Five of the six surviving battleships damaged at Pearl Harbor in 1941 were repaired there. In World War II, 53 new vessels were built here including five aircraft carriers, 13 destroyers, and 8 destroyer escorts. Today, downtown Bremerton is inextricably linked to the expansive 179-acre Puget Sound Naval Shipyards, the largest on the West Coast, with about 8,000 civilian employees. What to do in Bremerton? A great


place to start is strolling along the wide concrete boardwalk with picnic tables, benches, and planter boxes that follows the shoreline. Look for the large bronze sculpture of a huge ship’s propeller and a worker from the Navy Shipyards, wearing a hard hat, looking at a boy’s model ship. Alongside the marina, the U.S.S.


Above: For excellent barbecue, try Boogaloo’s Bar-B-Que Pit, right on the boardwalk near the marina office.


Left: The large bronze sculpture of a naval yard worker examining a boy’s model ship.


Below: Carrier “U.S.S. John C. Stennis” display in Puget Sound Naval Museum puts you in the control tower overlooking the flight deck.


Turner Joy is now a museum, open to the public. The 418-foot long, 45-foot wide destroyer is the last of the Forrest Sherman class destroyers, completed in Seattle in 1959 and decommissioned in 1982. The U.S.S. Turner Joy saw some action during the Vietnam War, earning nine battle stars, and was involved in the Gulf of Tonkin incident, where she was attacked by North Vietnamese torpedo boats while on a surveillance and intelligence-gathering mission 28 miles off the coast of Vietnam. She sank or damaged four of the torpedo boats. The action brought the U.S. closer to war with North Vietnam, causing an escalation of U.S. Forces in Vietnam. A walk through the rabbit warren


of passageways and rooms below decks gives a fascinating insight into the lives of the sailors who crewed the Joy. Your tour takes you though the quarterdeck, gun mounts, weapons director control room, electronic countermeasures room, chart house, the bridge, the forecastle, captain’s and XO’s rooms, officer’s and crew’s mess rooms, engine room, and much more. Just a short walk from the marina


is the Puget Sound Naval Museum— you can’t miss it because the sail of the Sturgeon class submarine U.S.S. Parche stands proudly outside. Located in the nicely restored white-painted Building 50 of the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, built in 1896, the Naval Museum’s purpose is to collect, preserve and interpret the history and heritage of the Navy in the Pacific Northwest. It


48° NORTH, MAY 2011 PAGE 46


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