While in San Francisco for the Pokemon World Championships, I made a third attempt to visit Hornet, this time making sure there wasn't a furry convention going on. Things started off well when I decided to take the ferry from downtown San Francisco to the Alameda Seaplane Terminal, which is maybe half a mile from the ship. The trip was lovely if a bit windy, with gorgeous views of San Francisco and a nice pass by Hornet on the arrival end.
Hornet from the ferry
Hornet is one of the Essex class carriers that won the Pacific War, having been named after the previous Hornet, sunk during the fighting in the Solomons. She racked up an impressive score in WWII, then was modernized to fly early jets, with steam catapults and an angled deck. However, she missed out on the second round of modernization and was reclassified as an anti-submarine carrier (CVS), flying SH-3 Sea King helicopters and S-2 Tracker ASW aircraft as a companion to the strike carriers.1 Just before her retirement in 1970, she was the recovery ship for the Apollo 11 and 12 missions, and the deck is marked with the spot where Neil Armstrong took his first steps after his return to Earth.
Pieces of space history
As a museum, Hornet was more or less like I'd found her when I was last aboard, although they'd clearly been doing work to make her better in the last few years. The planes had been moved around a bit, with their Phantom now looking great and the Tomcat at the back of the hangar being repainted. The flight deck is busier, with the S-2 and A-4 joining the S-3 and T-28 to represent the last planes to operate from her, and the A-4 is on the catapult with a bridle installed, which was something I'd never seen before. Signage was kind of a mixed bag. When they had it, it was generally quite comprehensive, but coverage was spotty, and there were more errors than I would like.2 The only thing I really missed from last time was the Mk 45 ASTOR, but that was apparently put into storage as part of their revamp of the torpedo room, which looked amazing. They'd opened up the torpedo magazine down below the workshop so you could see into it, giving a much better sense of how the space actually worked, and the only thing they could do to make it better would be to get a real Mk 13 and open it up so you can see the guts.
The torpedo magazine
The only real problem came when we decided to try out one of the docent tours. These are $12 per person, and there are four, covering the island, life aboard, weapons and engines. This is good pricing, and they're supposed to run an hour each, maybe a bit more for the weapons tour. I was with Rebecca Friedman, who cooks for the meetups, and she really wanted to see the galleys, so we signed up for the life aboard tour, starting at 1 PM. The sign said something like 40-50 minutes. The docent in question took 2 hours and 15 minutes for the tour before we basically ran away. Now, there are undoubtedly a few people who could have used that amount of time well on what we saw (which, in fairness, was a lot), but he did not, often rambling and occasionally saying things that were simply untrue. I interacted with a number of docents who seemed competent, and we may have just gotten unlucky, but his tour ran so long that the last weapons tour of the day, which I had been sort of hoping to do, departed before we were done.
Unfortunately, the Mk 45 was gone and the B57 was roped off
But that aside, we had a good time. A lot of the ship is open, even without the docent tours, although the routing is kind of a mess, to the point that I found her somewhat difficult to navigate. If you're planning to travel to visit a carrier, you should go to Midway instead, but she's definitely worth a look if you live in the area or happen to be in the Bay for another reason. Just make sure there's not a furry convention before you plan your visit.
1 This structure went away in the 70s when the Essexs were being retired and it was clear that there wasn't money to build a new set of CVSs. ⇑
2 Two notable ones I'm contacting them about are a claim that the F-8 Crusader was the first supersonic carrier fighter and that a plane torpedoed a ship at Jutland. ⇑
Comments
But were you able to see the galleys?
Yes, we did get to the galleys. That part was fine.
Both as a kid and adult I've had mixed results with guided tours at museums. Some of them are great and add context that can't fit onto signs (or have personal stories with some of the exhibits), and some of them are probably really nice if you walked into the museum knowing nothing, but not really able to deviate from their scripts if you're on your 4th visit or otherwise know anything about the exhibits.
I wouldn’t say she missed out on the second round of upgrades as she did get the SCB-125 conversion. But as a 27-A ship with hyd catapults her future as an attack carrier was clearly limited hence her predestination as CVS after the 125 angled deck upgrade.
Worth noting that Oriskany was the only 27A ship to later be upgraded with steam catapults when she was given a unique SCB-125A upgrade that gave her steam catapults, an Aluminum flight deck and upgraded arresting gear plus other improvements.
@Yosef
Getting good tour guides is hard. Good ones have to be both very knowledgeable about the ship and an entertainer. I've met a few who were good at the second half and very bad at the first, and my contempt for them is unbounded. This guy was mediocre at the first and pretty bad at the second, and at the logistical side of delivering things.
@Ski
I didn't want to get into the slightly tangled history of the Essexes, and thus was describing SCB-27A as the first round and SCB-27C as the second round, even though there was also the SCB-125 applied to the SCB-27As.
Also, I'm extremely doubtful Oriskany got an aluminum flight deck. I know Wiki says she did, but there's no mention in Friedman, and that's a big enough deal there almost certainly would be. I may have to run this down and give the internet better sourcing.