Work Party Pix; Al Siegel

USS Newport News Work Party; March 08, 2002
The story of moving the
USS Newport News the Ship's Bell

Part 2

The bell landing safely on the Deck of the USS Salem

The professional Crain and Rigging team hired to do this job safely and correctly unloaded the bell from the truck and craned it onto the USS Salem.

Picture by Mike Lanier

Al Siegel kissing the Bell.
Al and a few other shipmates lost a lot of hair over getting the bell to the ship.
Everyone was glad that the ship's bell is finally in our possession and on the USS Salem.
At this moment, we felt that the worst was over! (Or so we thought!)
Picture by Mike Lanier

The Bell is too big for the Hatch that goes to our Museum area!

This picture is the bell at the top of the ladder that leads to our area, and this is when we started to realize
that we are going to have to cut SOMETHING to get it down into our area!

By the end of our March 8-10th work party, we did not know how were were going to get the bell down into
our compartment, but we did know that it's going to take more money to solve this problem!

Picture by Mike Lanier

Almost there!

On March 23, 2002 Bob Freeman (USS Newport News Museum Director) sent us an email with the below picture saying, "The movement of the Ship's Bell is all most done. Bell is in place and just waiting for the platform to set it on."

Mike Lanier has found a shipmate who has a wooden decking sections that was from on the Bridge of the USS Newport News. We plan on getting this decking to be used for the bell's platform.

Picture by Bob Freeman

The transportation of the ships bell to the USS Salem, and then hiring a Crain and riggers to move it from the pier onto the ship turned out to be a very costly adventure. The cost of this was paid for by the NNRA Ship’s store. So, in reality, many of you helped pay the transportation of the ship’s bell because it was the profits from items that you purchased from the USS Newport News Ship’s store that financed the truck rental and riggers it required to get our bell to the USS Salem.

Without the dedicated persistence of Al Siegel, the help from assorted staff of the Naval Historical Center in Washington, D. C, the Mariner's Museum in Newport News, VA, and the United States Shipbuilding Museum (USS Salem) in Quincy MA, the financial support of the USS Newport News Reunion Association (Ship's Store), this feat of bureaucracy could hot have been accomplished.