Battleship Memorial Park in Mobile, Alabama is a military history park and museum containing a collection of historic aircraft and ships including the iconic USS Alabama and the USS Drum - both of which are National Historic Landmarks.
At Mobile's Battleship Memorial Park, you can explore the USS Alabama and the oldest American submarine on display in the world, the USS Drum.
Aboard the USS Alabama, you have access to 12 decks of this fascinating ship and can explore much of her, including climbing inside gun turrets, getting a feel for what it must be like to man a 12mm gun, and even get locked in the brig! (they'll let you back out - honest)
A tour of the USS Drum is another experience, allowing you to discover first hand the claustrophobic world of our proud Navy's early submariners aboard this historic and decorated, decommissioned US vessel.
Not just battleships, at Battleship Memorial Park you'll also see aircraft, such as a Mach 3 A-12 Blackbird spy plane, the B-52 strato-fortress Calamity Jane, an original plane that was used by the famous Tuskegee Airmen, and 22 other historic aircraft.
Battleship Memorial Park also features plenty of other exciting, military equipment, including an M26 Pershing tank, a PBR gunboat from the Vietnam conflict, an M48A1 Patton tank, .38 caliber gun emplacements, and more.
The big attraction at Battleship Memorial Park, however, is the USS Alabama - and rightly so. There would be no Battleship Memorial Park without her, thus why the installation is also referred to as the USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park.
The 175 acre park opened in January 1965 after a two-year fund-raiser by the citizens of the state of Alabama. Initially, the historic ship had been ordered scrapped, along with three others: the USS South Dakota, USS Indiana, and the USS Massachusetts. The successful, grass-roots campaign raised enough money to have the USS Alabama preserved and moved to Mobile Bay as a memorial to the men and women who served in World War II.
USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park is open 364 days a year, only closing on Christmas Day, so planning a visit to this historic military attraction is a snap - an experience every patriotic American would enjoy and should consider.
