The USS Kidd Veterans Memorial is a naval history museum that includes a WWII destroyer, located on the Mississippi in downtown Baton Rouge. They have separate, modest entry fees, but explorers shouldn't miss the indoor museum. It has an outstanding (as good as any in the U.S.) collection of model ships from tall ships of the Age of Sail to submarines. A sign says the models were built by the Baton Rouge Model Shipbuilders, presumably the same group as the Baton Rouge Scale Modelers Association. The museum also has a flavor of nationalism present in many veterans memorials that include museums.

The Kidd itself is also interesting for a picture of life aboard at the time of Pearl Harbor. Everything from the barber's chair in a gun station to the dozens of sleeping shelves in a small room to the picture of the wife in the captain's cabin is right there, in its carefully restored authenticity. You can supplement the lengthy self-guided tour by talking to the docents, some of whom were sailors who were once stationed on destroyers. The boat part of the museum is definitely not accessible: lots of steep ladders and tight corners. The boat is firmly aground- no rocking when barges go by on the river- but the view from the deck is nice.