Wednesday, September 22, 2010

On the Town! Rangers Gentile and Hoptak.

My two favorite Park Rangers swung by the Naval History Center in Washington DC this morning.

The USS Barry, a Vietnam-era destroyer remains at the Navy Yard as a ceremonial platform and museum ship. 




The Yard has cannons everywhere and I got into a hasty arms escalation with John...



who thought he had trumped me with this sixteen-incher,



until I opted for quality and quantity.





The inside of the museum building is bright, airy, colorful, and chockfull of really cool stuff...




including some of my favorite things:

ship models,



ship models,



helmets,



and more ship models.


On this cutaway model of a Sumner class destroyer, I was able to show John where I lived and worked during my time aboard the U.S.S. Dehaven in 1973-74.


And in this twin 5-inch 38 caliber gun house, 



I was able to show him where I nearly lost my life way back then, as the "hot shell man".

But he wasn't listening.  He was too busy being menaced by...


some sort of undersea robot-monster thingy.


What a fantastic museum facility.




.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Looks like a younger version of Robbie the Robot.

John C. Nicholas

Jeff said...

Mannie,

Does a "hot shell" refer to a live round ready to be loaded and fired or a spent casing that has been ejected from the breech?

Looks like a great museum!

Jeff

Mannie Gentile said...

Jeff,

Asmoking empty needing to be retrieved and tossed out of the gun house scuttle.

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

They'll see the shows and they'll model clothes, and they'll take the town in a whirl, and they won't come home until they've kissed a girl!