Monday, May 23, 2011

Live Fire Exercises in the Chesapeake Bay, 1911


This the Norfolk-based, pre-dreadnought battleship USS New Hampshire (BB-25) conducting live fire exercises near the Chesapeake Bay's Tangier Island, March 1911. The battleship's gunners fired at San Marcos (ex-USS Texas) and hit the 6,660-ton, Spanish-American War veteran forty-seven times.

While the exercise was useful in training sailors in the operations of large caliber weapons, both the U.S. Army and Navy studied the exercise for a different reason. The exercise was a rare opportunity for surface warfare and coast defense artillery experts to closely inspect and interpret the effects of large caliber artillery shells on an armored target. Secretary of the Navy George Meyer and his aides observed the exercise from USS Dolphin (PG-22), as did the U.S. Army's Chief of Ordnance, Brigadier General William Crozier, from the destroyer USS McCall (DD-25), and a pool of newspaper reporters from the torpedo boat USS Stringham (TB-19). What is not known is how this aerial picture was taken as there was no naval avaition at the time.

Not everyone looked forwarded to the test. Shortly before New Hampshire put to sea, seventy sailors of the ship's company deserted. They believed the ship's 12-inch guns were on the brink of bursting and thus unsafe to use. They claimed that the guns had been fired over 200 times without a safety overhaul. The Navy placed a request with the City of Norfolk police department to assist in rounding up the deserters and within a few days, most had been arrested. None of the guns had any issues during the operation.

Monday, May 16, 2011

USS Saratoga and Lexington off the Virginia Capes

This is a 1930 photo of the aircraft carriers USS Saratoga (CV-2) and Lexington (CV-3) off the Virginia Capes. Along with eleven battleships, USS Langley (CV-1), nine cruisers, twenty-five destroyers, and two fleet submarines (V-2 and V-3), the two 33,000-ton aircraft carriers participated in an official Naval Review by President Herbert Hoover. The President observed the carriers' torpedo bombers practice attack runs on the battleships. A crewmember of the mammoth dirigible USS Los Angeles (ZR-3) took this photo.

The fleet had just completed Fleet Problem X, an official U.S. Navy battle exercise designed to develop naval aviation doctrines, in the Caribbean. After the Review, most of the fleet got underway for San Diego and Pearl Harbor.

Monday, May 9, 2011

HMS Queen Elizabeth at Craney Island

This is a picture of the British battleship HMS Queen Elizabeth at the Craney Island fuel depot, 1943.  The picture had been taken shortly after Norfolk Naval Shipyard completed a major repair project on the vessel.  The depot (located about half way down the Elizabeth River) had five piers to refuel warships, including one specifically for aircraft carriers and battleships. 

Italian naval commandos severly damaged the 33,000-ton warship on December 18, 1941.  The commandos mined Queen Elizabeth and the battleship HMS Warspite during a daring raid on the two ships' Alexandria, Egypt anchorage.   The Royal Navy conducted some temporary repairs on Queen Elizabeth, but only enough to allow the battleship to make it across the Atlantic Ocean to Hampton Roads.  The battleship was one of many Royal Navy ships Norfolk Naval Shipyard repaired during World War II.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Union Jacks Luncheon Lecture: "A Sailor's Life"

Historian Michael J. Bennett discusses the harsh realities of life aboard Union vessels during the American Civil War.




For more information, go to the Civil War Navy Sesquicentennial Blog homepage for more information.