Tuesday, June 28, 2011

USS Cumberland and CSS Florida Expedition

Yesterday, Gordon Calhoun and I went with NOAA and NHHC's Underwater Archaeology branch to the sites of the USS Cumberland and CSS Florida wrecks, off Newport News. We spent the day observing marine archaeologists map the two wrecks with their new technology, creating sonar images of them so we can compare how the wrecks have settled and changed over the years.


Here are some of the images as the archaeologists viewed them on their computer screens. In future weeks, we'll be able to provide you with the official images, but these we took with our camera while on the boat.
The above image is of Florida. Note how fuzzy the sides of the wreck are, indicating the large amount of sediment on it.
This is an image of Cumberland. Note how much sharper this image is than Florida--much less sediment is on this ship. Below is another image of Cumberland in black and white.
All of the above images were taken by sonar equipment that was lowered into the water below the boat's hull. Here is a photo of the crew working to lower the equipment once we reached the approximate location of both wrecks.

Sunday, June 26, 2011

1943 NTS Norfolk Baseball Team

Phil Rizzuto


The Norfolk Ledger-Star sent a photojournalist to Naval Training Station Norfolk in 1943 to photograph the members of the "NTS Nine," the station's baseball team. The NTS Nine was loaded with some of baseball's most well known starts and a few future Hall of Famers. The Norfolk Public Libary's Sargeant Memorial Room was gracious enough to share these photos with us. We include three photos from the collection.

Dom Dimaggio

Walter Masterson, Fred Hutchinson, Charlie Wagner, Tom Early

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Battleship Wisconsin at Norfolk Naval Shipyard, 1951


The Norfolk Public Library's Sargeant Memorial Collection recently found several images in their stacks of the battleship Wisconsin (BB-64) from the 1940s and 1950s. Photojournalists from the Ledger-Star (a local Norfolk newspaper that is now part of the Virginian-Pilot) took the pictures. The NPL was gracious enough to share the photos with us.

The set of images shown here include Wisconsin arriving at Norfolk Naval Shipyard on January 9, 1951. The U.S. Navy had just pulled the ship out of mothballs in response to the Korean War and workers at the Yard recommissioned her into fighting form.








Monday, June 13, 2011

Frank Lloyd Wright at the Jamestown Exposition


One of the major themes of the 1907 Jamestown Exposition was free enterprise and American capitalism. Several major American and foreign companies, from the giant Pennsylvania Railroad to a small start up known as General Electric, commissioned lavish buildings and exhibits to show off their products and services. One of these companies was the Larkin Soap Company of Buffalo, New York. Started in 1875, the company was originally one of America's leading soap companies before they expanded their product line to include most household products. At the same time, the company also introduced a mail order service.

The founder of the company John Larkin was a good friend of another American pioneer, architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Having already commissioned Wright in 1904 to design the company's Buffalo headquarters (which is considered to be one of Wright's masterpieces), Larkin commissioned Wright to design a building to promote the Larkin Company's marketing concept. Called the "Larkin Idea," this strategy attempted to sell to the American homemaker what the ideal home should look like. This of course included the company's full line of consumer goods.


One visitor to the building wrote, "There was something homey and restful in that little cottage. Both young and old ladies went through the building with attentive eyes, pausing now and then as their fancy fixed upon this chair or that bedstead or other desirable article 'for my room at home.' The 'Larkin idea" is one of the most distinctive phases of modern business life, and there are millions of 'Larkin homes' throughout the country, in which the products of this firm are regarded as household necessities, and where the 'idea' meets with a hearty welcome."

The building, unfortunately, was torn down after the Exposition. Its location today would be at the corner of Pocahontas and Farragut Avenues at Naval Station Norfolk.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Memorial Day Photo Contest 2011

Two weeks ago, we asked our Facebook fans to post photos showing what Memorial Day meant to them. We ended up with eleven submissions--which is a great response rate for the first photo contest we've ever done!--and then asked our fans to vote on their favorite photo. The winner received a prize package from HRNM. Featured in this blog post are the winner and two runners-up. Thank you to everyone who participated and everyone who voted. We hope to hold another photo contest in the coming months!

The winner: Sherry Voyles, with her photo of "observing and paying tribute to our veterans during the annual ceremony at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery," St. Louis, Missouri:


Second place: Melissa White-Contreras, with "They don't remember their grandfather, but they are still proud that he served..."




Third place: India Sharpe Meissel, with "Legion Riders meeting our brave men and women at the Atlanta airport."

Monday, June 6, 2011

USS Iowa at Dry Dock Number 4





These three photos are of the battleship USS Iowa (BB-61) in Dry dock Number 4 at Norfolk Naval Shipyard-Portsmouth, April and May 1985. The Navy had placed the battleship in the dry dock for four months of what the Navy calls "post shakedown availability" (PSA) repairs. PSA repairs are conducted on ships to fix problems found during a ship's first cruise after being launched or overhauled.

Number 4 was one of the few places the Navy could place a ship the size of Iowa. Growing pains led the Navy to build the dry dock in the early 1900s. The Fleet's newest battleship designs were longer than the U.S. Government's current docks and the Navy wanted to keep the ability to repair its own ships and its own facilities. Contractors finished work on the facility in 1919.

Harrison S. Taft,an 1896 naval architect graduate of MIT, designed and oversaw construction of the dry dock. The school's alumni magazine proudly produced this description of Taft's work: "Dry dock No. 4 is said to have been the most complicated reinforced concrete structure ever built for the Navy Department. The dock is of the largest size, being 1,000 feet in length and 144 feet in width; its depth is 51 feet. In its construction 625,000 cubic yards of earth were excavated and 185.000 cubic yards of concrete were poured and reinforced. The dock is capable of handling the largest ships now afloat and will probably be able to handle any which may be designed in the future unless radical changes take place in the world's harbors and ship channels. Work was begun in January, 1917, and the entire job was completed two years and three months later, a feat which is said to constitute a record in the United States."

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Mark VI Mine and New Online Exhibit


This is a Mark VI mine on display in the museum's gallery. During World War I, the St. Juliens Annex of the Norfolk Naval Shipyard assembled over 100,000 of these weapons. The U.S. Navy's Mine Laying Squadron One deployed about 70,000 of them in the North Sea during an operation known as the "North Sea Mine Barrage." The goal was to seal off the North Sea as an exit point for German U-boats.

The mines were quite advanced for their day. The sphere contained 300 pounds of TNT, more than enough to rip an 800-ton submarine apart. A U-boat would trigger the mine by touching either the sphere itself or the wire cable located above and below the charge.  The mine's trigger, however, was possibly too sensitive as there were many reports of deployed mines exploding due to other objects in the sea such as fish or floating debris.  The Navy stored surplus mines at the newly-established Yorktown Mine Depot in Yorktown, Virginia. Today the facility is known as Naval Weapons Station Yorktown.

In cooperation with Commander, Navy Region, Mid-Atlantic, a new online exhibit about St. Juliens Creek Annex and the mines can now be seen at the museum's website.