^ Another warship and naval history fan! Yippieee!
(Fires full salvo of 8 salute blanks - 8"/60cal )
I also met a man in Indiana who had served in the Royal Navy aboard the RN Prince of Wales when it was hit by KM Bismarck.
Prince of Wales was heavily damaged while in the middle of a hard zig-zag turn, leaving it with no control, communication with the bridge cut off, and small fires with black and brown smoke everywhere. Ammunition, cooking in burning oil, was exploding on the deck. And when a sudden puff of crosswind cleared the smoke, there was Bismarck steaming past, only 3,000 yards off -
"She had us point-blank if she had wanted it. And then I saw something I wouldn't have believed. Men were jumping out of the hatch at the rear of the gun houses of the secondary turrets (6"/55cal pairs) and lining up along the rail. They saluted us. Not the Nazi straight arm, but with their hands at their foreheads. It felt like everything went silent; Bismarck checked* fire. They could have murdered us."
*ceased
Greenville, Indiana, c.1994