In honour of the Canadian Navy's 100th anniversary there was a large gathering of naval vessels from many countries in Halifax, Nova Scotia this week. I had a chance to tour the USS Wasp Amphibious Assault Ship earlier this week. It was docked next to the HMS Ark Royal but only the Wasp was open for tours (too bad -- I would've liked to get up close to a Harrier!) Still plenty to see on the Wasp, though!
One neat and unexpected sight while we were in line was a WWII-vintage Corsair flying overhead in Royal navy colours.
Security was tight and very obvious -- we had to go through metal detectors and were quite limited in what we could bring on board.
The Ark Royal had deck sentries out too -- equipped with L85s.
The Sea Hawks were popular with the girls.
Although we didn't get to the Ark Royal we had a good view of the on-deck Harriers:
The Wasp has tons of Marine gear on board too -- LAVs, a couple of landing crafts and an M1A Abrams, plus a bunch of small arms on display -- an M249, a M60, an M16A4.
Younger daughter liked the M4!
(yeah, I know about the finger on the trigger. Believe me it was by far the least worrisome safety violation I saw. Most parents had their kids point the rifle right at them. For someone like me that's used to being around guns it gave me the willies the way some people were sweeping the whole crowd. I'm guessing the bolt was out but didn't want to check -- the Marines probably would not have been impressed if I started fussing with it)
The girls liked the LAV (although younger daughter preferred the M1A)
The next day I went to watch the ships stage up for the actual Fleet Review. The weather was not the best -- taking pictures of grey ships in grey fog and drizzle is not ideal but still got a few good shots.
Neat pics, thanks for sharing, your daughters are cuties, but you need to learn how to spell "colors" correctly before your daughters learn to misspell it also. ;-)
but you need to learn how to spell "colors" correctly before your daughters learn to misspell it also. ;-)
LOL! I think I'm the last generation of Canadians to spell it that way -- the girls are learning "color" and "neighbor" in school. I'm still holding on to "zed" though!
Seriously nice pics of a memorable time. Your daughters look like they had a great time. Don't worry too much about the finger on the trigger right now. You have plenty of time to teach her not to do that! Thanks for all the great pictures!
All great pics, but I especially liked the Harrier and the Corsair. I know that the Royal Navy cleared the Corsair for shipboard ops while the US still limited its use to land-based Marines. Both nations also operated Wildcats and Hellcats, as well as Avenger dive and torpedo bombers. I know of a case where a Royal Navy Wildcat shot down an FW-190 over Norway. But Seafires did do a lot of work during the invasions of Sicily and Italy.
Do you get an Aussie TV series there, "Neighbours"? That'll ruin your kids' spelling again.
All great pics, but I especially liked the Harrier and the Corsair.
The Corsair was very cool -- I had no idea there was even one in town. When I heard the unmistakable sound of a powerful pistol engine I knew it was something neat, and when I saw the distinctive gull wings I was sure what it was -- too bad it wasn't lower...it was maybe 1500' or 2000' feet up. I would've loved to see a Harrier fly again -- I was lucky enough to catch a few at the airport here a couple of years ago when I was flying out:
I had no idea the Navy would open the shop up like that.
I have no idea how long they have been doing it, but every time we pulled into a foreign port on the USS Forrestal (72-75) we would always have tours of the boat. We would get locals as well as Americans from embassies and what not.
During something like the OP posted they are there to show the flag and part of that is doing tours for the locals. It is a great way to meet local people for insider tips on where to go and sometimes an invitation to a home cooked meal. I volunteered to be a tour guide whenever I could.
Had a chance to tour the USS Wasp (pic heavy!)
)
Linear Mode
