The last unaltered Liberty ship - museum ship- SS Jeremiah O Brien - (original) (raw)
This is an excellent maritime museum with plenty of history regarding this ship in particular and liberty ships as a whole. The first place you enter has a whole... read more load of information about the SS Jerimiah O'Brien, her wartime service, as well as her history as a museum ship. It's also fascinating to note that this ship still runs on her original engines, and you can go down into the engine room! There is also a few dioramas in the forward part of the ship that show what a typical amphibious landing in WW2 looked like, with the Jeremiah O'Brien involved, as well as the convoys she used to sail with across the Atlantic to get wartime supplies to the European theater. Up on deck her 3 inch gun is on the bow and still moves! So you can train it across the bay at Oakland, the Bay Bridge, or anywhere you like, you can pretend you are defending the ship against enemy planes in WW2 and have a blast. At the stern, you can look out on the Golden Gate Bridge and see the fog coming over the mountains which is a gorgeous sight. Then up in the superstructure you can explore the cabins and the Bridge, which unlike many WW2 museum ships, has a mix of original WW2 vintage equipment, as well as modern equipment for when the ship still sails around the bay and around the world. I will definitely need to come back to this museum during fleet week so I can sail aboard her when she goes out into the bay. I also will have to come back to spend more time aboard her as the amount of information and history this ship has is incredible!