Archive for the ‘Ships’ Category

Brief historical note, suitable for use in schools.

Wednesday, February 15th, 2023

If I had thought about it, I would have prepared a longer post. However, I’ve been distracted by other projects, and would have completely missed this if it wasn’t for McThag.

125 years ago today, on February 15, 1898, the battleship USS Maine exploded in Havana Harbor.

Interesting note from Wikipedia (I know, I know):

Maine is described as an armored cruiser or second-class battleship, depending on the source. Commissioned in 1895, she was the first U.S. Navy ship to be named after the state of Maine. Maine and the similar battleship Texas were both represented as an advance in American warship design, reflecting the latest European naval developments. Both ships had two gun turrets staggered en échelon, and full sailing masts were omitted due to the increased reliability of steam engines. Due to a protracted 9-year construction period, Maine and Texas were obsolete by the time of completion. Far more advanced vessels were either in service or nearing completion that year.

(Edited to add: I should clarify, since this is a little confusing: the “Texas” above is the 1892 USS Texas, not the 1914 USS Texas.)

Side note: one of the tour guides at the Texas made an interesting comment, and I’d like to do more research on this. In brief, the Germans pioneered modern welding.

Because of arms limitation treaties after WWI, the weight of battleships was limited. If you rivet battleship plates together, you have to overlap the plates. But if you weld battleship plates, you can basically butt the plates together rather than overlapping. This allows you to use less plate. Less plate means bigger battleship within the weight limitations.

I’d really like to find some good sources on welding history. I think that’d be a technically interesting area to explore.

Anyway, remembering the Maine: somewhere I have what I believe is a first edition of Rickover’s How the Battleship Maine Was Destroyed. (Affiliate link goes to a Naval Institute Press reprint edition.)

Edited to add 2: Thanks to valued commenter Chuck Pergiel for providing a link to his post on the Maine.

Drachinfel. This one is short:

The USS New Jersey. This is a little under 30 minutes.

Father Joseph Timothy O’Callahan.

Monday, May 31st, 2021

Father O’Callahan was a good Boston boy. Shortly after he graduated from high school in 1922, he signed up with the Jesuits.

He was ordained as a Jesuit priest in 1934. Along the way, he picked up a BA and a MA from St. Andrew’s College, “specializing in mathematics and physics”. He was a professor of math, physics, and philosophy at Boston College for 10 years (1927-1937), then he went over to Weston Jesuit School of Theology for a year. From 1938 to 1940 he served as the director of the math department at the College of the Holy Cross.

When World War II began, O’Callahan was 36 and nearsighted, with a bad case of claustrophobia and high blood pressure—an unlikely candidate for military service, much less for heroic valor.

He enlisted in the United States Navy Reserve Chaplain Corps in August of 1940 as a lieutenant junior grade. But I gather he was pretty good at his job: by July of 1945 he had reached the rank of commander. He participated in Operation Torch and Operation Leader.

On March 2, 1945, Commander O’Callahan reported to the aircraft carrier USS Franklin.

On March 19, 1945, the Franklin was hit by two bombs from a Japanese aircraft. The bombs started a massive fire on the carrier deck.

A valiant and forceful leader, calmly braving the perilous barriers of flame and twisted metal to aid his men and his ship, Lt. Comdr. O’Callahan groped his way through smoke-filled corridors to the open flight deck and into the midst of violently exploding bombs, shells, rockets, and other armament. With the ship rocked by incessant explosions, with debris and fragments raining down and fires raging in ever-increasing fury, he ministered to the wounded and dying, comforting and encouraging men of all faiths; he organized and led firefighting crews into the blazing inferno on the flight deck; he directed the jettisoning of live ammunition and the flooding of the magazine; he manned a hose to cool hot, armed bombs rolling dangerously on the listing deck, continuing his efforts, despite searing, suffocating smoke which forced men to fall back gasping and imperiled others who replaced them. Serving with courage, fortitude, and deep spiritual strength, Lt. Comdr. O’Callahan inspired the gallant officers and men of the Franklin to fight heroically and with profound faith in the face of almost certain death and to return their stricken ship to port.

