The photo shows two ships that did fight in WW2, the submarine Lionfish (which we didn't go aboard) and, in the background, the battleship Massachusetts, the highlight of our tour. Wandering around the decks of this huge ship, where 2,500 men lived and worked, viewing their bunks, galley, hospital, offices, engine room, rooms for calculating gunfire, damage control, radio communications and so forth, all illuminated by informative exhibits, was an engrossing experience. The destroyer was worth seeing too, as I'm sure would be the submarine.
There was also a PT boat, which was bigger and carried bigger torpedoes than I expected. The exhibits there included this one about the most well known PT officer, Joe Kennedy's brother Jack. I hadn't realized that after his famous PT-109 experience, JFK went on to serve in combat on another boat, PT-59.
The PT boats, another exhibit said, were regarded as "expendable". The great film director John Ford was in the Navy during the war, at Midway (where he was wounded) and Omaha beach. His first postwar movie was about PT boat and associated operations during the Japanese conquest of the Philippines in 1941-2. It was called They Were Expendable.
The Massachusetts started the war in the Mediterranean during Operation TORCH, fighting the Vichy French navy at Casablanca. She was hit by fire from a Vichy battleship, which she soon disabled. But no man aboard the Massachusetts was killed then or throughout the war from enemy fire. She spent most of the war in the Pacific, where her campaigns included the US reconquest of the Philippines, begun by Gen. Douglas MacArthur in October 1944. She served at that time under Admiral Bull Halsey in the battles around Leyte Gulf -- but not in the gulf, where the fiercest fighting was and Halsey's fleet was not, being otherwise engaged in combat operations.
Here's a photo looking over the forward guns of the Massachusetts.
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