
Hey Ryan, been a sub to your channel since you started. Keep up the good work. My question to you is where are the small arms stored on board for the marines and regular seamen and what types and how many weapons did they carry? Thanks.
I am a supporting member. Will the Engine Room, shaft alley, and any of the rudder compartments ever going to be opened to regular tours? With over 200,000 HP, I would imagine that the engineering spaces are some of the largest in existence. Even larger than Yamato's. Having toured the ship since it first opened I am really impressed with the quality of the displays and restoration that has been done through the years. Now that I am retired, I am giving serious thought to becoming a volunteer. Ryan; keep up the good work.
The engine room is currently on the regular tour! As far as aft steering (to see the rudder equipment), we have been working on restoring those spaces, but no real info yet on when that will open, it will probably only ever be on guided tours, just because of its location. As far as shaft alley, I don't think that will be ever be on the tour route, its just a lot of vertical ladders and would be impossible to get folks there safely. However, on our engine room tour you do get to see (and touch if you want) one of the shafts.
when i watched the video about which Battleship should be brought back to service, i was wondering. is it easier by modern standards to maintain a Battleship than in the past and is it maybe less expensive than in the past, like the 1940s or in some cases the 1980s
There are alot of rumors here in Norway that after WW2 german bunkers where so packed with guns and ammunition that it was much easier to just brick the bunkers shut than it was to haul everything off to a depot. Some bunker fields are so inaccessible that horse back would be the only way to get it back down (They had thousands of Russian POW's to carry them up) and yes there are many bricked up bunkers around here. I can only imagine that it would be tempting to just weld a 16" magazine shut and hide the seam rather than to hoist several hundred 16" shells out a labyringh of corridors and narrow stairways especially considdering it was probably alot more manpower getting the shells onboard than getting them off.
@@core3086 I reckon they expended all ammunition when they were going out of service, it’s definitely what we did when they took one of our artillery units out of service.
They removed the nuclear reactor from the USS Nautilus before it was opened to the public as a museum ship. Nuclear reactors are still classified. The same goes for nuclear weapons. They've released only general schematics of the nuclear bombs dropped on Japan. I'm not 100% certain but the USS Nautilus (SSN-571) might be one of the few if not the only nuclear-powered military vessel in the world that has been opened to the public as a museum ship! It certainly is in the US. It's certainly the only nuclear-powered submarine (or formerly, in this case) where the hull has been preserved. As for other nuclear-powered submarines, to my knowledge they've only preserved parts of most notable subs (including the NR-1) -- things like the sail (which is the most commonly preserved hull part) and a propeller. The Submarine Museum in Groton, CT probably has the most preserved submarine sails. It's also the current home of the Nautilus.
@@AvengerII Also there is, or at least used to be, the control room and some engineering panels from an attack boat in the Smithsonian; don't remember which one. Various gauges were missing or had replacements that did not show things like maximum depth, speed, etc. Those numbers are classified. Probably not for the Nautilus, as its hull design is so different from current subs, though.
@@skovner I think the Nautilus is still the only preserved SSN that is largely intact (minus the reactor, of course)! It's probably because it was an experimental ship NOT representative of active duty AND a relatively small ship that she's a museum piece instead of being scrapped -- like every other SSN after her has been once they were decommissioned. NR-1 was a spy ship. I don't particularly think there was much about her that was special (design features other than the reactor) to warrant scrapping the entire ship. The US Navy just doesn't seem to be in much of a mood to hang onto ships for years that they know have almost no possibility of being recommissioned. Nor do they want to lay up ships for years or decades on "Hold" status for organizations that can't get their acts together. I think the situation with the USS Cabot was the breaking point for the US Navy's museum ship policy. The Cabot was a one of a kind ship at the end of her life. It just wasn't meant to be where her life as a museum ship was concerned. The Navy repossessed the Cabot after the organization in New Orleans failed to come up with a viable financial plan for the ship. Cabot was scrapped not that long (few years?) afterwards. Cabot's fate could be the fate of any ex-Navy museum ship if the organizations stewarding those ships fail.
@@AvengerII I think there is a French nuclear sub still largely intact (minus reactor) as a museum ship. I was commenting on how anything that could give away information does get removed. The Nautilus was armed, unlike most experimental subs, like the Albacore, but as far as I know, was never deployed on patrol where it was intended to possibly fire torpedoes. As for the French sub, I had a link to a youtube video on it, but the video (and account) are now gone. And it takes a lot of money to maintain a ship, even docked. I believe Texas is being moved to a gravel bed or drydock because it is expensive to stop leaks in a ship over 100 years old.
Actually ... things are sometimes forgotten and people don't realize it defiantly positively should NOT have been. When it is pointed out things quietly are swapped out or removed. Happened at a museum near Kenosha WI.
10:00 these spaces of abandoned gear must happen all the time. Same thing happened to me a while ago working in the ship yard on one of the Nimitz nuke boats. It was like the Iowa's lost ghoat office but less so, all we found an abandoned broom closet that might have once been a shop. The mops, broom and all the rubbish certainly went back to the very early 90s if not the 80s and the ancient work bench and clamp certainly looked old enough to have been in WW2. This was accessed by a bolted scuttle at the back of a massive space, full of steam condenser tanks itself bolted shut by a crouch and high step scuttle fastened with like 12 massive nuts and bolts. I dont think its like no one ever goes in these places its just that they get visited once a blue moon so its easy enough that if just 1 or 2 guys screw up the paper work in the report and it doesn't get cleaned and if it didnt get cleaned last time it must not be supposed to be cleaned this time and so on.
Also opening up an endless maze of berthing might be pretty cool, maybe make a corn maze of it but even just long lengths of them fore to aft would be pretty powerful in conveying the scope of the interior if not just every cool. Like getting lost in a museum, finding obscure exibits and poorly layed out museums has been one of the great delights of my child hood at many a slap dash aviation or history museum, LAMI's building with its hidden trove of models and old pics from san pedro battleship days!
My Father was ships company on USS Intrepid, 64-68. Once we finally convinced him to go to the museum, he was walking with my mother explaining things about the ship and one of the workers overheard him and asked him how he new the subjects he was talking about. He responded that this was his home for four years. When they found out where he worked, they asked if he could go with them off the tour to explain some parts of the ship that they were working on. He told me that a lot of those spaces were just a mess. It appeared to him like the Navy just told the crew that went through to remove stuff, "have fun and rip out what ever you want to." I am very aware that there are spaces that are dangerous for the public masses to ramble around. The part that interests me is the size of the passageways that were created for men to move through while scrambling to get to battle stations or general quarters. The chaos that must have ensued is mind altering.
Apparently there is a passageway to go forwards and another one to go rearwards which I didn't know until recently but that makes perfect sense and I'm sure it wasn't as chaotic that you may think it was.
@@tomnewham1269 Which is why there is the famous WWII joke about someone getting on the loudspeaker and saying "NOW HEAR THIS! ALL THOSE WHO HAVE NOT ALREADY DONE SO WILL DO SO NOW, ON THE DOUBLE! ALL HANDS FORWARD GO AFT! ALL HANDS AFT GO FORWARD! ALL HANDS AMIDSHIPS DIRECT TRAFFIC!" I do not know if it actually happened, but I have read about it in some memoires...
Curator: What are some of your favorite spaces and why? What is the coolest artifact you found or know of? What is the coolest sailor art you've seen? What is the most dangerous situation you found? I actually know how to use much of the equipment you showed in CIC. They also probably had a separate Gun Plot, and certainly Sonar Room. I spent a short time aboard NJ as a midshipman in 1968. I got to be aboard underway during some shakedown exercises after her revitalization at the LBNSY. Definitely a high point. The ship I spent my main time aboard is also now a museum: USS Hornet.
Interestingly, we dont have a sonar room, we don't have sonar at all. We don't really have favorite spaces. But I know Ryan really likes this hand held range finder for aircraft that we've got a video coming out about this week. I like the art of a guy on a horse you see in our second splinter deck video. Our camera person (me) only chickened out while filming once, climbing up to the radar deck on the 014 level
That’s so cool that you served on the Hornet. I did a “flashlight tour” of it years ago with some friends. What i remember most was the smell in the engine room. That oil smelled so good. Very much unlike the smell of a Harbor Freight store. 😂 Loved seeing all the steam stuff and the redundancy built into many systems. Super cool vessel. Happy 2024! 😊
@@hondahirny: If that was NSFO (black oil), it at first brought on my seasickness as a midshipman aboard USS INGERSOLL (DD-752) a small destroyer out of San Diego. My first duty station was in the fire room. Once I got over that, I never got seasick again. I don't think I ever visited the Hornet's engine spaces. I mostly had duty in aviation spaces and on the bridge. I qualified as OOD under way before the summer was over.
