Battleship New Jersey saved from funding cut

by Sean McLachlan on

The battleship USS New Jersey saw service in World War Two, Korea, Vietnam, and Lebanon and proved unstoppable, but one dangerous foe almost shut it down for good–budget cuts. A couple of months ago New Jersey Governor Chris Christie passed a state budget that did not include $1.7 million to keep the ship open as a museum in Camden harbor. Much political wrangling ensued, over this and numerous other funding measures, and the new budget that has just been signed includes the money for the battleship. The ship’s curators now plan to go ahead with a paint job and installing an interactive loading and firing simulation in one of the turrets.

Some other attractions and parks in the state have not been so lucky. The Camden Children’s Garden did not see its annual $625,000 grant renewed and has already cut staff and opening hours. Other states are having similar budget woes, with New York cutting funding to many parks.

Even the battleship is struggling. Its annual state funding used to stand at $3.4 million. It looks like there are tough times ahead for all attractions that rely on local, state, and federal funding. This may lead to rising ticket prices, shorter hours, and more appeals for donations.


Photo courtesy user Daveahern via Wikimedia Commons.

Startling underwater discovery at Gallipoli battlefield

by Sean McLachlan on


Underwater archaeologists exploring off the coast of Gallipoli, Turkey, have found a somber relic from the famous WWI battle. A barge that removed dead and wounded soldiers from the beachhead back to a hospital ship was found at the bottom of the sea. The team also found the wreck of the HMS Lewis, a British destroyer.

Gallipoli is a Turkish peninsula that controls access between the Black and the Aegean seas. It also guards the western approach to Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, which fought on Germany’s side in World War One. In 1915, UK’s First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill decided it was of crucial strategic importance and landed troops there. What followed was a disaster. Allied troops got pinned down on the beaches and endured months of constant fighting before they finally pulled out. The Turks suffered too, with each side losing a quarter of a million men.

The Allied side included not only UK, French, and Canadian troops, but also a large number of men from the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. The ANZACs, as they’re commonly called, became heroes back home and are national icons to this day. The hospital barge was found near ANZAC Cove, shown here, and was probably sunk while carrying casualties from this famous unit.

Gallipoli is one of the most popular destinations in Turkey. Faint traces of the trenches from 90 years ago are still visible, and guided tours show visitors the locations of the various armies fighting it out for control of the beach and overlooking mountains.

A nice detail about this story is that the archaeologists are a joint Australian-Turkish team. Looks like these folks are remembering their history while putting it behind them.

Photo courtesy of the Australian War Memorial.

London museum airbrushes out Churchill’s cigar

by Sean McLachlan on

While there have been a lot of angry comments here on Gadling about Egypt’s smoking ban and the even stricter smoking ban in Finland, neither country has tried to pretend people didn’t smoke in the past. Now someone at the Winston Churchill’s Britain at War Experience, a London museum, seems to have decided dead people could get lung cancer and airbrushed out a cigar from a photo of Winston Churchill.

A visitor to the museum noticed that a famous photo of Churchill hanging above the entrance had been doctored to remove a cigar from his mouth. The altered photo and the original can be seen here. The museum denies all responsibility and says it’s investigating, but being a museum they shouldn’t have to wait for a member of the public to correct their history, especially about the very person the museum is named after.

Churchill was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during World War Two and was famous for lighting up a stogy faster than you can say “Dresden bombing.” He also drank regularly, but his lungs and liver were apparently none the worse for wear since he died of a stroke at age ninety.

Photo courtesy Deutsches Bundesarchiv.

Schindler’s List factory becomes museum

by Sean McLachlan on

During World War Two, German industrialist Oskar Schindler saved some 1,200 of his Jewish workers from extermination. His enamelware and munitions factories were considered vital for the German war effort and he claimed his workers all had special skills vital for the operation of his factories, whether they had or not. Many of his “skilled mechanics” were in fact children or handicapped people.

Schindler became the subject of the book Schindler’s Ark and later the movie Schindler’s List. Now part of his factory in Krakow has become a museum to the city’s war years.

The exhibitions cover the outbreak of the war, the German invasion of Poland, Polish resistance movements, and Schindler’s struggle to save his workers. The museum is a branch of the Krakow City Historical Museum. The front page of their website has a short video about Schindler that’s quite powerful, even if you don’t understand Polish.

Photo courtesy Noa Cafri via Wikimedia Commons.

Controversy over Wal-mart on Civil War battlefield

by Sean McLachlan on

A proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter on the site of one of the Civil War’s bloodiest battles is being challenged by local preservationists.

The case has gone into a new phase as a local court ruled that opponents to the Wal-Mart have the right to bring the company to trial, reports Civil War News.

When the Orange County, Virginia, Board of Supervisors approved the construction of a 138,000 square-foot Wal-mart Supercenter at the edge of the Wilderness Battlefield, part of a National Battlefield Park, two preservation groups and six local residents sued. They say that the location is too close to the battlefield and will ruin its atmosphere.

The Battle of the Wilderness on May 5-7, 1864 was a brutal slugfest between the armies of Grant and Lee that left tens of thousands of Americans dead or wounded. Many historians see the battle as the start of a long war of attrition that bled the Confederacy to death.

The Board of Supervisors challenged the opponents’ right to sue, but a court said that they do, indeed, have a vested interest in the area and may bring Wal-Mart to court. This will delay Wal-Mart’s final purchase of the land and application for building permits.

This case is similar to one concerning the Gettysburg casino, pitting historians and preservation groups against the interests of big business.

Wilderness battlefield photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.