I just visited the USS Yorktown at Patriots Point in Charleston, SC and thought I would put up what we saw today and how it compared to the last time. Granted, it was the mid 90s, but my memories of the miniature battle displays are crystal clear, and they were one of the main inspirations for this trip, and apparently my hobbies now.
First of all, only two ships are currently on site at the museum, the Yorktown, an Essex class carrier, and the Laffey, an Allen M Sumner destroyer. My last visit was at the high-water mark of Patriots Point, with 5 ships on exhibit including the Savannah, a nuclear cargo ship, the Ingham, a Coast Guard cutter, and the Clamagore, a Balao submarine. The Savannah and Ingham have both been transferred and the Clamagore was removed due to severe damage, but the amount of development on the Yorktown in the years since more than makes up for those losses.
Besides the four self guided tours throughout the ship, there are also open exhibits on the flight deck and the main deck including several 1/200 scale models of carriers including the IJN Soryu, the prior CV-5 Yorktown, and the current CV-10 Yorktown.
Along Tour 1, there are exhibit rooms devoted to amphibious landings and models in varying scales of landing craft…
…and Merchant Marine service through the century, also supported with models, specifically trans-Atlantic troopships including the Lusitania and Normandie.
Tour 4 passes through spaces all repurposed from their original design and is these exhibits focus almost exclusively on broader history as opposed to the Yorktown’s missions. There is an extensive set of models tracing the development of US carriers mostly in 1/300 or larger scales…
…another group of exhibits focused on the development of US cruisers from interwar period on through WWII, also supported with models including the Omaha, Brooklyn, and Cleveland classes in 1/96 scale…
…and crossovers of exhibits with US battleship models over the century, mostly in 1/96 scale as well including the Arizona, Tennessee, and Iowa.
Beyond the American ships, there were also some other nations’ models as contrasts in design, including the IJN Yamato. Nominally 1/96, I would actually classify this as couch-scale because the Yamato is larger than my couch, and this was one of the few models that included crewmen which really emphasized how large it was.
There were not any of the smaller scale battle representations on display that I remembered with the exception of a 1/1200 last engagement of the Gambier Bay. I do not have any quality pictures of that table because of the light reflections off of its glass cover, and that was an issue I had with other exhibits as well. The pictures above were the best I could manage with fluorescent light reflections off the display covers, and another problem were the sizes of some of the ships were so large the supports of the cases were cutting right through the centers of the shots. There were over 50 high quality, large scale miniatures on display and those were definitely worth the admission.
Besides the Yorktown, the Laffey also had one scale miniature on display, of itself, but the majority of the destroyer is the original ship equipment as opposed to standing exhibits. Also, there is a large compound devoted to the history of the Vietnam War on the shore, which we did not visit today, but has apparently been expanded several times over the past years and now includes riverine displays along with a patrol boat.
Overall, it was a great experience, and we are planning on returning sooner rather than later.
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