USS Hornet hosts special exhibits for San Francisco’s Fleet Week
By Lauren Toms
Quietly anchored off Alameda, the USS Hornet sits like a sleeping giant in the Bay. Its steel decks are steeped in history and open for all to explore year-round.
Exhibition Director Anthony Wilson remembers when he first stepped aboard as a child, long before he ever imagined he’d be the ship’s caretaker.
“I was born and raised in San Francisco, so I can’t see the home to here, but it’s pretty close. And I remember coming here as a kid and just awe-inspiring,” Wilson said.
Today, Wilson roams the same narrow corridors he once wandered in wonder, now preserving them for others. In the depths of the ship, he curates exhibits that capture the daily rhythm of life aboard during World War II. They tell stories of simple meals, small comforts, and fleeting moments of normalcy amid global conflict: twenty-five-cent burgers, ten-cent sodas, and holiday celebrations far from home.
“I just love seeing like what they had. Coffee never gets old, right? Bread and butter served every meal, just a staple that they had back then, fresh fruit tray, dry cereal,” Wilson told CBS News Bay Area. “To me, it feels like it brought kind of familiarity, kept things kind of some similar, something the same, that they’re kind of used to.”
Decades later, the Hornet’s mission shifted from the battles of the Pacific to the frontiers of space. The carrier became the recovery ship for NASA’s Apollo space program, retrieving the astronauts of Apollo 11 and 12 after their splashdowns in the Pacific. Their path from the capsule to the mobile quarantine facility remains traced on the deck, footprints frozen in time.
“There are capsules they landed and then they walked here,” said Wilson. “Those are the footprints that kind of denote where they walked and then into the mobile quarantine facility where they stayed. They got meals given to them.”
The historic vessel is not only open to the public year-round, but is hosting special events in honor of San Francisco Fleet Week and the U.S. Navy’s 250th anniversary, with new exhibits and one-of-a-kind events allowing visitors to spend the night on the ship.
From the ocean depths to lunar glory, the USS Hornet holds stories that bridge generations, of sailors, scientists, and dreamers bound by courage and curiosity.
“So is keeping those stories alive, and then taking them and making sure that it gets passed down to all the generations,” Wilson said.
