USS North Carolina-- Part 3: Serves Three Functions for the Wilmington Area

From the start, the "Showboat" of World War II, as she was called, was in Wilmington to impact tourism, especially after the city's #1 industry , the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, left.  It also came to serve as a World War II memorial and a floating museum.

It has continued to serve all three of those functions for sixty years, said retired Navy Captain Terry Bragg, who has been executive director  of the Battleship North Carolina since 2009.

As Wilmington's number one tourist attraction (other than arguably the nearby beaches), the battleship is also one of the most popular tourist attractions in eastern North Carolina.

"Our numbers are so much bigger than anybody else's,"  Bragg said.   "We're still maintaining our obligation as the economic engine of the area."

One thing people don't understand, Bragg said, is that  the Battleship is  "technically  an enterprise of the state" overseen by the USS North Carolina Battleship Commission, which was established in 1960.

The state has "an obligation to the U.S. Navy to maintain the ship, according to Bragg, and the state can appropriate money for repairs when needed, which has happened in recent years.

--GreGen