She sits on the Cape Fear River in Wilmington, North Carolina, where she has been since September 6, 1961 — 729 feet of WWII-era steel, nine sixteen-inch guns, fifteen battle stars, more than any American battleship in the Pacific war. The Japanese announced her sunk on multiple occasions. They were wrong each time. She was commissioned April 9, 1941, fought from the beginning of America’s involvement in the war through its end, and has not entirely stopped.
On September 15, 1942, the Japanese submarine I-19 fired torpedoes at the carrier Wasp. One found the North Carolina — detonating against the port hull abreast of Turret I, two feet below the armor belt, tearing an eighteen-by-thirty-two-foot hole in the ship. Five men died. Three compartments flooded. The crew’s damage control parties stopped the listing at five-and-a-half degrees and she stayed in the fight. North Carolina schoolchildren later saved her from the scrapper with dimes and quarters; she was dedicated as a memorial on September 6, 1961.
In the sick bay, visitors and investigators report sounds that have no evident source — weight creaking on beds, movement in empty rooms, banging from compartments with no one in them. In the lower forward compartments where the five men died, cold spots appear that don’t correspond to air circulation patterns. Throughout the ship, people report phantom footsteps: the specific sound of hard-soled Navy shoes on metal grating, heard in passageways where no one is walking. The ghost hunts have been on the schedule for years.
Story Source: www.wral.com
Address: 1 Battleship Road, Wilmington, NC 28401
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