I visited the USS North Carolina in Wilmington, NC and they pretty much just left us to wander around where we wanted to go. Pretty neat sitting in the Captain's chair on the bridge, overlooking the front turrets.
I was an IC Man on the USS Independence CVA/CV-62 from 1970-1974 and again from 1976-1978. I was chasing a ground in a 1MC speaker circuit and I found a small space on the 03 level, about 12 feet square, between a head and a berthing compartment that had no access. According to the ships diagrams it was a "Drying Room" next to the showers. According to the wiring diagrams there was a 1MC speaker in the space. The numbers for the speakers either side matched what they were supposed to be. I contacted DC Central and a Chief came up and tried to find a way in. We could get to all six sides of this space.There was a welded up 'Knee-knocker" in the head that should have been the access. Luckily my ground was farther down the string so it wasn't necessary for me to get into it.
Most any museum ship of any size will take you through the main mess and galley, they're actually really neat. It sort of puts you back into the norms of daily life aboard.
I would like to see the secret room where the "Philadelphia Experiment" equipment is controlled. If it is visible! USS New Jersey is a fantastic ship, interesting and exciting at so many levels! Thanks for keeping her alive!
Quite frankly I'd like to dig around the CIC right there - unfortunately even the Curator's tour is not an option for me since I'm all the way over in Europe. As such your videos will have to suffice to sate my curiosity - which is why I am grateful for you doing as many of them as you do. My greetings to all of your team - and especially your security-staff. I've done that job for a bunch of years and know how frequently the work these lads and lasses do goes unappreciated and taken for granted. And on that note, the in-depth knowledge about a place's layout also often gets overlooked. I wouldn't be surprised if the best among your security staff were to know the insides of the ship about as well as Ryan himself...
As dad was assigned to the RADAR Repeater in the Admiral's cabin for maintenance work on the Missouri in the late 40s, does the NJ still have one there? At the time he was a lowly ET of 20-22 years of age.
I always wondered (and you mentioned now 'under the desk') did you find some lost/forgotten weapon during your space searches and restorations? I would guess all the shells and army weapons to be cleared from the ship at decommission but maybe some handgun might be hidden if someone, for example, wasn't allowed to have it and couldn't take it with him.
I remember in the 80's I went to Long Beach to see the New Jersey when she was in port for a time and we were only allowed to see the exterior and be on deck 1. At most of the Doors to the interior there were Marines with M16's and they had their Fingers on the triggers
Really doubt they had fingers on the triggers, that is drilled into your head in basic training. Keep your f’ing finger off the f’ing trigger until you’re on target and made the decision to fire.
I believe you except for the finger on the trigger part, although aboard my ship they were kind of a dick around the missile house. They are an awesome sight to see I agree.
The battleship Iowa was in Norfolk around 89/90, shortly after one of the turrets blew, and we were told they wouldn't let people inside. And it was parked across the pier from our ship so we would get a nice view of it from our flight deck.
Back in the early 1980's, as a Boy Scout, I spent the night with my BS Troop onboard USS Massachusetts. Are there any plans for overnight stay on USS New Jersey? I visited USS NJ 2 years ago. For me, the best part of the self-guided tour was crawling into turret #2. I got to sit in one of the gun director chairs and mess with turret guidance system. Also, each of the three main guns were open, showing a state of the loading process. That was really cool to see. Perhaps in 10 years, I will be rich enough to afford a $500 tour.
LOL - amusing your admission that in 3 years you haven't seen every space... I served for 12 years as an Aircrewman aboard various frigates, destroyers, and later - aircraft carriers, and RARELY saw the entire vessel . I DID do landings on USS Missouri - only walked from the helo-deck up the port-side to a hatch where I found a head, and then took possession of some EXCELLENT box-lunches. Got to visit a LOT of USS Kitty Hawk during my time aboard - the ASWModule owned a number of spaces - our analysis offices, the Nixie spaces, and I visited the VS and HS squadron briefing rooms and division spaces when briefing or flying with their crews.
Interest from spelunking groups? Seems the skills and equipment would come in handy for some of those spaces. No wonder some of those guys on battleships were small. Great watching, hope to make the trip and see in person soon.
Somewhere, a Human Resources person who is a fan of Peter Benchley's book "Q Clearance" is laughing their ass off about the very last note they ever wrote aboard that ship- "Do not allow anyone in this office ever!!! National Security- Q Clearance Required!!" Thanks for all you do Ryan, you have a lot on your plate!
A man I worked with was on a carrier and was tracing electrical lines and came to a wall that had the machine ship in it with all machines from commissioning. Drills, lathes, welders etc. It had no door into it. So this is probably the ship you mentioned , unless they built more than one this way.
I want an adults only "Sailor Art Tour" and, whilst walking from exhibit to exhibit, a course in sailor/USN slang, terms, and culture; a taste of the experience without joining the Navy. Ask our group to say "Aye, aye" and the correct procedure for cleaning a head. Good times.
We call them Twilight tours, we visit the art we can't show the kids and theres usually drinks at the end. Check our website for details but we've got one scheduled for June 2021.
My guess: A storage location that contain logs, reports and commands that are to be destroyed "x" years after decommissioning. These records are probably only accessible by Navy staff, and by no one else. (I would expect all files to be stored in an office) Another guess are locations that are hazardous. For example, I believe there are ship locations that are bolted shut to avoid entry. This is because the oxidation reaction from rusted metal depletes oxygen in the location. Going into this room/location without the proper breathing apparatus will result in passing out from the lack of oxygen. Perhaps even a location where nuclear arms were held?? Apparently the ship was "nuclear armed on Sept 27-28 1986". Cannot wait to find out!
Have a friend I met after boot went to this ship so my guess is if there was anything left aboard putin knows about it long ago lol.If any real secret stuff was left they would have sunk it like my ship,a spruance class dd.
I had a question. In the videos quite often you talk about armour thickness, which gives an idea about the survivability from enemy fire. Do you have a video where you comment on the prospects for escape from each space, in the event of a ship sinking? I get the impression that the more heavily armoured a space is, the harder it would be to escape from. Is this true?
Ryan, question for you & your team. The USS Massachusetts battleship up in Fall River, Ma allows self guided tours of the ship either w/ or without an audio set (your choice). I’ve done it several times and you basically have free reign of all the ‘restored’ areas. Obviously there are areas with locked doors or hatches you can’t get to but by & large it’s for the most part open to explore. All on your own. Do you ever plan to get to this level of restoration w/ New Jersey? To a point where people can roam freely all the way from the bridge to the engine room, to the bottommost powder mag Turret 1 (seriously on Massachusetts they let you find your own way down into the powder mags & shell rooms of the 2 forward turrets). Or are you afraid of people getting lost. Just a general question. Appreciate all the work you guys do!
We basically do let people roam freely from the bridge to the engine room. We have a colored line system that people follow so they don't miss stuff and its easier to navigate but they are self guided (we have audio guides like MA too) and can wander as they like
Massachusetts has been a museum for a LOT longer than New Jersey. It takes time, money, and a LOT of effort to prep a space for display/tour and keep it that way. Give 'em time (and money, and more volunteers) and Big J will get there. :D
When I was taking a tour of the Iowa, there was a group of people who wanted to get up onto the top of the tower. It was a special day that happened every 2 years that the old crews comes on board, and they let them up there. The cool thing was all the stories those guys had about the ship!!
When I was in the navy, starting in 1968, I was on a Gearing Class Destroyer. The only place that was off limits was the encryption room, located in the back of the radio room. The radio room door was locked and you really only had access to it if needed. When I signed onto the ship, I had to go to the radio room. Not knowing much at that time, as they were signing my papers, I looked around and started to walk towards the encryption room. I was grabbed by the collar and drug back. "You can't go there" I was told. OOPS ! That was really the only area of the ship that was off limits to the general population. Now it goes without saying you could not walk around officer's quarters and lay down in the captain's bunk.
If you knew someone that worked in CIC, you could walk in to say hello to someone on watch and drop off an item of interest to him. That's not to say that you could find a chair and goof off there !
But....you could go almost anywhere on the ship except the radio room which was locked.