While leading the men through this inferno, he gave the Sacrament of Last Rites to the men dying around him, all while battling his claustrophobia.

Official Navy casualty figures for the 19 March 1945 fire totaled 724 killed and 265 wounded. Nevertheless, casualty numbers have been updated as new records are discovered. A recent count by Franklin historian and researcher Joseph A. Springer brings total 19 March 1945 casualty figures to 807 killed and more than 487 wounded. Franklin had suffered the most severe damage and highest casualties experienced by any U.S. fleet carrier that survived World War II.

There is a short documentary, “The Saga of the Franklin“, that you can find on the Internet Archive.

Commander O’Callahan was offered the Navy Cross, but refused it. There is speculation that his refusal had to do with “his heroic actions on USS Franklin highlighted perceived lapses in leadership by the ship’s commanding officer, Captain Leslie E. Gehres, which reflected poorly on the Navy”. Wikipedia claims there was a controversy at the time, Harry Truman stepped in…

…and Commander O’Callahan was awarded the Medal of Honor on January 23, 1946. (Another officer, Lieutenant junior grade Donald Arthur Gary, also received the Medal of Honor for his actions: “Lieutenant Gary discovered 300 men trapped in a blackened mess compartment and, finding an exit, returned repeatedly to lead groups to safety. Gary later organized and led firefighting parties to battle the inferno on the hangar deck and entered number three fireroom to raise steam in one boiler, braving extreme hazards in so doing.“)

Father O’Callahan retired from the Navy in 1948 and headed the math department at The College of the Holy Cross. He also wrote a book, I Was Chaplain on the Franklin (affiliate link).

He died in 1964 at the age of 58, and is buried in the Jesuit cemetery at The College of the Holy Cross. The destroyer USS O’Callahan was named after him.

One of Father O’Callahan’s students at Holy Cross before the war was John V. Power, who also received the Medal of Honor (posthumously).

A few months later, when awards were presented on the battered flight deck of the USS Franklin, O’Callahan’s mother came aboard the ship, and The New England Historical Society reports this telling conversation:

The ship’s captain, Les Gehres, went over to his mother and said, “I’m not a religious man. But I watched your son that day and I thought if faith can do this for man, there must be something to it. Your son is the bravest man I have ever seen.”

(Previously. Previously.)

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 366

Thursday, April 1st, 2021

Travel Thursday!

In honor of the late G. Gordon Liddy, how about a tour of the Watergate Hotel?

Bonus #1: I’m kind of bending one of my own rules here, but I’m thinking of this less as military history and more as “also inspired by current events”.

The Battleship New Jersey folks put up a video the other day about transiting the Suez and Panama canals.

Bonus #2: What the heck, let’s do some more ships. From the “Great British Royal Ships” series, “RMS Queen Mary”.

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 353

Friday, March 19th, 2021

I was thinking about insurance.

This is a short film from the 1980s about Lloyd’s of London and how it works.

Something that I find kind of interesting is the Lloyd’s Open Form (LOF). The basic idea is: if something comes up at sea that requires a salvage operation, the two parties (the one being salvaged and the one doing the salvaging) sign a LOF.

The LOF is called “open” because it specifies no particular sum for the salvage job. Indeed it may not specify a sum, as salvage is not a “contract for services”, but an agreement to provide a service in the hope of a “reward” to be determined later by an arbitration hearing in London, where several QCs practising at the Admiralty Bar specialise as maritime arbitrators.

One of the key aspects of the LOF is: “No Cure, No Pay.”

Traditionally, the salvage reward has been subject to the salvor successfully saving the ship or cargo, and if neither is saved, the salvor gets nothing, however much time and money has been spent on the project.

Back in 1978, an oil tanker, the Amoco Cadiz, ran into some problems: it encountered a storm that damaged the rudder and caused a hydraulic fluid leak. The captain called for assistance: the responding salvor wanted the captain to agree to a LOF.

