Fredericksburg, Texas, Part Deux

With our time dwindling here in San Antonio, Joan and I made a return trip to Fredericksburg today, just a week after we went there with Jan and Norm. Part of the reason for the return was to visit a store that sells an interesting items made out of Honeycomb Calcite.

Me and my ship's plaque on the wall

We probably should have purchased the item last week when we were there, but with not much else on our plate decided we would go back a revisit the town and store.

(A few more photos are included from today in a post below this one.)

Also, since my visit with Norm to the National Museum of the Pacific War I learned that I had missed a memorial plaque for my ship, the USS Cogswell, DD-651, which is mounted on a wall just outside the museum.

Because I purchased a year’s membership to the museum when Norm and I were there last week, our visit today was free for both Joan and me. We also had time to tour the nearby Pacific Combat Zone which houses a number of interesting war artifacts.

I also decided to purchase a new Navy coffee cup to replace one that I bought at the Pensacola Naval Flight Museum that accidentally broke this past year.

PT boat Packard engine (built in Detroit)

We also toured the Nimitz Museum, which we didn’t have time to do last week. That museum, which is housed in what was the hotel built by the grandfather of Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz in the mid-1800s, has artifacts from the life and Naval career of Admiral Nimitz.

In case Norm is reading this, you didn’t miss much by not seeing this museum. What was interesting was the Pacific Combat Zone, which is about 3 city blocks from the museum and involves a one-hour guided tour of a two-acre property, part of which has been made to resemble Japanese Pacific island fortifications from World War II.

Sunset

Although we were not there at the right time, several times during the year, American and Japanese re-enactors fight the battle of Tarawa in front of a live audience in a theater setting. Our docent said the battle includes the frightening demonstration of the flame-thrower so often seen in World War II footage.

No re-enactors are harmed during the event, we were told. The Pacific Combat Zone includes a large number of Japanese anti-aircraft weapons, as well as a couple Japanese tanks and cannon. One of the buildings on the property is outfitted as a World War II carrier hangar deck complete with a real torpedo bomber being loaded with a 2,000-pound torpedo.

Another building houses a restored PT boat (PT-309) in a scene that makes it appear it was moored at a South Pacific dock. I learned that the engines in the World War II PT boats were identical Packard engines to the ones being used in the famous P-51 fighter aircraft.

Norm and I realized last week that this museum, which I highly recommend to anyone interested in World War II history, takes many more hours than you could possibly do in one visit. There are just so many items and films of interest that you soon switch to overload if you try to do it all in one day.

Dinner outside for the first time

For that reason when you buy a museum ticket, they tell you it is good for two consecutive days, or you can do what I did and purchase a Patriot Membership to the Nimitz Foundation which gives you unlimited visits (and a 15 percent discount in the gift shop) for a year.

If I lived closer, I’d come back every month until I felt I had seen it all.

The weather today was the best one so far, with temperatures approaching 80 degrees and plenty of sunshine.

When we arrived home it was still warm enough to eat outside for the first time since we’ve been here. The sunset was pretty enough to take a photo of, which is included in this post.