Barry
I goofed off all the time in CIC on my Destroyer. It got pretty boring out at sea when you weren't on duty. I had an OS friend teach me how to operate a console and I loved tracking targets and writing peoples names on the screen while we were on the LINK.
My first ship was a Gearing Class Destroyer: USS Noa DD841. I got out in 1964. I was an ET so I spent some time in the radio room and the transmitter room.
Am ex Signalman of RAN. ONLY those on Authorized Entry List were allowed into the Radcen / Commcen / offline crypto was there. Literally NO ONE got in, unless the CO approved it first and even then that has never happened. CIC or OPS is a no go zone except for authorised entry list. You needed to be a trained and rated Comms sailor to get Radcen access, or an authorised and trained maintainer.
That interesting I will keep that in mind I’m about to enlist in the navy next year
In commonwealth Navies, Commcen (RADCEN) is only accessible by those on the authorised entry list. Only training Signalman and Radio Operators had free access along with 4 technicians, CO, Senior Comms Officer (SCO), We have a barred window, when people are at the door we pull a curtain around so no one sees in.
Ryan: "Do you really wanna see-"
Me: "Yes" lol
"Absolutely!! Let's go"
Having been on three museum ships so far I can tell you no you dont need to see every berthing compartment. Once youve seen one WWII era berthing compartment youve seen them all. The ones on the North Carolina looks just like the ones on the Yorktown, etc. Its a nice thought online but me and my fiance spent 9 hours on the U.S.S. Yorktown and still didnt see everything the last thing we wanted to do was walk through compartment after compartment of bed racks.
I mean on an active ship, where people make these living spaces, they would be very interesting. It's probably what people imagine when they think of visiting each of them, like seeing different homes. But a decommissioned ship isn't going to have any real living space and is basically indistinguishable as you said.
@@tomparis37 can confirm as someone who works for the Museum hosting USS Yorktown, USS Laffey, and USS Clamagore. They really do all look the same. A Caveat to why on older WW2 Ships that weren't used Post-Vietnam have so many zoned off quarters is two-fold there are areas that are actually dangerous to be in (Methane and Monoxide concerns) and also Abesteses is still in a lot of the areas in the bottom-parts of the ship (much of which we have quartered off. So no one can hurt themselves also). As he said in the video part of it is also true it's just so the self-guided tours are logical.
@@tomparis37 I also personally suggest if you haven't been on the USS Midway that's the only other WW2 era Aircraft-Carrier I'd visit. The rest are really all the same mostly they're all Essex-Class and basically laid out the same.
I was a volunteer on Battleship Missouri. As a member of the amateur radio club on board I was able to be on the ship anytime of the day or night. I have to say that there is no creepier experience than to be the only LIVING person on board a battleship at night. All that subdued lighting just adds to the creepiness, as well as the scuttlebutt that the ship is haunted.
Speaking of the ship being haunted, I was active duty when I volunteered on the ship. My office was just across the road at Makalapa and one day I decided to head to the ship to do a little ham radio. Dressed in my khakis, I "moved with a purpose" onto the ship and headed straight to radio where we had our station. About 30 seconds after entering radio I heard a knock on the door. Weird. Nobody ever does that. I opened the door and there was a man standing there and behind him was a woman who looked terrified. Turns out that she saw me and thought I was a ghost since it was pretty rare to see a solo officer on board. We all had a good laugh.
Great story!
@@JohnDoe-vy5hh I get it, I was a volunteer Electrician on the USS Iowa restoration and was on the ship alone many times even before it had generator power. it is creepy. had to carry 2 flashlights incase I dropped or broke one.
@@jamesbaca6723I can only imagine how dark that would be. My knee jerk reaction was- just wait till daylight. But then realized just how thick, deep and dark a battleship must be if your *inside*.
Literally lol. Were they civies?
My Scout troop stayed on the Yorktown back in the 90's. Every night of that week I would sneak out of my bunk to explore the off-limits areas that weren't sealed. Some corridors leading from the hangar were a little eerie, but the flight deck was awesome at night.
Apparently someone activated the radar on the USS Salem once. Caused some mayhem at the airport.
Haha, i'm surprised the radar was in a good enough shape to be able to transmit. Usually the navy removes all that equipment. Maybe the equipment was old enough that the navy had moved on to better technology so they just left it all there?
@@killman369547 They came with bolt cutters hours later. So we were told. Navy was PISSED
Heard that as well- output was enough to cause enough interference with Logan airport that had to temporarily divert some flights . Ship was not heavily stripped like MA and some others so a lot of the equipment is still intact. Also bring 40s-50s technology it was pretty out of date . Very worthwhile tour if she’s open .
@@michaelbaker8284 Probably went all the way up to Olympus and the gods rained down thunder.
When the USS Little Rock came to Buffalo the AN/SPG-49 Tracking Radar and the AN/SPW-2 Guidance Radar for the Talos was still hooked up, the cables had never been cut. My neighbor was an ET2 on the ship when he was active duty and an ETCS in the reserve and he used to service those radars. There was no power on the ship and they removed the controllers
How much and how detailed would the "Drachinifel Tour" be?
Its not the price that gets you, its carrying the backpack and that cord of fire wood for the stem-to-stern void space crawl overnighters.
atleast 10 minutes for each and every habitable compartment
I'd assume a detailed look at every single berthing space.
basically, you get a lecture and watch movies then get talked down to...but you’ll learn tons in the process!
an interesting question....
I guy I worked for was on the USS Albany in the mid 70s. The Albany was a heavy cruiser in WWII that was converted to a guided missile frigate. Doing some work in a berthing area, they found a wallet that slipped behind a bulkhead many years earlier. It belonged to a WWII sailor who was KIA.
My Grandad served on the Albany too!
And thats a pretty interesting find.
Guided Missile Cruiser I was on the Chicago CG 11 which was a sister ship to the Albany and Columbus. The Chicago had been CA 136.
I was stationed on the USS Albany - CG10 for the (last) 11 months it was homeported in Gaeta, Italy as the 6th fleet flag ship
My uncle was aboard a vessel with such a name, however, I know there was a sub and a surface vessel with the name Chicago. I know he was aboard a sub, however, he was mainly aboard a surface vessel, and I really do not know much more than that. I know he served during Nam, as well. @@glennrishton5679
the hidden compartment rumour came from HMS Warspite having a WW2 refit in the states and when they were looking through they found a compartment that had a do not open on it, and when they entered they found it still had Damage in it from the battle of Jutland in 1916.
Wait I’ve never heard about this. Source? Not doubting, just very curious
@@SpiritOfMontgomery the story of Warspite, its autobiography if you will. i think it was roskill's story of a famous battleship, but its been a long time since i read it. Warspite was went over to the USA for a refit, and when it was checked over they saw a compartment with a door painted shut with the words "do not open" on it, of course it was opened, and it was found to be badly damaged, the only time Warspite had been under fire enough to cause the sort of damage that was found was when she was fired on at Jutland and had her keel bent with the damage, i could be wrong but she got approx 16 heavy caliber hits because the turning spot for the formation was right under the guns of the Germans and her rudder locked, from that day on she had rudder problems that they could not fix and was renowned for breaking out of formation, having a bit of a dance and then falling back into line.
Such stories probably go back at least as far as the Spanish Armada.
@@michaelsommers2356 that was in the official ship history by the way.
@@billhanson4921 What do you mean specifically by "official ship history"?
Back in 2002, I had my navy retirement ceremony held onboard the USS Wisconsin. It was held on the stern just under the barrels of the number 3 turret. That was a great experience. Unfortunately, at the time they weren't allowing anyone to go inside the ship. They also wouldn't allow anyone to go forward of the capstans on the foc'sle do to trip hazards. As a Boatswain's Mate the foc'sle was like my second home. I would love to tour any one of the Iowa's and see what it was like to serve on one. I tried to get orders to any one of them but they were never available when I was up for orders. So I was relegated to FFG's, ASR's and CG's. Oh, and a few shore duty assignments. I did my last tour on an LCU at ACU2 out of Norfolk, Virginia. Hard to believe that I have been retired almost 20 years now. It seems like it was just yesterday.
I understand it was almost impossible to get assigned to any Iowa's.
You must have retired not long before I went on my first deployment on LHA-4 in 02. ACU 2 deployed with us.
Then you were assigned to the USS Acronym lol , seriously though, thanks for your service
@@edwardrhoades6957 I retired in July of 02. I was on LCU-1654 at that time. We rode the Nashville on our last deployment during the winter of 2001-2002.
@@bradjames6748 Thank you! I did throw out a lot of acronym's there. If you served you full on understand those. If you didn't serve just ask and I'll explain them to you...