One of the books I’ve read on the subject states that the captain was resistant to signing a LOF, as he felt he’d be signing an open-ended commitment, while the salvors were reluctant to proceed without a LOF. Ultimately, the captain agreed, but the situation had deteriorated…

…and the Amoco Cadiz ran aground off the coast of Brittany and dumped over 220,000 tons (metric) of oil into the sea.

Semi-related, because we’re talking about oil: “Fires of Kuwait”. For once, something in high-res.

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 252

Monday, December 7th, 2020

Today, December 7th, 2020, a date which will live in infamy…

…having reached a certain age, I have a doctor’s appointment this morning for a routine procedure, and expect to be out of it for a bit.

(I’ll take the 15 yard penalty for oversharing.)

So I’m scheduling this post in advance. Given the history of the day, the fact that I’ve only linked to him once, the fact that these are short-ish, and the fact that I’m a lazy shiftless blogger who is (I hope) lying around in pajamas and slippers right now, I thought I’d link to Drachinifel‘s series on the salvage of Pearl Harbor.

Part 1: “The Smoke Clears”.

Part 2: “Up She Rises!”

Part 3: “The First and the Last”.

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 250

Saturday, December 5th, 2020

I thought it might be fun today to go down to the sea in ships…

…which (because I am a jerk) promptly sink. Since today is Saturday, I feel like I can run a bit long, at least for this first one. The bonus videos are all shorter.

“The Shocking Truths Of King Henry VIII’s Ship The Mary Rose”.

The Mary Rose is a carrack-type warship of the English Tudor navy of King Henry VIII. She served for 33 years in several wars against France, Scotland, and Brittany. After being substantially rebuilt in 1536, she saw her last action on 19 July 1545. She led the attack on the galleys of a French invasion fleet, but sank in the Solent, the straits north of the Isle of Wight
The wreck of the Mary Rose was discovered in 1971 and was raised on 11 October 1982 by the Mary Rose Trust in one of the most complex and expensive maritime salvage projects in history. The surviving section of the ship and thousands of recovered artefacts are of great value as a Tudor-era time capsule. The excavation and raising of the Mary Rose was a milestone in the field of maritime archaeology, comparable in complexity and cost to the raising of the 17th-century Swedish warship Vasa in 1961. The Mary Rose site is designated under the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973 by statutory instrument 1974/55. The wreck is a Protected Wreck managed by Historic England. “Details from listed building database (1000075)”. National Heritage List for England.

Bonus #1: One of the things I’d like to do before I die is to see the Vasa.

Vasa or Wasa[a] (Swedish pronunciation: [²vɑːsa] is a Swedish warship built between 1626 and 1628. The ship foundered after sailing about 1,300 m (1,400 yd) into her maiden voyage on 10 August 1628. She fell into obscurity after most of her valuable bronze cannon were salvaged in the 17th century until she was located again in the late 1950s in a busy shipping area in Stockholm harbor. The ship was salvaged with a largely intact hull in 1961. She was housed in a temporary museum called Wasavarvet (“The Vasa Shipyard”) until 1988 and then moved permanently to the Vasa Museum in the Royal National City Park in Stockholm. The ship is one of Sweden’s most popular tourist attractions and has been seen by over 35 million visitors since 1961. Since her recovery, Vasa has become a widely recognised symbol of the “Swedish Empire”.

I’m putting this here only because I know one person who might like it: Bill Burr rants about the Vasa.

Bonus video #2: More seriously…a 4K video tour of the Vasa Museum from 2015.

Bonus video #3: “Who Sank the Vasa?”.

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 229

Saturday, November 14th, 2020

Wrapping up this week’s theme, I promise. Tomorrow will be Science Sunday, and after that, I plan to strive for a little more variety.

Since it is Saturday, I don’t feel so bad about doing something a little on the long side: “How The Dambusters Sunk Hitler’s Invincible Battleship”.

Also, as I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, I’m a big fan of the Dambusters and of Barnes Wallis. And speaking of Barnes Wallis, the Barnes Wallis Foundation has a YouTube channel.

So your bonus video for today is: “Dambusters Revealed”.

