Patriots Point - USS Yorktown CV-10

I hope I remember all of the information we learned correctly about this ship. It is an aircraft carrier that served in World War II. If you were to take your time and read all of the self-tour signs it would take most of the day to go through. It is enormous! Coming over the bridge to Patriots Point the ship is the center of the scenery. 

The Flight Deck was huge! Walking on it felt like we are walking in a large parking lot overlooking the water.  There were many planes and a helicopter on the deck to look at. 

We learned about how the planes would take off and land. Taking off they used a catapult that was located in long slits in the front of the ship. When landing they flew in at the back of the ship. I imagined that there could be planes on either side parked on the deck and that the pilot landing had to be very precise landing on that narrow area on the deck while the ship could also be moving a bit. The pictures just above show the cables that were across the ship. There were five or six of them (can't remember) and the pilot aimed for the third one. A perfect landing would be when he/she hooked the third cable to stop the plane. 

Under the flight deck they had many planes stored. There is an elevator and they could move the planes below deck. All of the planes we saw had folding wings so that they could store more planes on the carrier. Some of the planes you could go up to or climb into. Austyn and Zoe got to sit inside and check out the controls.

Of course since it's located in South Carolina they had to mention 

that flight was discovered in their State. Here is the Wright Brothers Plane (I think it's a replica).

This aircraft carrier and others like it were used in the recovery of astronauts and their capsules when they landed in the ocean. This ship picked up the astronauts from Apollo 8 (The first trip around the moon).

Exploring the inside of the ship was fun for the kids. It was a very hands on experience. Most of the areas were open for exploration. It was like a big maze with lots of hallways, stairs and sometimes ladders. There were buttons, and controls to touch and press.

There were many displays on board. There was a room dedicated to women who served in the wars. There were many items used on the ship displayed. Some we could touch and some we couldn't. 

There were many rooms and areas throughout the ship that we got to look at many of the rooms were behind Plexiglas and were dark so the pictures didn't turn out. We saw the mess hall (we could eat lunch there), medical area, sleeping quarters, the quarters of some higher members of the crew (captain), machine shops, clothing repair, mail room, meeting rooms, jails. The list goes on. They basically had everything on this ship and people to run each area. The more sick or the higher ranked you were the more private and better your sleeping quarters were. They took shifts for sleeping for most of the crew. They claimed that when a man would go and lay on his bunk it would still be warm from the man before him. The picture just above was the sign in one of the vending booths. Check out the prices back then!

There were two crew's mess where they were served four meals a day. They got breakfast, lunch, supper, and midrats (midnight rations).