I cannot imagine a job that would be more fun or more interesting than to be curator of a battleship. Except commanding an active one.
Nah, being a CO is stressful, like running a medium sized business that can kill people.
I'd command the ship for a day,,, fire off a ton of ordnance in a safe weapons range- go rogue but take the Court Marshall and discharge- totally worth it, steam fast for some speed runs once the boat has lightened up.
Make it quality training for the crew, open her up on the return trip with a big 🇺🇸 on the front.
I'd hop in that gun pit for a few special rounds, take a picture with a shell.🇺🇸💪
What you say is true. Stress goes wlth command, hard work and long days.certain rare people seem to thrive on it. Perhaps a curator's tour would be en8ugh.
@@daleeasternbrat816 Yeah I've been in charge of stuff and people throughout my career. You really get to know the good and bad in everyone as well, along with the responsibility. You would be responsible for EVERYONE's LIFE running a battleship.
Curator for a conventional fleet carrier would be equally awesome. I was on the USS Lexington in Corpus Christi in Feb 2020 before the pandemic really kicked off. Really amazing, a small city at sea for sure.
Family connection. My grandfather helped build her. Thanks for caring for her and may she educate and inspire for a long time to come.
I did the USS New Jersey experience and overnight with my sons Cub Scouts two or so years ago. Brought back some vivid memories of being on a float on a different ship when I was in the Marine Corps. It's amazing how that smell and sounds of a ship hit you even years later. I really enjoyed the guided and unguided tour but the part of me the loves big machines and engineering would love to get a tour of the machine spaces, boilers, engine room and all that. That ship is an American icon and a wonder of engineering. Y'all do a great job, keep up the good work!
I got out of the Navy five years ago, August. I can personally vouch that I recognize 95% of the equipment still in that space.
I got out in '98. That red phone is an encrypted radio. I think the box with a black face, colored knobs and toggles is an IFF receiver, but I could be wrong. The box between them is an intercom, where the numbers in dials connect you to different stations around the room or ship.
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The big radar box is the old surface search /navigation radar; I believe that one is the same piece of shit we had on Yard Patrol craft at the Naval Academy.
@@jeffzaun1841 You're correct on all counts. Retired OS.
@@ictpilot In fairness, that radar wasn't a piece of shit when the Navy started putting it on ships in the 1950s :)
@@jeffzaun1841 What I meant was you were correct on identifying the equipment not that it was necessarily a piece of shit. It worked fine in the 80s when I used it.
Do you think you could get it all operational again ?
I’m a machinist, so seeing the machine shop was at the top of my favorite on board places!
Same. Love that area
I get that... having been in emergency services for half a century, the damage control areas were interesting to me.
1 - The Gamma ray emitter station.
2 - The hypersonic missile bay.
3 - The Meson Gun collimator.
4 - The Bio-weapon assembly module.
5 - The cutlass rack.
Very very funny!
@@pacificostudios The Cutlass rack is for anyone that makes it on board from a speedboat. If they reach the rack they are allowed to duel the captain for control of the ship.
I'd like to see the Anti-Mass Spectrometer
The Curator's tour sounds like a steal for the money. Perhaps when Canadians can travel again I will come down.
Just take back Bieber after your visit!
@@IvorMektin1701 NO REFUNDS. Just store him in a void space.
@@agenericaccount3935
😆
@@IvorMektin1701 lol
I hope I can make the trip down sometime soon
I recently worked on the modern ships, when a compartment was finalized they Locked them down so no one could enter. Once there was some work that needed to be done, permission had to be acquired for each person to enter the compartment along with a Government overseer standing over you the entire time. Once I was in a compartment and a Ship Supervisor passing by heard work going on and screamed at me for being there and told me I was fired, the Government employee showing his ID told this person to stand down that ( I had full permission to be there) and he needed to not come in the compartment with us or he would be the one fired.
How do you get such a job?
@@operands respond to the job posting and have the correct clearance.
To enter into restricted spaces, one must be escorted, have one's clearance verified, sign the sign in and sign out sheet and a few other annoyances. If one's on the access list, one still has to sign in and out and arm and disarm the alarm, sign the log for the secure door being opened and when you resecure the area and heaven help you if anything is insecure inside after you leave if it's not authorized for open storage.
The higher the security level, the more of a PIA it is to deal with and well, rightfully so. With some things restricted to a minimum of two personnel being in visual contact at all times and with some, approach alone and literally risk being shot.
This must have been in a new ship still under construction.
@@spvillano Once it's on the list to be secured, it's that way through the life of the ship, you also have to have the security person watching your every move while your in the compartment.
where do you store the bunny ears of New Jersey?
There is some bunny art in one of the 5in guns...
@@BattleshipNewJersey BB-62 is the most cultured ship in existence.
@@BattleshipNewJersey azur lane has the battleship new New Jersey in game that is why the question was asked about the bunny ears
Hahahhaha
Oh god you really did it
"A 3-hour tour"...uh oh. I know how this is going to end.
and he literally starts it with "just sit right back and you'll hear a tale ..."
The ss minnow did a 3 hr.tour, no ?
Oh no
Ooooo. I hope Mary Ann is on my tour. Do they take requests?
@@OrangPasien Mary Ann is dead.
came back for like the millionth time on Saturday. The Engine Room restoration is outstanding (coming from an engineer who sailed steam). I would love to see a steering gear room. OR, have some small exhibit/frame explanation illustrations on piping diagrams. Piping diagrams are pretty important for us grease monkeys, so it'd be cool to kind of showcase some of that!
OOh lucky you! Don't think they had the engineering spaces open when I was there at the tail end of 2015. There were still asbestos pipe wraps and various weird hydrocarbons that they were cleaning up. :)
I've been asking about the steering gear rooms too! I keep hoping they'll open one up for the next time I visit - ah well, maybe next time.
Keep making these videos! You do a great job, and I, for one, like your style. It's genuine, and reminds me of the ship tours I've taken before COVID-19. And you have great choice of subjects, and the video editing is really worth every bit of the effort put into it!
I remember walking around a decommissioned T-AGOS that my school bought, it had been heavily damaged in a fire on the pier, and had not had much equipment salvaged, everything was just lying around in disrepair... until we got to the sonar room. It was completely empty. The Navy even cut holes in the bulkheads to remove cables. It was the only space on the ship that was clean... and it was *very* clean.
So, I was really curious, clicking on this video, as to what could possibly be put into an IOWA-class recently enough to still be classified, and not be removable with a bit of national-security motivation and a lot of manpower. As I suspected, nothing!
When I was a boy scout we toured a SSN sub. They had covers on a few things that are classified and we couldnt see the reactor. I did do 6 years in the navy. But as a seabee. Only ship i was on was USS Trayer battle stations 21 at RTC Great lakes. We were the first recruit division to go to the new battles stations
Right before I moved from New Jersey my friend managed to get me and a few friends a tour of the USS Kitty Hawk as her dad is a Naval Master at Arms, stationed at the Surface Warfare Center at the PNY
For active ships, good luck getting into Radio and unless a planned visit where they can cover up/secure key pieces of equipment and materials you most likely will not get into CIC.
I was CTO and we would occasionally get requests for VIPs to tour our comms center. We had large sheets made of muslin that we would hang over all the xmitters and receivers. Other than the noise of a teletype clacking away, it was pretty much like walking thru a cloth cave with a desk, a couple of operator chairs and some filing cabinets.
@@adstaton8461 Teletypes! Wow, we are old ;-)
I worked at PSNS back in the 70s. When a ship was scheduled for an overhaul, we sent on ship check visits where we took the plans with us to compare to what was actually on the ship. There were lots of differences between the plans (updated during every yard period) and the actual ship including compartments that were not on the plans. Those were generally spaces where older compartments had been divded by ships crew. My original branch had responsibility for stowages and fittings and I remember going into tanks on the carriers to measure them to see if they matched the plans - they often didn't.
On the conventional ships there were no spaces that I was ever restricted from going into, but the nuclear ships were quite different. The reactor spaces were highly restricted and you needed not only the right clearance level but also a valid reason to enter those spaces.
1978-79 USS Coral Sea yard period in Bremerton. Sick Bay caught on fire in the yards and destroyed our medical records. Had a prisoner escape off the Aft while in dry dock. MarDet, 77-80. Truly enjoyed that city.
@@jhollie8196 Fortunately I lived in Seattle and took the ferry to work. My last year at PSNS was 77.