And your second bonus video for today is much shorter, but from the same source: vintage test footage of Barnes Wallis’s bombs.

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 216

Sunday, November 1st, 2020

Science Sunday!

Today, random. First up: “RMS Titanic: Fascinating Engineering Facts”. This actually talks about both Olympic and Titanic, and (unlike a lot of Titanic stuff) concentrates more on the engineering and shipbuilding: basically, how do you build and launch something that big?

This is only science adjacent, but I wanted to post this as a tribute: James Randi appears on “I’ve Got a Secret”.

And since that was only science adjacent, James Randi’s TED talk on homeopathy, quackery and fraud. I generally hesitate to link to TED talks, but this is an exception.

More Randi: this time, talking about Uri Geller and Geller’s “repudiation” of his claims to have psychic powers.

(As a side note, when Randi died, I got to wondering what Uri Geller was up to these days. I ran across this amusing bit from Geller’s Wikipedia entry.

In 1997 he tried to help the Second Division football club Exeter City win a crucial end of season game by placing “energy-infused” crystals behind the goals at Exeter’s ground (Exeter lost the game 5–1); he was appointed co-chairman of the club in 2002. The club was relegated to the Football Conference in May 2003, where it remained for five years. He has since severed ties with the club.

I think if Geller offers you his assistance, you should probably run in the opposite direction.)

(The James Randi Foundation channel on YouTube.)

Have you ever wondered, “How do they build those massive freaking mirrors for really big telescopes?” I’ve read some stuff about how the mirror for the Hale Telescope was built in the 1930s and 1940s, but today?

Finally: you’ve seen the footage. But do you know the engineering reason(s) why the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapsed?

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 204

Tuesday, October 20th, 2020

The plan for today’s video went out the window because I watched the video I was thinking about using. I won’t name it here, but it was from a channel I don’t usually watch, and was about a subject I thought would be amusing. Unfortunately, it turned out to be kind of draggy and more boring than I expected.

So, instead, I thought I’d fall back to some actual history today. I finished listening to “The History of Rome” a few weeks ago, and vacillated for a while about subscribing to “Revolutions“. Not because I didn’t like “The History of Rome”: I thoroughly enjoyed it, and commend it to your attention. But having cleared out my backlog of one podcast, did I want to immediately start a backlog of another podcast?

In the end, I decided “yes” because Mike Duncan is currently covering the Russian revolutions (1905 and 1917), he’s taking an extended break between 1905 and 1917 to work on his new book (Citizen Lafayette, which I don’t see listed on Amazon yet), and he’s announced that he is wrapping up “Revolutions” after the Russian revolutions are done. So like “The History of Rome”, there’s a defined limit, and I have time to catch up. Plus there’s structure to “Revolutions” that allows me to listen in blocks of episodes, rather than crunching through from episode 1 to the end.

Anyway, Mr. Duncan recommended these two videos in episode 10.35, and I liked them enough to feature here, even if they are a bit long. I find Drachinifel kind of funny: almost like a good stand-up comedian.

It helps that, in this first video, he’s got naturally funny material to work with: the Russian 2nd Pacific Squadron. Or, as he refers to it, “Voyage of the Damned”, one of the most messed up operations in naval history. Start with the decision to send the fleet on an 18,000 mile voyage with no friendly naval bases for resupply and refueling. Add in the fact that many of the ships in the fleet weren’t designed for operations in this environment, and were rather dated. Then add in the fact that many of the officers were incompetent drunks, and the crews lacked experience.

As one officer put it “One Half of this lot needed to be taught everything, because they know nothing. and the other half also needed to learn everything, because they had forgotten everything.”

Hilarity ensued. The 2nd Pacific Squadron nearly started a war with the United Kingdom, narrowly managed to avoid some other incidents because their gunnery was incompetent (and they didn’t have enough ammunition loaded for practice), turned their ships into a zoo (complete with a poisonous snake that bit an officer) and an opium den, and the list goes on. I think this is one of those historical moments that justifies the use of the word “fiasco“.

