South Dakota, Part One

There is more to South Dakota than just a great pulled pork sammich. They have poisonous snakes too, but I am not going to talk about them.

The first place on my South Dakota itinerary was Sioux Falls. I selected this place as it seemed a logical spot to spend an overnight due to time and distance. So, with trusty GOOGLE I searched to see if there was anything worth looking at.

I passed on their replica of Michelangelo's David. I've seen the real one in Florence, Italy. THAT was impressive.

How about a battleship memorial in the virtual middle of a continent?

Sioux Falls is the home of the memorial to the World War II battleship USS South Dakota. Now, anyone who knows me, knows one of my biggest interests is naval warfare, especially when it involves big guns. Although not a complete dreadnought, the memorial contains parts of that ship before it was scrapped and lots of related memorabilia. The memorial itself sits in a concrete outline of the ship, in actual size!



I won't get into the details of the ship's history except to say, it was the most highly decorated American dreadnought of WWII. A pity it was saved, liked other battleships. However, two of her sister ships were preserved: one in Massachusetts and the other in Alabama. I guess South Dakota got robbed because it is landlocked. This is a photo of a builder's model of the ship courtesy of the US Navy. It shows what she looked like when she lived. She was completed after Pearl Harbor, so was not there during the attack. The ones at Pearl were all old WWI vintage.

That is not to say, they didn't have REAL bits of here left worth looking at. For example: an armored hatch for the citadel (not all sections of the ship are armored).





Besides the "bank vault" hatch, they also had a bronze propeller (one of 4) and a 16 inch gun (one of 9). Lest you think 16 inches seems small, that's the bore diameter. A typical battle rifle's bore is about 1/3 of an inch in diameter. A shell from one of these guns, is like tossing an automobile some twenty three miles.

Inside the memorial was very cool. The ceiling was made from the teak wood decking of the ship. Yes, the big ships still had wooden decks...less slippery when wet. It was also jam packed with all sorts of memorabilia and personal artifacts donated by people over the years: the personal Bible of one sailor killed in combat...sliced by shell splinters that killed him, The ship's bugle, uniforms, awards, odd mementos, etc.

But the one thing that got to me was the ship's bell. This is often considered the 'soul' of a ship and is among the most honored items.

To be continued...