I remember the armored belt video, one of my favorites on the channel. Have you found many spaces/construction oddities that don't match the plans/refit documents? Have you ever had someone on a tour group that served on the ship point out something like this? (A "we could make it better so we did" kind of moment?)
There are a few unauthorized ship alts, as we say, but they are generally small "we added a shelf" or a door or whatever. We will find that structurally the plans are off by a hair once in a while but its a small difference.
Im from the UK, i wish we had one of our old battleships to tour like this. the fact your team will lay on guided tours for guests to see special stuff is really impressive.
Isn’t there an old battleship moored on the Thames in London?
@@davidepperson2376 HMS belfast is a light cruiser, still impressive, but orders of magnitude!
Its a damned shame the UK did not preserve Vanguard.
I am pretty sure I have worked with, or on, every piece of gear in that scene .... with lots of emphasis on the IFF gear (UPA-59) and the SPA-25 (the Coke Machine never broke) - Maybe excepting the status board. I can't even write well enough forward and would have wasted the navy's time trying to write legibly backward! :) Thanks for another great video, Ryan! :)
Same here. Except I think I saw a tag on the indicator that said it was a 25F, which is after my time. I was a radar ET in the Navy, 77-87, ending up as an IFF tech, and just retired from 34-1/2 years as a contractor supporting IFF. But I haven't worked on indicators since the Navy.
That's a UPA-59A in the video. All my indicators had IDI's, but it is a plugin, so I guess there are applications that don't bother with it.
My wife and I took a tour of the USS Alabama in September 2019 after returning from a cruise which sailed from Mobile. I think my favorite places on the Alabama were in the 16" turrets or the citadel. It was amazing to me how heavily armoured the battle bridge is. Seeing your video about the Battleship New Jersey's gun houses I remember there was slot of difference in how the Alabama's gun houses looked so I'm wondering if the gun houses on the Alabama are missing things or if they are just not restored. The Alabama was the first naval museum ship I'd ever been on and I plan to return and take my kids because I don't think I saw all of it. I don't remember seeing the magazines, the inside of the turrets below the gun houses or the engine room. We did also tour the USS Drum which is also in Mobile next to the Alabama. I also plan to see the Missouri in Hawaii probably next summer and if I even go to your neck of the woods I'll tour the New Jersey too.
I just did the Alabama and Drum last week for the first time. I was able to see most of it but the wife kept saying how cold she was and wouldn't take my flannel.... so we left a little earlier than I wanted lol. I looked up the history of the Drum and was amazed how much action she saw, and that she was nearly destroyed by depth charges more than once. I couldn't imagine the feeling of being in that little boat while being shaken to pieces underwater, knowing the next charge might be your last. Brave men they were.
Ryan, great channel and thanks for the tours. I am curious about fresh air getting pumped throughout the deep areas of the ship, such as the room your in now. Both, when the ship was active and now while you explore it.
The ship has a pretty decent ventilation system in place, so if a space had been closed off it would need to be ventilated with forced draft blowers and tubing and what not. If it was in regular use by the navy then they'd have done that already and today the space is left open all of the time and does not have issues with that.
I love your videos. I enjoy reading the comments of former sailors and their memories of being aboard ship and what they recognize. I was always fascinated by ships. I was a Marine from 1988-1994. I spent time on the New Orleans, Schenectady, and a LSD I don't remember. I had to hunt shirkers aboard the Schenectady, and even on that small "gator navy" ship, I was amazed at how much space there was for a sandbagger to take a day long nap in. I found one in the engine room. Even then, I was amazed how the squids knew where everything was and could find any space aboard, if told to. I stayed in my berthing area, mess deck, and manned a station on the weather deck for repel boarders. I have only visited the Alabama, but your series of videos want me to visit the New Jersey. Thanks.
Ya know......... I'm really not even that interested in this subject matter but Ryan and the way he narrates/produces(?) these videos makes me want to watch more. He really does bring a bit of "spark" to the whole thing.
I think a collection of "extreme" spaces would be cool. You've done some already. Farthest aft, farthest fwd, lowest, highest, most outboard, dirtiest, noisiest, quietest, etc.
Served on the New Jersey from 1983-1987. Many great memories!!!
Interesting. I would guess nothing except for limiting access to equipment still being used in the military (like the Phalanx, Tomahawk launchers, etc) ... but I'd also imagine that the Navy would have ripped out any classified components/hardware.
All the CWIS you see, are either fake, or just spare shells/casings. Made to look nice and pretty :)
@@GrasshopperKelly i could see that, or just older models that are broken beyond repair internally that way they are authentic, just junk. Pretty junk lmao.
dummy missiles, but authentic boxes and tubes...plug the CIWiS ammo feeds and make the 16” and 5” guns unable to target while removing every round from them so only blanks could fire. the rest is just making it look nice but not doing more than rotate
@@bostonrailfan2427 The 16" and 5" Batteries on Wisconsin do still have wired connections to CEC. It's the power trains that have been disconnected or cannibalised. But yes pretty much anything the Navy deemed necessary to stop anyone potentially touching the wrong buttons, they did. Anything the Navy still used, and could pull out the doors to use as spares or on new boats, the pulled. Half or which was quite literally ripped out. There's a fair amount of cut cables for equipment like the various search radar control boxes etc.
Electronic warfare was always locked on my ship but I would think the equipment there is very old or has been removed. There's jamming equipment and the WLR-1 a receiver that could pick up all kinds of signals. When no one was watching us we would tune in a radio Danang in Vietnam.
In the U.K. there’s a similar myth to your hidden WW2 rooms. This concerns war time airfields particularly ex bomber airfields, there’s always 3 Lancasters buried somewhere on the site, heard this so many times 🥴 good video very informative keep up the good work
There's 3 Lancasters in Canada I've seen all 3
@@bradjames6748 We've got one in New Zealand.
Oh to choose a dream tour day with Ryan... So much on the list!! Obviously the guns, turrets, and all the decks associated. Conning tower, every level, plus CEC, bridge, COs cabin etc. Boilers and engineering spaces. Shaft alley. Steering room. Would like to do some crawling and see obscure stuff, like armor belt and its connections, graduations, etc. The keel too of course. The list just keeps going!! I could literally keep Mr Curator busy for days!!!🤣😂
The cool thing is that Ryan has taken us to so.many of those places already!!! Thanks Ryan!!
My favorite space visiting the Mighty Mo’ in Honolulu was the mechanical firing solution room.
Those analog computers really make you wonder why we bother with Microsoft, don't they?
I'm definitely going to go with asbestos still in spaces and not yet removed.
To Ryan and your staff....be safe.
@crash burn Yeah, I think once they realized how dangerous asbestos is, they removed it from all ships still in service in the 1980s
It would actually be far safer if the asbestos were still in place. Undisturbed asbestos is perfectly safe, it’s only one it gets airborne that it’s dangerous. It mainly depends on how well it was removed.
Maybe in some of the deepest, hardest to get to places on the ship there could still be some but the navy was pretty good at getting nearly all of it in the 80's.
@@killman369547 eh. I had to deal with asbestos and lead in 2000-2004
@@alexcrawford6162 yep, undisturbed is safe.
11:54 Even if you didn’t find anything cool in that makeshift office, the paperwork must’ve been a semi-exciting find? what was the kind of paper work you guys found and what did it talk?
I plan on visiting the Battleship in late spring. Having been a crew member in the eighties, I’m hoping to be able to see some of the spaces I worked in as well as my berthing compartment. I was in 3rd division, and my berthing compartment was on the 3rd deck below the mess decks, on the starboard side……Most of my work spaces were on the main deck from the super structure to the stern on the fantail.
Ryan, great videos. Thanks! My son and I toured the Yorktown last year. I thought I remember the tour guide telling us the gear boxes that reduce the rotational speed between the steam turbines and the propeller shafts were still owned by GE, and must be returned to the company if the ship were ever scrapped. Also thought he said they didn't want inspection covers removed to show the inside the gear boxes to the public. Is this true for the Iowas as well?
The gear boxes being returned to the company is a common story we hear that we can't confirm the truth of. But we can show them to people if we want, and we plan to, MA already does.
@@BattleshipNewJersey i served in #3 #4 engine rooms from 1986 to 1989 knowlege was that these items were on a 99yr.lease.from ge or westinghouse both suppliers of these parts.
Makes one wonder if GE is going to retake possession of their gearboxes when the lease ends in 14 more years or so...
Would there be any consideration of replacing removed equipment with dummy replicas to give a more authentic feel?
