During the 3rd weekend in April Cameron’s Cub
Scout pack was scheduled to sleep overnight on the WWII cruiser “Little Rock”
in Buffalo. Since this was a bit close
to his new brother’s/sister’s real birthday Tim W. thought it might be better
to stay close to home. I therefore gladly
accepted the task of sleeping overnight with Cameron on the cruiser. Uncle Chris is one of the pack leaders and his
sons Patrick and Joe are also scouts so the four of us left mid-day on Saturday
for Buffalo. We arrived around 4 PM and
were led onto the ship along with 55 other scouts from Cicero, NY and hundreds
of cub, boy, and girl scouts from all over the North East.
Patrick, Joe, Cameron, and friend in front of the Heavy
Cruiser “Little Rock” (which we slept on), the Light Cruiser “The Sullivan’s”,
and the submarine “Croaker”.
Our pack was given the largest bunk room, which was filled
with enough triple bunk beds to sleep 80.
Cameron, Joe, Chris, and I quickly grabbed some bunks close together
while Patrick went off to the other side of the bunk room to sleep with his
friends.
Our beds in the bunk room – Cameron and I slept head to head
in the bottom bunks, Joe and Chris slept in a middle bunk across from each
other.
We had about 30 minutes to explore the ship before we all
had to gather in the main ship’s conference room to get our orientation. At the orientation each pack was introduced
and then we were all given a lesson in Navy terminology. Cameron seemed very interested in this and
showed off his knowledge the next day when we got home by regaling everyone
with all sorts of Navy words (hatchway, bunkroom, head, mess hall, etc.). After a quick fire drill we were free to
explore the ship for another 30 minutes before dinner.
Standing in line for mess call. We told the boys to take whatever was put on
their plates without complaining because there were no seconds and someone
would eat whatever was left over.
Dinner turned out to be the same for everyone: chicken
fingers, mashed potatoes, corn, milk, and desert. Cameron and Joe dug into the dessert first
and weren’t too interested in the rest of the dinner (mostly because we had
stopped for an afternoon meal on the way here; Chris knew we wouldn’t get to
eat until around 8 PM and the boys would be starving if they had to wait that
long for dinner).
After dinner it was time for more exploring before the
movies started. We saw the rest of the
Cruiser and toured the submarine next door.
A passageway in the Cruiser.
This one actually had a lot of room to pass; most of the hallways could
barely fit two people side by side.
In the Croaker submarine control room – is that an early
model ship control system like Mama works on at Lockheed Martin?
Heading through the engine room on the way to the torpedo
room.
Deep down in the bowels of the Cruiser Little Rock. They put a girl scout troop 3 or 4 decks
below where we were sleeping. It must have taken them 15 minutes to get to the
mess hall or to one of the 3 “heads” on the ship (which were all on the main
deck).
The next day, Sunday morning, we were woken up at 6:30 AM
for a quick bunkroom inspection and breakfast.
After that we explored the Light Cruiser berthed next to ours, “The
Sullivans”.
All the stairs in and around the ships were VERY steep. Cameron at first went down very slowly but
soon he was very good at quickly going up and down them.
Cameron and Joe keeping the skies of Buffalo safe from any
enemy aircraft marauders.
We ended the day with a simulator ride (Cameron went twice)
and then headed home. It was a wonderful
way to spend time together!
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