The USS Kidd Battleship in downtown Baton Rouge, Louisiana offers and fun and rewarding educational experience for you and your family. I took my children to downtown to check out the U.S.S. (United States Ship) Kidd on (7-06-07). Anyway, Tyler and Haley seemed to really be interested in all the cool things that were on the ship. It was a cloudy summer morning and the weather cooperated long enough with no rain for us to be able to walk around all levels of the ship and spend plenty of time in the adjacent museum. We were even able to park right at the entrance which was great. The cost for me was $7.00 and Tyler was $4.00 and Haley got in free.
Tyler and Haley posed for a picture on the right hand side of the ship near where a Japanese Kamikaze plane crashed into the the USS Kidd killing 38 crewmen and wounding 55. I posted this picture for you to see on the left hand menu. You can also see the depth charges here used to attack submarines. There are pictures of the actual plane heading for the Kidd in the museum and fragments from that explosion.
We made our way down some very steep steps down below to where the Kidd's sailors slept aboard this battleship. Now being a fairly tall man like I am, I would have had a lot of trouble sleeping in one of these bunks. Tyler and Haley had plenty of room here as they tried a bunk bed out. That photo is found at the end of this posting. Another picture on the left menu shows Tyler searches for enemy planes back on deck.
Later on as we walked across the Baton Rouge attraction we came upon the large anti-aircraft gun that was at the front of the ship. It was a chance for Tyler to sit and turn the wheels to make the gun aim back and forth. He was thrilled to pretend to be aim for enemy planes as Haley wished she was big enough to do the same.
We began to get a little hot and sweaty on this humid Louisiana summer morning so we headed over towards the exit and took a picture with an employee of the Kidd's named Tabitha. She was nice and told us some more things about the battleship and agreed for me to take her picture for this website and Tyler found a battle helmet to pose with. By now, we were all ready to head back to the cool air conditioning in the museum and get some water.
Here we are back in the cool A/C in the museum. We all walked around a bit and cooled off and checked out all the models boats and many other interesting historical items in the naval museum. Included on the lower left menu bar is a picture of Haley near a shiny old diving helmet. We had a really nice time at the USS Kidd Battleship and museum.
I think that a tour of this historical landmark is a great idea for something fun to do for you and or your family in Baton Rouge. I hope you enjoy your visit to the Kidd just like we did.