After crossing Charlestown Bridge, and continued walking along Chelsea Street past some really swanking looking residences, and for quite a distance until finally arriving at the Charlestown Navy Yard to visit two ships: the USS Constitution, nicknamed “Old Ironsides”, and the USS Cassin Young, a destroyer that saw service in World War II.
The ship was launched in 1797 and served in the war of 1812 against Great Britain, capturing many merchant ships and defeating several British warships, earning her nickname.
Despite the ship’s age of more than 200 years old, it’s still remains fully afloat and capable of sailing under its own power – just incredible! I didn’t get to climb up the masts though. And though you can’t see from the still images here (but it’s very obvious from the HD footage I shot of the vessel), there was a steady drizzle by this juncture.
Despite the drizzle, you can see that it didn’t deter some visitors from visiting the two vessels. Below is the USS Cassin Young, a 2050 ton destroyer named in memory after Captain Cassin Young for his heroism at Pearl Harbor in 1941, and who was killed in action at the Battle of Guadalcanal the next year.
The ship saw action in 1944 to 1945 against the Japanese Imperial navy, and is equipped with ship to ship guns, AA-guns and torpedoes. The two pictures below are of the deck’s 40mm anti-aircraft guns:
One of the 5 inch guns at the ship’s stern:
At the far end of the ship’s stern is a 20mm AA gun. The Flickr album contains a few pictures of the D300 lining up against the AA gunsight.:)
The ship’s stern: with two of the 5 inch guns in view.
Pretty cramped quarters on the inside. The picture on the right is taken from the ship’s bow.
Beside USS Cassin Young is the USS Constitution Museum, which I popped in to take a further look at Old Ironsides, and also to duck from the rain – which was in full blown downpour at this point. Many ship miniatures in the museum. Picked up a mug, a Polo-shirt, and a couple of other items – including an umbrella.
Videos next! The drizzling rain though is pretty obvious from the three videos here. I didn’t notice the rain drop on the lens filter until later.:(
The last site in the Freedom Trail is the Bunker Hill Monument (see map below), but at this juncture at 1:15 PM, the rain was in full swing. I’ll write a next post about the whacked out weather here in Boston, but as far as that Saturday afternoon was concerned, a visit to Bunker Hill to finish up my exploration of the Freedom Trail was a no-go.
Real disappointing. Here’s as far as I got to see of the monument:
I did get to go up Bunker Hill and to properly finish the Freedom Trail on Sunday, but an event that coincidentally ran during my sojourn up the hill made the visit simply incredible and very memorable. I’ll blog about it soon.:)
This concludes my series of posts of the Freedom Trail. It took me about 4 hours to get this far, though the guides suggested at 2 hours is sufficient. But I really took my time, took a lot of pictures and videos. The trail is incredible and entirely doable on foot once you’re equipped with good walking shoes. I really encourage any visitor to Boston to try exploring the route on their own.:)
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