Summary
- California is home to some of the best ship museums in the US, including aircraft carriers, battleships, oceanliners, and even a presidential yacht.
- These museum ships offer a unique opportunity to step aboard and explore history, from World War Two battleships to Cold War submarines.
- From the USS Midway in San Diego to the USS Lucid in Stockton, there are various types of ship museums in California, each with its own rich history and significance.
California is the most populous US state and has some of the most important ports on the West Coast. It is home to some of the United States' most interesting ship museums, from aircraft carriers to tugboats. In California, see one of the most powerful battleships ever made and the largest aircraft carrier to be preserved as a museum.
Here are a number of the most interesting museum ships in California to visit.
10 USS Midway
The USS Midway is one of five preserved aircraft carriers in the United States and one of two in California. The USS Midway is the only carrier museum that is not an Essex class carrier and was the largest naval ship in the world until 1955.
She was commissioned in the closing days of World War Two and is today open to the public in San Diego.
- Type: Midway class Aircraft Carrier
- Commissioned: 1945
9 RMS Queen Mary
The RMS Queen Mary is one of the few preserved oceanliners. These days, she is a museum ship in California and a floating hotel and haunted attraction. She was built by the British and ran the North Atlantic between Southampton in England and New York.
Today, the modern Queen Mary 2 is the only oceanliner still working.
- Type: Oceanliner
- Maiden Voyage: 1936
8 USS Iowa
The USS Iowa is the lead battleship of her Iowa class of four battleships. The Iowa class was built during World War Two, and all of them survived the war and are today preserved as museum ships.
They are the last and arguably most powerful battleships ever built. Today, she is open to the public in Los Angeles.
- Type: Iowa Class Battleship
- Commissioned: 1943
7 USS Potomac
The USS Potomac is one of the best museum ships to visit in California, and she is the only presidential yacht to be preserved and to be open to the public. She served as Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidential yacht between 1936 and 1945 and is now preserved in Oakland, California.
She had an interesting career after being retired as a presidential yacht (she was a ferry and was even purchased by Elvis Presley).
- Type: Presidential Yacht
- Commissioned: 1934
6 SS Jeremiah O'Brien
Most attention in war is given to the big showy things that go boom! But battles and campaigns can only be fought and won if the logistics have done their job first. It can be said that Allied logistics won World War II, and nothing captures that more than the Liberty ships.
The SS Jeremiah O'Brien (now in San Francisco) is one of the few Liberty ships to survive (and she took part in the D-Landings).
- Type: Liberty cargo ship
- Commissioned: 1943
5 USS Hornet
The USS Hornet is one of the surviving Essex class carriers (and was named after the ill-fated older USS Hornet that was lost to the Japanese during the Solomon Islands campaign).
She took part in the Pacific War (including the 'Great Marianas Turkey Shoot'. She is now open to the public in Alameda, California.
- Type: Essex class Aircraft Carrier
- Commissioned: 1943
4 Alma
The Alma is a small scow schooner preserved at the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park in San Francisco.
She is one of the best ship museums in California to visit and is particularly remarkable for being one of the few preserved ships to survive from the 1800s. She is also the only floating scow schooner known to survive in the United States.
- Type: Scow Schooner
- Launched: 1891
3 Balclutha
The Balclutha was built by the British in 1886 and named after a small town in the southern end of New Zealand's South Island. During the colonial period, she would carry the wool from New Zealand to Britain, and she rounded Cape Horn some 17 times.
She was later sold to American interests and is now a museum ship in California open to the public.
- Type: Three-Masked Full-Rigged Ship
- Launched: 1886
2 USS Pampanito
The USS Pampanito is a World War Two-era US Navy submarine. She is a Balao class submarine who completed six war patrols in the latter part of the war.
During the Cold War, she was used as a training ship and is now preserved as a museum boat at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. She is one of many submarine museums in the United States.
- Type: Balao class submarine
- Commissioned: 1943
1 USS Lucid
The USS Lucid is a retired US Navy minesweeper (not all naval vessels are big and showy battleships and carriers). She served during the Vietnam War and was decommissioned in 1970 and sold off to civilians (who used her as a houseboat for 10 years).
Now, she is restored and is a museum ship at the Stockton Maritime Museum.
- Type: Aggress-class minesweeper
- Commissioned: 1955