Local Area Activity for Museum Ships Weekend, June 1-2, 2019

The USS Cassin Young, WW2DD, will be among the museum ship stations on the air for Museum Ships Weekend. Mike Rioux, W1USN, and Bob Reiser, AA1M, will activate the famous Fletcher-class destroyer, DD-793. According to Wikipedia, the Cassin Young served as a part of the Fast Carrier Task Force. On April 28, 1944, this force sortied for air attacks on Japanese strongholds at Truk, Woleai, Satawan, and Ponape, during which Cassin Young operated as a picket ship, assigned to warn her group of possible enemy counterattack. The ship is on permanent loan to the National Park Service. She is berthed at the Boston Navy Yard, part of the Boston National Historical Park in Charlestown.

Henry Brown, K1WCC, plans to activate the German Seehund Midget Submarine U-5075 as WW2MAN. According to its QRZ page, the Seehund is located at the United States Naval Shipbuilding Museum Massachusetts Military Research Center in Quincy. Seehund means “seal.”  It was the most successful of several German attempts to perfect a midget submarine. Operated by two men and carrying two underslung torpedoes, the Seehund was used very effectively in the waning months of World War II, sinking over 120,000 tons of allied shipping. 

Rick Emord, KB1TEE and crew will be activating the USS Massachusetts from Battleship Cove in Fall River using the callsign NE1PL.  The USS Massachusetts (BB-59), known as “Big Mamie” to her crew members during World War II, was a battleship of the second South Dakota class. She was the seventh ship of the United States Navy to be named in honor of the sixth state, and one of two ships of her class (along with her sister Alabama) to be donated for use as a museum ship. Massachusetts has the distinction of having fired the US Navy’s first and last 16-inch (406 mm) shells of the war.

Watch for all of these ships on the Cluster.

USS Cassin Young/ WW2DD

 

NE1PL QSL card

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