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USS Alabama Battleship Commission honors Tuscaloosa commissioners

The Tuscaloosa News - 11/30/2020

Nov. 30--Lee Hallman, a retired U.S. Navy commander, tells the story of Major League Baseball pitcher Bob Feller attending the 50-year reunion for crew members of the battleship USS Alabama. Hallman said he stood on the podium that day and watched Feller cry as memories flooded through the surviving crew members.

"Feller would get him a catcher and get back on the fantail and pitch, practice his pitching. He would do all sorts of physical exercises, so he would be ready to go after the war. He was a chief petty officer and served about four years on the Alabama. When the war was over and he went back to the Cleveland Indians, the first game he pitched was a no-hitter," said Hallman, a three-war veteran who retired in 1977.

Hallman and Gary Fitts, both Tuscaloosa residents, were recognized earlier this year for their work on the USS Alabama Battleship Commission, an 18-member group charged with oversight of the battleship park in Mobile that includes the battleship USS Alabama, submarine USS Drum and 28 military aircraft.

The commission oversees the physical assets of the park but the members also keep alive the memories of the men who served aboard the highly decorated battleship.

Fitts, who served in the Marines, told of one such memory made during by the USS Alabama crew during World War II. The ship was assigned to escort three aircraft carriers and came under kamikaze attack by Japanese aircraft. The Alabama successfully fended off the attack and received the following message from Admiral William "Bull" Halsey: "Well done, Alabama. You are by far the hero of the Pacific."

The USS Alabama was the last of four South Dakota class battleships to be constructed. It entered service in 1943 and was dispatched to Scapa Flow, the British Naval Base in northern England where it served briefly with the British fleet before being sent to the South Pacific. The ship, designated BB 60, earned seven battle stars during her World War II career and had the honor of leading the fleet into Tokyo Bay on Sept. 5, 1945, for the official surrender of the Japanese empire.

When returning from the Pacific in 1945, Hallman who was then an enlisted man in the Navy, saw the Alabama at anchor at Long Beach in Southern California. He remembers it clearly because there was another Alabama connection in town when he arrived. The Alabama Crimson Tide was playing in the Rose Bowl, a game that he was able to attend. Hallman served aboard many U.S. Navy ships in his career, but never on a battleship. He said his brother was on the Alabama's crew for the ship's decommissioning cruise to Bremerton, Washington.

The USS Alabama was decommissioned after the war and was about to be scrapped in 1962 when the USS Alabama Commission was formed to bring the battleship to Mobile. Instead of being scrapped, the ship become the centerpiece at the USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park. Commissioners like Fitts and Hallman oversee a large operation that employs 50 workers under the oversight of Janet Cobb, a retired U.S. Army major general.

"The state Legislature created the battleship commission to receive the USS Alabama, to bring her here and arranged fundraising to have a park built," Cobb said. "I have 18 bosses, and they are all great. Their official role, their legal role is oversight."

Part of that oversight includes ensuring that the ship, the submarine and the aircraft on display are properly maintained and presented. The commission spends hundreds of thousands of dollars every year to ensure the park and its assets are properly maintained.

"We have assignments, basically keeping the battleship up to snuff. We've got a serious problem with the battleship right now. The deck is worn out and it is made from thick teakwood. The material is not available, and if it was available, you couldn't afford it. The Navy has control of what we do to that ship. Although it's ours, but we have to keep it up to their specifications. If we are going to do something cosmetic to that battleship, the Navy has to approve it," Fitts said.

Over the years, renovations major and minor have been overseen by the commissioners, an essential function to maintaining an attractive park for visitors.

"We spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on maintenance," Cobb said. "She's an older warship. Over the years, part of her hull was re-plated. We brought the Drum up on land in 2001 because part of her hull was deteriorating. The commission now is working to replace the teak deck -- that is from the commissioning days of 1942. It's just about an 80-year-old deck. The Navy retains the right at the end of the day to scrap these museum ships. They don't want them to become what we would call a rust bucket. We take that seriously."

Fitts is the only man on the commission who is not from the Navy. He was a Marine Corps flight instructor before returning home to Tuscaloosa to run the Fitts Agency. Fitts said Cobb affectionately calls him "My Marine," because he is the only non-Navy member of the commission.

The park is self-supporting and receives no funds from the Navy, the state or the federal government. Part of their money is derived from ticket and merchandise sales. Part of it comes from the commissioners' fundraising efforts.

"We have done lots of things to make it attractive to the public. We get visitors from all over the world. It's amazing. They come and visit plus we get visitors from all the states," Hallman said.

For Fitts, the aircraft pavilion is his pride and joy. His military service as Marine Corps aviator ensures that the park's aircraft have a special place in his heart. That is one of the areas he said needs improvement.

"We have to raise money. We need a new aircraft pavilion," Fitts said. "The aircraft pavilion is my baby. We got a Mitchell 25 bomber that was on the Doolittle Raid and it sits out in the open. The salt air and sun doesn't do it any good."

Not only do commissioners oversee the park's maintenance and fundraising efforts but they also are responsible for ensuring the park and all its contents, another major expense every year that must be met by the battleship commission.

Cobb did not want the commissioner's service to go unrewarded. Earlier this year, she commissioned a replica flag that is a smaller duplicate of the flag that flies over the park and presented one to each commissioner. While it is only a token, none of the commissioners are paid, their service to the battleship and to the memories it holds is a worthy, but largely unrewarded task.

"It was a recognition of a historical time when the battleship commission was founded in 1963. That is the flag that flies here at Battleship Park. Those are Garrison sized flags. I thought it would be a nice thing to have that miniaturized to fly as they see fit. It is one way to commemorate their service," Cobb said.

Fitts has served on the commission since Feb. 6, 2007 and Hallman has been a commissioner since March 12, 1986. They, among all the commissioners have a special place in Cobb's heart. They are Tuscaloosa men, and she graduated from the University of Alabama and still thinks of Tuscaloosa as home.

"I'm very honored to serve on the battleship commission. We call it a jewel, and it is a jewel. To have the USS Alabama in Mobile and have it as a memorial park where people can see it and visit, it is just fantastic," Hallman said.

Fitts also feels honored to be on the commission and is especially delighted by the gift of the flag. He will be flying it over the Fitts Agency in Tuscaloosa. Though now retired, his son runs the show and has consented to having the flag on the company's flagpole.

"When I got this flag, I went to my son who is now running the agency and I asked him if he thought the partners would mind if we flew this flag on the flagpole for a week," Fitts said.

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