Bob's Gournel: Took a trip to Rosie The Riveter museum and Red Oak Victory ship on Saturday with the El Sobrante Rotary Club. It was excellent!

Some photos of the event:

Some "squatters" made themselves at home on the dockside crane at the SS Red Oak Victory ship. . . Momma and Poppa Osprey. Poppa was on one of the cables, keeping a watchful eye out.

Being whistled aboard:

Something most people - including myself - would not know. I have a new-found appreciation for an old friend who served aboard a supply ship during Vietnam War.

She's a bit rusty. She really should be preserved, being one of only three remaining.

Jeff, our guide I learned, lives nearly next-door to me in Alameda in Ballena Bay.

The view of The Pretty City across the Bay from the stern:

Took them about a week to load up using the cargo cranes. Unlike the few hours it takes nowadays using containerized ships.

The drydocks where the Victory Ships and Liberty Ships and others - a total of 747 ships during the years 1942 to 1945 - were built are still THERE, but re-purposed for other uses.

It applies to Dads as well. :-)

The Engine Room. 6,000 horsepower all going into a single-propeller.

Next stop on the tour was the assembly plant, around the bend. . . . Owned by Ford Motors, where many Jeeps, tanks, and other wartime vehicles were manufactured for the war.

We had lunch at the aptly named "Assemble" restaurant. And then went into the museum. . . .

THIS made an impression on ME. The PIN caught my eye FIRST. Republic Aircraft Company is long gone from Farmingdale, New York, near where I grew up. . . . but the airfield and the American Airpower Museum are there now. The Republic P-47 Thunderbolt airplane had the largest number of planes built during the war - 15,660, per Wikipedia. There must have been a lot of Rosie The Riveters THERE besides at this western end of the country.