Or replicas that through the use of modern technology could replicate the exact function almost like how a simulator would.
It's mundane, I guess, but one of the things that always fascinated me about these rooms are the guys that stand behind the clear plex and write backwards so the important people in the room can read it. Those guys are pretty important too, because you have to learn how to do that. It's not a job that you can just throw any rando into, especially in the urgency of a casualty situation.
It's not that difficult to master.
You pick up the skill pretty quickly. E, 3 and S are easy to mix up! :)
I really liked going up into the super structure on the curator's tour. It was a little difficult to get up there, but it was worth it.
I remember getting a "new" desk in my work center at NAS /key /west in the 80's it had paperwork from the Cuban missile crisis in some of the drawers. The Navy never seems to throw anything away.
I’ve visited Iowa & Missouri, but never NJ. On each of those ships, though, I really wanted to check out the upper levels of the foremast, especially the gun director up top, as well as inside the turrets and down below in the shell hoists & handling rooms.
You could spend one night on each of the 2,000 beds and review all of them. That would be cool.
I live less than five miles from the USS Yorktown and have visited this WWII Carrier on multiple occasions, but born and raised in Clifton, NJ, I would love to visit this historic battleship one day. Also, a Navy veteran, I am peaked at the effort that these ships provide (in operation and planning that was involved in their creation and preservation).
Another great video Ryan. On my list would be the chain locker, “Catacombs“, both of which you have done already and to stay a night in the “Penthouse“ would be amazing.
I had thought you might say something about the uppermost loading area of the 16" gun turret. You didn't show it on your episode about that area of the ship and I saw it on an active duty tour of the USS Missouri in the late 80's at Long Beach while I was in the Marine Corps. The brass ammo loading slides in there were beautiful.
This space, CIC, was also where our NGFS team planned, plotted and tracked our 16" projectiles fired, for example, on 8 Feb 1984 when we fired 288 rounds 23 miles inland into the Bekaa Valley east of Beirut, where we blew up all the Syrian generals inside a farmhouse during their invasion of Lebanon.
The NGFS chart used on that day I kept and donated the the USS New Jersey a few years ago ... and hope someday to see finally displayed, perhaps on the very table in CIC where it was originally located when actually used on that historic day.
Did you know Matt Hart? He was an OS on the New Jersey back then.
@@robertkarp2070 ... No, I'm afraid the name is not familiar. I checked our cruise book and didn't find his name, either. He might have come aboard after the Lebanon cruise and after I left the ship.
@@FatherVampire He and I attended OS "A" school together. He was first in class and I was 2nd and the New Jersey was on the list, so he chose the New Jersey, this was in January 1982. I went to the USS Coronado (AGF-11) it was the flagship in the Persian Gulf at the time and counted as double sea duty and almost guaranteed choice of duty station afterwards, so I chose it for another chance for the New Jersey, but after my year out there, the New Jersey had no billets available so I went on the USS Long Beach (CGN-9).
@@robertkarp2070 ... I was in OS "A" school beginning April 1983 and also finished 2nd in my class, thus choosing the Jersey, as well (the 1st-in-class chose a comfy shore billet). Had I been 1st, I STILL would have chosen the Jersey! And congrats on your service aboard the Coronado (wow!) and the Long Beach (what an unusual ship!). Again, I can't find an OS Hart aboard during my time there. Don't know if maybe he was already off ship by the time I got there September 1983.
@@FatherVampire Something might have happened to him. He was a good guy. When I was on the Long Beach, I was sent to be Mess Decks Master At Arms, and fell down a trunk breaking my ankle after 2 and a half years on there, so something similar may have happened to him.
I've toured the battleship Missouri memorial, it's really cool. I highly recommend visiting it.
People don’t understand that ships are dangerous. They are a huge collection of steel boxes with limited ventilation. Pitch dark when the light is off. Hatches and scuttles and protrusions.
so bring lots of flash lights and oxygen
@@onlythewise1 none of which do you much good when you fall through a floor hatch, break a leg, and probably go unconscious from the pain (and hopefully don't bleed out).
@@jwenting then don’t fall down a hole that simple, just pay attention
@@krustykrew106 again, not knowing how dangerous ships and ship life can be.
@Jordan Rodrigues ya my dad fought on the iowa bb61 first man to board her 1943 im sure he knows how to walk in the ship .
I've seen this magnificent ship from the plane when I fly in/out of PHL. When I know I'll have time, I'll definitely want to hit y'all up for the curator tour.
I left my hat in one of the birthing compartments I’m gonna need to come down and look through all of them. Thanks
Berthing compartment not Birthing. The battleship has damn near everything but I don't think they have an obstetrician on board LOL
We do have the facilities to birth babies! Our medical facilities are prepared for most anything
@@BattleshipNewJersey Was a baby ever born on board? During the various rescues and repatriation trips, there must have been at some time a child born on one of the ships.
@@GaryCameron Haven't you seen _Operation Petticoat?_
Not that I've seen a record of
I will be booking a curators tour of electronics spaces (OE, Operations Electronics) when I can get a few of my ET buddies together for it.
This video answered my question. As a former machinists mate on a fast attack submarine, and current commercial nuclear operator, I have great interest in crawling around a ship like this.
I was going to email and ask if there's a donation level at which I could do that, and you answered that with the curators tour.
I'll definitely be reaching out about that very soon.
Did you get to explore?
Has Ryan ever stood at the ships wheel/helm and hummed motoring sounds?
I'm 52 years old, and I'd prolly do that😁
That one gave me a laugh. Thank you for that.
Wonder if a sound system could replicate the machinery in operation. Perhaps there is a recording somewhere either for posterity or sonar training, interesting.
That would be cool ! But only if the floors and walls vibrated and hummed as well.
When I was in the Navy Radio, Missile houses, CIC and EW were need to know and visit only. Plus if you are not assigned to a work area, you better be invited or assigned to work there so I understand why there are limits to accessibility even in museum ships.
Have a Happy New Year!🎉🎉🎉!
Hey Ryan, been a sub to your channel since you started. Keep up the good work. My question to you is where are the small arms stored on board for the marines and regular seamen and what types and how many weapons did they carry? Thanks.
Check this out th-cam.com/video/_AY1PIq0Rho/w-d-xo.html
I am a supporting member. Will the Engine Room, shaft alley, and any of the rudder compartments ever going to be opened to regular tours? With over 200,000 HP, I would imagine that the engineering spaces are some of the largest in existence. Even larger than Yamato's. Having toured the ship since it first opened I am really impressed with the quality of the displays and restoration that has been done through the years. Now that I am retired, I am giving serious thought to becoming a volunteer. Ryan; keep up the good work.
The engine room is currently on the regular tour! As far as aft steering (to see the rudder equipment), we have been working on restoring those spaces, but no real info yet on when that will open, it will probably only ever be on guided tours, just because of its location. As far as shaft alley, I don't think that will be ever be on the tour route, its just a lot of vertical ladders and would be impossible to get folks there safely. However, on our engine room tour you do get to see (and touch if you want) one of the shafts.
when i watched the video about which Battleship should be brought back to service, i was wondering. is it easier by modern standards to maintain a Battleship than in the past and is it maybe less expensive than in the past, like the 1940s or in some cases the 1980s
Thanks!
plot twist: CIA is pointing a gun at him and making him say this to throw us off
No, Aph, the CIA is too busy watching Trump and the 75 million who voted for him.
*reads from script
"There is definitely no classified info here"
Because that's where they're hiding Elvis and Buddy Holly.
There are alot of rumors here in Norway that after WW2 german bunkers where so packed with guns and ammunition that it was much easier to just brick the bunkers shut than it was to haul everything off to a depot. Some bunker fields are so inaccessible that horse back would be the only way to get it back down (They had thousands of Russian POW's to carry them up) and yes there are many bricked up bunkers around here. I can only imagine that it would be tempting to just weld a 16" magazine shut and hide the seam rather than to hoist several hundred 16" shells out a labyringh of corridors and narrow stairways especially considdering it was probably alot more manpower getting the shells onboard than getting them off.
@@core3086 I reckon they expended all ammunition when they were going out of service, it’s definitely what we did when they took one of our artillery units out of service.
Thanks to this video popping up in my feed, I will be watching for dry-dock updates and may try to take a tour next time I'm in NJ.
Anything classified has to stay in very secure areas. The Navy would have removed anything before releasing the ship.
