THE KIDD IN BATON ROUGE

I was reading a detective novel some years ago and it was set in a city called Baton Rouge. For ages I thought it was a made up name for the story. I never thought in a million years that I would one day actually visit that city, the capital of Louisiana, USA.

We were on the American Queen Steanboat sailing down the Mississippi on our way to New Orleans. We didn't stop at Baton Rouge and the passengers were a little disgruntled until the captain explained that on their last "Thanksgiving Cruise" they had stopped there on the TG holiday and nothing was open. No shops, no museums and it was like a ghost town. So on this cruise they sailed past BR and landed outside Nottoway Mansion and organised a free tour of the house. So we cheered up and enjoyed this diversion from the itinerary.(see last post)

However, the next day we were offered a bus tour of Baton Rouge and admission to the destroyer USS Kidd.

We drove past the Louisiana State Capitol building, at 34 storeys high it is the tallest building in Baton Rouge. It is the tallest Capitol building in the country. It was built in 1930 for Govenor Huey Long with an Art Deco design. It is is on the national register for historic places.

Looking at Baton Rouge from the river overlooking the levee wall.

This sculpture, known locally as the "Paper Clip" for obvious reasons. It is part of the wharf structure where river boats berth. We would have docked here if we had stopped on the way down the river.

The USS Kidd is an authentically restored Fletcher Class fighting ship. It is stationed on the side of the Mississippi River and it floats when there is a lot of water but it was in a cradle when we visited the Kidd. Named after the first admiral killed in the Pearl Harbour attack. There were many guns and depth charges on the deck but I was more interested in how the 300+ men were accommodated on what appeared to be a small ship to me.

We found the room where they slept. It had 3 bunks on top of one another and there were rows and rows of them. It must have been awfully cramped conditions with no privacy at all.

I was flabbergasted at the toilet/head situation. The red seat was for those with VD.

I take my hat off to the service men who had to endure these conditions and fight a war too.

The USS Kidd was based in the Pacific and saw action in World War 11 in many of he Pacific Islands as well as Papua/New Guinea and the Phillipines.