The guided missile destroyer USS Sampson will be open for free public tours at the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station Sunday.
The once-a-year open house began Saturday and continues from 10 a.m. until 1:30 p.m.
"It's good from both points of view -- for the public and the Navy," Selwyn Ramsay, 82, of Placentia, told The Orange County Register Saturday
Ramsay served on the aircraft carrier USS Randolph, built during WWII.
He was the aircraft maintenance officer on the ship in 1954-55 and stayed in
the Navy until 1991, he said.
The 510-foot Sampson -- built in Bath, Maine, commissioned in 2007 and
homeported in San Diego -- was featured in the 2012 movie Battleship.
In real life, it carries a crew of about 380 officers and enlisted men.
It returned from a six-month deployment in the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean on Aug. 31.
The ship arrived in Seal Beach on Friday to unload some of its Tomahawk
missiles, Navy Lt. LeeAnn Darland told The Register.
"Seal Beach is primarily (about) ammo," she said.
The Sampson's mission is primarily to support an aircraft carrier strike
group, but the ship has also carried out counter-piracy missions and recently was deployed in the Strait of Hormuz.
Visitors should enter through the Wharf Gate, which is on Seal Beach
Boulevard just south of its intersection with Pacific Coast Highway. No
handbags or backpacks will be allowed onboard. No accommodations for the
handicapped are available.
-- City News Service