They removed the nuclear reactor from the USS Nautilus before it was opened to the public as a museum ship. Nuclear reactors are still classified. The same goes for nuclear weapons. They've released only general schematics of the nuclear bombs dropped on Japan.
I'm not 100% certain but the USS Nautilus (SSN-571) might be one of the few if not the only nuclear-powered military vessel in the world that has been opened to the public as a museum ship! It certainly is in the US. It's certainly the only nuclear-powered submarine (or formerly, in this case) where the hull has been preserved.
As for other nuclear-powered submarines, to my knowledge they've only preserved parts of most notable subs (including the NR-1) -- things like the sail (which is the most commonly preserved hull part) and a propeller. The Submarine Museum in Groton, CT probably has the most preserved submarine sails. It's also the current home of the Nautilus.
@@AvengerII Also there is, or at least used to be, the control room and some engineering panels from an attack boat in the Smithsonian; don't remember which one. Various gauges were missing or had replacements that did not show things like maximum depth, speed, etc. Those numbers are classified. Probably not for the Nautilus, as its hull design is so different from current subs, though.
@@skovner I think the Nautilus is still the only preserved SSN that is largely intact (minus the reactor, of course)!
It's probably because it was an experimental ship NOT representative of active duty AND a relatively small ship that she's a museum piece instead of being scrapped -- like every other SSN after her has been once they were decommissioned.
NR-1 was a spy ship. I don't particularly think there was much about her that was special (design features other than the reactor) to warrant scrapping the entire ship. The US Navy just doesn't seem to be in much of a mood to hang onto ships for years that they know have almost no possibility of being recommissioned. Nor do they want to lay up ships for years or decades on "Hold" status for organizations that can't get their acts together.
I think the situation with the USS Cabot was the breaking point for the US Navy's museum ship policy. The Cabot was a one of a kind ship at the end of her life. It just wasn't meant to be where her life as a museum ship was concerned. The Navy repossessed the Cabot after the organization in New Orleans failed to come up with a viable financial plan for the ship. Cabot was scrapped not that long (few years?) afterwards. Cabot's fate could be the fate of any ex-Navy museum ship if the organizations stewarding those ships fail.
@@AvengerII I think there is a French nuclear sub still largely intact (minus reactor) as a museum ship. I was commenting on how anything that could give away information does get removed.
The Nautilus was armed, unlike most experimental subs, like the Albacore, but as far as I know, was never deployed on patrol where it was intended to possibly fire torpedoes.
As for the French sub, I had a link to a youtube video on it, but the video (and account) are now gone.
And it takes a lot of money to maintain a ship, even docked. I believe Texas is being moved to a gravel bed or drydock because it is expensive to stop leaks in a ship over 100 years old.
Actually ... things are sometimes forgotten and people don't realize it defiantly positively should NOT have been. When it is pointed out things quietly are swapped out or removed. Happened at a museum near Kenosha WI.
10:00 these spaces of abandoned gear must happen all the time. Same thing happened to me a while ago working in the ship yard on one of the Nimitz nuke boats. It was like the Iowa's lost ghoat office but less so, all we found an abandoned broom closet that might have once been a shop. The mops, broom and all the rubbish certainly went back to the very early 90s if not the 80s and the ancient work bench and clamp certainly looked old enough to have been in WW2. This was accessed by a bolted scuttle at the back of a massive space, full of steam condenser tanks itself bolted shut by a crouch and high step scuttle fastened with like 12 massive nuts and bolts. I dont think its like no one ever goes in these places its just that they get visited once a blue moon so its easy enough that if just 1 or 2 guys screw up the paper work in the report and it doesn't get cleaned and if it didnt get cleaned last time it must not be supposed to be cleaned this time and so on.
Also opening up an endless maze of berthing might be pretty cool, maybe make a corn maze of it but even just long lengths of them fore to aft would be pretty powerful in conveying the scope of the interior if not just every cool. Like getting lost in a museum, finding obscure exibits and poorly layed out museums has been one of the great delights of my child hood at many a slap dash aviation or history museum, LAMI's building with its hidden trove of models and old pics from san pedro battleship days!
My Father was ships company on USS Intrepid, 64-68. Once we finally convinced him to go to the museum, he was walking with my mother explaining things about the ship and one of the workers overheard him and asked him how he new the subjects he was talking about. He responded that this was his home for four years. When they found out where he worked, they asked if he could go with them off the tour to explain some parts of the ship that they were working on. He told me that a lot of those spaces were just a mess. It appeared to him like the Navy just told the crew that went through to remove stuff, "have fun and rip out what ever you want to." I am very aware that there are spaces that are dangerous for the public masses to ramble around. The part that interests me is the size of the passageways that were created for men to move through while scrambling to get to battle stations or general quarters. The chaos that must have ensued is mind altering.
Apparently there is a passageway to go forwards and another one to go rearwards which I didn't know until recently but that makes perfect sense and I'm sure it wasn't as chaotic that you may think it was.
@@tomnewham1269 Which is why there is the famous WWII joke about someone getting on the loudspeaker and saying "NOW HEAR THIS! ALL THOSE WHO HAVE NOT ALREADY DONE SO WILL DO SO NOW, ON THE DOUBLE! ALL HANDS FORWARD GO AFT! ALL HANDS AFT GO FORWARD! ALL HANDS AMIDSHIPS DIRECT TRAFFIC!" I do not know if it actually happened, but I have read about it in some memoires...
Curator: What are some of your favorite spaces and why? What is the coolest artifact you found or know of? What is the coolest sailor art you've seen? What is the most dangerous situation you found?
I actually know how to use much of the equipment you showed in CIC. They also probably had a separate Gun Plot, and certainly Sonar Room. I spent a short time aboard NJ as a midshipman in 1968. I got to be aboard underway during some shakedown exercises after her revitalization at the LBNSY. Definitely a high point. The ship I spent my main time aboard is also now a museum: USS Hornet.
Interestingly, we dont have a sonar room, we don't have sonar at all.
We don't really have favorite spaces. But I know Ryan really likes this hand held range finder for aircraft that we've got a video coming out about this week. I like the art of a guy on a horse you see in our second splinter deck video. Our camera person (me) only chickened out while filming once, climbing up to the radar deck on the 014 level
@@BattleshipNewJersey: Thanks for the comprehensive answer!
That’s so cool that you served on the Hornet. I did a “flashlight tour” of it years ago with some friends. What i remember most was the smell in the engine room. That oil smelled so good. Very much unlike the smell of a Harbor Freight store. 😂
Loved seeing all the steam stuff and the redundancy built into many systems.
Super cool vessel. Happy 2024! 😊
@@hondahirny: If that was NSFO (black oil), it at first brought on my seasickness as a midshipman aboard USS INGERSOLL (DD-752) a small destroyer out of San Diego. My first duty station was in the fire room. Once I got over that, I never got seasick again.
I don't think I ever visited the Hornet's engine spaces. I mostly had duty in aviation spaces and on the bridge. I qualified as OOD under way before the summer was over.
I visited the USS North Carolina in Wilmington, NC and they pretty much just left us to wander around where we wanted to go. Pretty neat sitting in the Captain's chair on the bridge, overlooking the front turrets.
I was an IC Man on the USS Independence CVA/CV-62 from 1970-1974 and again from 1976-1978. I was chasing a ground in a 1MC speaker circuit and I found a small space on the 03 level, about 12 feet square, between a head and a berthing compartment that had no access. According to the ships diagrams it was a "Drying Room" next to the showers. According to the wiring diagrams there was a 1MC speaker in the space. The numbers for the speakers either side matched what they were supposed to be. I contacted DC Central and a Chief came up and tried to find a way in. We could get to all six sides of this space.There was a welded up 'Knee-knocker" in the head that should have been the access. Luckily my ground was farther down the string so it wasn't necessary for me to get into it.
As a chef here in Australia.. i would love to see the mess area of the ship
Most any museum ship of any size will take you through the main mess and galley, they're actually really neat. It sort of puts you back into the norms of daily life aboard.
I would like to see the secret room where the "Philadelphia Experiment" equipment is controlled. If it is visible!
USS New Jersey is a fantastic ship, interesting and exciting at so many levels! Thanks for keeping her alive!
As an example, the location you are in right now-when the 16" guns would fire, what would you likely have felt and heard?
Not a lot. A pop from the guns. Theres a lot of armor between you and them.
Quite frankly I'd like to dig around the CIC right there - unfortunately even the Curator's tour is not an option for me since I'm all the way over in Europe. As such your videos will have to suffice to sate my curiosity - which is why I am grateful for you doing as many of them as you do.
