USS Orleck museum ship manager Greg Allen watches the new aft gun display. The display shows what it was like to fire the weapons during wartime. | Dan Scanlan, WJCT News 89.9
Published on March 26, 2024 at 4:51 pm
Red battle lamps bathed Greg Allen’s face Tuesday as he fired up the new interactive display inside the cramped turret of the MK 38 twin-mount gun on the aft deck of the historic warship once known as the “Grey Ghost.”
An animation on the screen showed the USS Orleck firing those guns during a Halloween Day sortie in 1968 during the Vietnam War. Strobe lights flashed on the museum ship manager’s face, and loud booms echoed inside to simulate gunfire.
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Two years after the 79-year-old destroyer found its new home on the St. Johns River, the 2,250-ton warship has received a thorough refit and new displays as it sits in the old Jacksonville Shipyards basin.
Along with the new interactive gun display, the first of three renovated crew berthing areas and other areas are ready for visitors to the Jacksonville Naval Museum. They include a rebuilt Vietnam War-era drone hangar with a pristine flight deck.
“Talking to the Orleck veterans who have been on board since she was in active service, one said she looks better now than when she did in service. So that’s compliment enough that we are doing the right thing,” says Allen, a 24-year-Navy veteran who has volunteered on the Orleck since the first day here.
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“This is history,” he says. “This is one of the most famous ships in U.S. Navy history. Just to compare, one of the greatest ships in U.S. Navy history is World War II’s carrier, the USS Enterprise. It had 22 battle stars, for every battle the ship was in. The Orleck has 18 battle stars, so she’s up there in good company.”
The Gearing-class destroyer was built in 1945 and operated in the Navy’s 7th Fleet during the Korean War. Renovated in 1962, the 390-foot warship went to sea during the Vietnam War, earning the nickname “Grey Ghost of the Vietnam Coast” as it earned 14 Battle Stars on top of four awarded it during the Korean conflict. Serving next as a training ship, it appeared in the TV miniseries Winds of War before the Turkish Navy bought it. It served until 2000 as the TCG Yücetepe.
The Orleck’s next home was Orange, Texas, as a floating museum, then it moved in 2010 to Lake Charles, Louisiana, as part of another waterfront attraction. After three years of disuse, ship ownership was transferred to the Jacksonville Naval Museum, which towed it to its first berth in late March 2022 next to the Hyatt Regency Jacksonville.
It took another year to get the Orleck to Pier One just east of the Berkman Plaza marina. The mayor’s office filed an emergency bill to fund construction of eight mooring bollards and pilings there to safely moor it. A handicapped-accessible ramp to get visitors to the Orleck also was built, at a cost of $100,000.
It took four tugboats to nudge the Orleck a half-mile from the hotel to its current pier, now also home to a U.S. Navy longboat and the warship’s hangar deck light pole. There are plans to convert the old shipyard wharf into a new public space, Allen said.
“There will be lighting and fencing around,” he said. “The intent is to make it look like an aircraft carrier deck with gray paint, stripes and a number.”
Just forward of the aft guns is the hangar for the Gyrodyne QH-50 DASH – or Drone Anti-Submarine Helicopter, which has clamps under its belly to hold two torpedoes. The remote-controlled mini-jet turbine helicopter, one of only a few that survived, has been renovated.
So has the drone’s hangar, which was used as a walled-in snack bar space during the Orleck’s previous museum use. Restoration crews even found a Turkish rug behind an old wall is what now displays the DASH’s remote control equipment.
“It was built in the 1950s and used for about 10 years,” Allen said. “The deck was very bad; it was wavy and it leaked everywhere, getting water inside the ship. But now all that water has been sealed out.”
The aft gun interactive display will be joined by another in the forward turret. The new one will simulate a Korean War incident when it destroyed two enemy supply trains in the mountains ashore. The current video display ends with images of Orleck crew members who died in battle.
“People are just amazed at the sound effects and the actual mission, plus showing and honoring the Vietnam veterans who did not come back,” Allen said. “This is actually what it was firing the guns in 1968. It was very hot. It could get well over 100 degrees in here while firing the guns.”
Below the aft gun is the first of three newly restored crew berthing areas. Its original occupants, in tightly packed stacks of hammock-like beds, dealt with booming guns above and thrumming engines below.
“It was very tight quarters here. Their lockers were underneath the racks so they had to lift the racks up to get to the lockers,” Allen said. “It was rusty (before restoration). We had to strip all the old paint down. It basically looked like a cave down here.”
The plan is to use the berthing areas for future overnight camping by sea cadets, scouts and ROTC members, Allen said. Future upgrades to the ship will include two more renovated berthing spaces, with a museum and gift shop.
Attendance for the maritime museum has been good, with more than 200 visitors last weekend, “enough numbers to cover a lot of our costs,” Allen said. State restoration grants have helped make the Orleck ship-shape again, he said.
The Orleck is right next to the historic Fire Station No. 3 and the planned Shipyards West Park and Museum of Science & History in the next two years or so. The ship has a temporary visitor center along East Bay Street pier, while the city’s Catherine Street extension are almost done behind it.
The USS Orleck is open to the public from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday. It is closed Monday and Tuesday. Tickets are $15 for adults, $13 for veterans and seniors, and $7 for ages 6 to 17. Children 5 and under are admitted free of charge.
