Visitors got to relive WWII aboard USS Alabama

By Lee Peck

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    Mobile, Alabama (WALA) — Visitors aboard the USS Alabama this weekend got a rare up close and personal view of history.

The ship’s Living History Crew re-enacted an attack by the Japanese — complete with plane fly-ins.

“There’s nothing like seeing is believing — that’s what re-enacting is all about — is we put people back in that time period,” said Brien McWilliams, USS Alabama Living History Crew Commanding Officer. “Action of the guns — and the aircraft as our forefathers — parents and grandparents — actually experienced in the war.”

The re-enactment is made up of volunteers from all over. As we learned — some of the stories are taken from real life.

“Some of them actually met the original crewman that were onboard the USS Alabama and the USS Drum. So there retelling stories that were told to them by the WWII crewmen. And now we’re getting to retell to kids and other people to carry on their legacy,” explained Ashleigh Milne, Battleship Memorial Park Director of Communications.

The high-flying show left some visitors breathless.

“The plane actually surprised me a lot. We weren’t expecting that — we actually ran up five flights of stairs to get to the highest point of the ship to see it. We got a lot of videos and it was really fun,” said Jordan Grimes, from Leakesville, Mississippi. “The plane got really, really close — we did not expect it to get that close.”

Others were amazed at the sheer size of the Mighty Alabama.

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barney.lerten@ktvz.com