My greetings to all of your team - and especially your security-staff. I've done that job for a bunch of years and know how frequently the work these lads and lasses do goes unappreciated and taken for granted. And on that note, the in-depth knowledge about a place's layout also often gets overlooked. I wouldn't be surprised if the best among your security staff were to know the insides of the ship about as well as Ryan himself...
Wow, this was amazing. I never realized that you hadn't seen everything in the ship in 3 1/2 years.
As dad was assigned to the RADAR Repeater in the Admiral's cabin for maintenance work on the Missouri in the late 40s, does the NJ still have one there? At the time he was a lowly ET of 20-22 years of age.
I heard that story about the unknown machine shop being found on the USS Nimitz.
That might be an urban legend because I heard the exact same thing about the USS Enterprise when I served onboard from 87-91.
I always wondered (and you mentioned now 'under the desk') did you find some lost/forgotten weapon during your space searches and restorations? I would guess all the shells and army weapons to be cleared from the ship at decommission but maybe some handgun might be hidden if someone, for example, wasn't allowed to have it and couldn't take it with him.
Nope. Never found any weapons or ammunition.
@@BattleshipNewJersey Thank you. You created one of my favourite channels.
Lmao hidden handgun :Trollge:
@@snegik You obviously never found a gun.
@@EnVildKat I didn't say so
I remember in the 80's I went to Long Beach to see the New Jersey when she was in port for a time and we were only allowed to see the exterior and be on deck 1. At most of the Doors to the interior there were Marines with M16's and they had their Fingers on the triggers
Really doubt they had fingers on the triggers, that is drilled into your head in basic training. Keep your f’ing finger off the f’ing trigger until you’re on target and made the decision to fire.
I believe you except for the finger on the trigger part, although aboard my ship they were kind of a dick around the missile house. They are an awesome sight to see I agree.
The battleship Iowa was in Norfolk around 89/90, shortly after one of the turrets blew, and we were told they wouldn't let people inside. And it was parked across the pier from our ship so we would get a nice view of it from our flight deck.
Back in the early 1980's, as a Boy Scout, I spent the night with my BS Troop onboard USS Massachusetts. Are there any plans for overnight stay on USS New Jersey? I visited USS NJ 2 years ago. For me, the best part of the self-guided tour was crawling into turret #2. I got to sit in one of the gun director chairs and mess with turret guidance system. Also, each of the three main guns were open, showing a state of the loading process. That was really cool to see.
Perhaps in 10 years, I will be rich enough to afford a $500 tour.
We do a very similar overnight program to MA. Go to www.battleshipnewjersey.org for details
Now that you have the radar spinning is it possible to get the CIWS moving or have the barrels spin up.
The museum cannot run the hydraulic system so no turret actions unfortunately.
I noticed the radar antenna rotating today. What's the story with that starting up?
Heres a video about the spinning radar:
th-cam.com/video/9ldxe324ppk/w-d-xo.html
LOL - amusing your admission that in 3 years you haven't seen every space... I served for 12 years as an Aircrewman aboard various frigates, destroyers, and later - aircraft carriers, and RARELY saw the entire vessel . I DID do landings on USS Missouri - only walked from the helo-deck up the port-side to a hatch where I found a head, and then took possession of some EXCELLENT box-lunches. Got to visit a LOT of USS Kitty Hawk during my time aboard - the ASWModule owned a number of spaces - our analysis offices, the Nixie spaces, and I visited the VS and HS squadron briefing rooms and division spaces when briefing or flying with their crews.
Meanwhile, that one guy that wanted to spend 4 hours looking at 2000 identical beds:
"Unsubscribed!"
Interest from spelunking groups? Seems the skills and equipment would come in handy for some of those spaces. No wonder some of those guys on battleships were small. Great watching, hope to make the trip and see in person soon.
List of places Ryan hasn't visited onboard:
1. The barbershop
Apparently not ashore either.
Lol
Lmao 🤣🤣
Lmao
His hair is fine. There just is an enormous amount of static electricity on the battleship
I'm dying 🤣
Somewhere, a Human Resources person who is a fan of Peter Benchley's book "Q Clearance" is laughing their ass off about the very last note they ever wrote aboard that ship-
"Do not allow anyone in this office ever!!!
National Security- Q Clearance Required!!"
Thanks for all you do Ryan, you have a lot on your plate!
Its not the navy HR office, its the museum's.
Isn’t Q for DoE?
Yeah, I always tried to stay out of HR, too.
A man I worked with was on a carrier and was tracing electrical lines and came to a wall that had the machine ship in it with all machines from commissioning. Drills, lathes, welders etc. It had no door into it. So this is probably the ship you mentioned , unless they built more than one this way.
I want an adults only "Sailor Art Tour" and, whilst walking from exhibit to exhibit, a course in sailor/USN slang, terms, and culture; a taste of the experience without joining the Navy. Ask our group to say "Aye, aye" and the correct procedure for cleaning a head. Good times.
We call them Twilight tours, we visit the art we can't show the kids and theres usually drinks at the end. Check our website for details but we've got one scheduled for June 2021.
As always great video. The space i like to see is the inside of the Mark 8 'computer' as it is performing some computations/calcualtions.
My guess:
A storage location that contain logs, reports and commands that are to be destroyed "x" years after decommissioning. These records are probably only accessible by Navy staff, and by no one else. (I would expect all files to be stored in an office)
Another guess are locations that are hazardous. For example, I believe there are ship locations that are bolted shut to avoid entry.
This is because the oxidation reaction from rusted metal depletes oxygen in the location.
Going into this room/location without the proper breathing apparatus will result in passing out from the lack of oxygen.
Perhaps even a location where nuclear arms were held?? Apparently the ship was "nuclear armed on Sept 27-28 1986".
Cannot wait to find out!
Have a friend I met after boot went to this ship so my guess is if there was anything left aboard putin knows about it long ago lol.If any real secret stuff was left they would have sunk it like my ship,a spruance class dd.
none of that stuff would be stored on a decommissioned ship. if the ship is in private hands there is nothing classified there.
Would like to see a video of sick bay and and medical unit, does it have a hospital ,Operating room.
I see they let Ryan into the Van de Graff generator room.
Dan, yours is the funniest comment , I was kind of thinking he needs to comb his hair but your comment was hillariouis, thanx!
I had a question. In the videos quite often you talk about armour thickness, which gives an idea about the survivability from enemy fire. Do you have a video where you comment on the prospects for escape from each space, in the event of a ship sinking? I get the impression that the more heavily armoured a space is, the harder it would be to escape from. Is this true?
Check this out th-cam.com/video/e37gavD5k0E/w-d-xo.html
@@BattleshipNewJersey Scary stuff. Interesting watching though.
As a retired OSC(SW), thank you for your service to the ship.
Ryan, question for you & your team. The USS Massachusetts battleship up in Fall River, Ma allows self guided tours of the ship either w/ or without an audio set (your choice). I’ve done it several times and you basically have free reign of all the ‘restored’ areas. Obviously there are areas with locked doors or hatches you can’t get to but by & large it’s for the most part open to explore. All on your own. Do you ever plan to get to this level of restoration w/ New Jersey? To a point where people can roam freely all the way from the bridge to the engine room, to the bottommost powder mag Turret 1 (seriously on Massachusetts they let you find your own way down into the powder mags & shell rooms of the 2 forward turrets). Or are you afraid of people getting lost. Just a general question. Appreciate all the work you guys do!
We basically do let people roam freely from the bridge to the engine room. We have a colored line system that people follow so they don't miss stuff and its easier to navigate but they are self guided (we have audio guides like MA too) and can wander as they like
Massachusetts has been a museum for a LOT longer than New Jersey. It takes time, money, and a LOT of effort to prep a space for display/tour and keep it that way. Give 'em time (and money, and more volunteers) and Big J will get there. :D
Ask my ex-gf how many beds she wants to wander through!
Maybe some former Barracks Bunny wanting to relive the glory days lol
Okay, I'll volunteer. Shoot me her contact info and I'll ask...
Hmmmm, sounds like my ex-wife
@@wes11bravo well played, very well indeed.
Was her name Tiffany???
11:47 I would say that .45 wasn't there too.
Realistically, you would probably bring in more income for the museum if the tour was at a remotely reasonable price.
When I was taking a tour of the Iowa, there was a group of people who wanted to get up onto the top of the tower. It was a special day that happened every 2 years that the old crews comes on board, and they let them up there. The cool thing was all the stories those guys had about the ship!!