Battleship North Carolina adds new public area

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — A new area on the Battleship North Carolina is open daily to visitors.

The public tour will now include the ship’s cold storage compartments. The compartments are the first new spaces to be added to the tour route in decades. The USS North Carolina could store 200,000 lbs. of fresh food and feed up to 2,000 young men at sea when it served during World War II.

Visitors will be able to check out the original equipment in the ice machine room where large ice blocks were used to keep ingredients fresh.

Fresh meat, fruits, vegetables, butter, and eggs were once held in the ship’s seven refrigerated compartments.

“The Battleship is host to more than 200,000 visitors each year, and food is a topic that everyone can relate to,” staff curator Mary Ames Booker said in a news release. “Over the past several years volunteers also have made changes in the main galley (kitchen), butcher and bake shops, and the vegetable preparation room to enhance our presentation of daily life aboard the Battleship.”