Bonus #1: Unfortunately, the punchline to the voyage of the dammed isn’t quite as funny: the Battle of Tsushima. In which, having sailed 18,000 miles, the 2nd Pacific Squadron confronts the Japanese navy…and gets slaughtered.

Total Russian personnel losses were 216 officers and 4,614 men killed; with 278 officers and 5,629 men taken as Prisoner Of War (POW). Interned in neutral ports were 79 officers and 1,783 men. Escaping to Vladivostok and Diego-Suarez were 62 officers and 1,165 men. Japanese personnel losses were 117 officers and men killed and 583 officers and men wounded.

Bonus #2: this one is much shorter, and specifically covers the Kamchatka. Or, as Drachinifel refers to it, “the curse of the Russian fleet”.

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 95

Friday, July 3rd, 2020

I’m easing into the July 4th weekend myself. So there’s no overarching theme here, other than: America!

“Grayhounds of the Sea”, a history of U.S. Navy destroyers, narrated by none other than Mr. Jack Webb.

Ordnance Lab builds a replica of the Syrian Hell Cannon Mortar. This is part 1: as far as I can tell, they haven’t posted part 2 yet. (The Wuhan Flu probably has something to do with that. But it looks like they’ve been doing stuff recently with the Roomba-Boomba.)

“Ten Years To Remember”. This is a promo film from the Martin Company (which later merged and became Martin Marietta, and even later on merged again and became Lockheed Martin) from 1964, covering ten years of rocket development.

1972 NASA promo film for Skylab. I’ve always been kind of partial to Skylab.

I was only going to do three, but this one popped up, and it is short: a tribute to Robin Olds from AirForceTV.

Tomorrow: things blow up real good.

Down to the sea in cruise ships.

Monday, October 28th, 2013

NYT headline:

Too Big to Sail? Cruise Ships Face Scrutiny

First paragraph of the article:

One of the largest cruise ships in 1985 was the 46,000-ton Carnival Holiday. Ten years ago, the biggest, the Queen Mary 2, was three times as large. Today’s record holders are two 225,000-ton ships whose displacement, a measure of a ship’s weight, is about the same as that of a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier.

So we have an answer: no, they aren’t “too big to sail”, since the Nimitz-class ships seem to be working just fine.

More seriously, the article is the usual naval gazing about whether cruise ships have become so big that the safety of passengers can’t be guaranteed. This seems to be more of a question about ship design, crew staffing levels, and safety equipment.

Although most have not resulted in any casualties, the string of accidents and fires has heightened concerns about the ability of megaships to handle emergencies or large-scale evacuations at sea. Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia, introduced legislation this summer that would strengthen federal oversight of cruise lines’ safety procedures and consumer protections.

I was going to say something snarky about how accidents and fires at sea don’t exactly encourage customers to come back, and about how much damage the “poop cruise” did to Carnival’s brand. But, while you can see a dip in the stock in February, it looks like they hit their 12 month low point just a few days ago, and I can’t tie that to any specific event.

Today’s biggest ship, Royal Caribbean’s Allure of the Seas, has 2,706 rooms, 16 decks, 22 restaurants, 20 bars and 10 hot tubs, as well as a shopping mall, a casino, a water park, a half-mile track, a zip line, mini golf and Broadway-style live shows. It can accommodate nearly 6,300 passengers and 2,394 crew members — the equivalent of a small town towering over the clear blue waters of the Caribbean Sea. It measures 1,188 feet long. Its sister ship, the Oasis of the Seas, is two inches shorter.

Mini golf? I am there, man. (Doesn’t it seem kind of odd that a cruise ship would have mini golf, while mini golf courses all over the country have been closing? I realize that land is probably more valuable for purposes other than mini golf, but as big as these cruise ships are, isn’t their real estate limited as well?)

This is my favorite part:

One result was a set of new global regulations in 2010 called the Safe Return to Port rules. Those require new ships to have sufficient redundant systems, including power and steerage, to allow them to return to port even in the worst emergency. Only about 10 ships built since then comply with this new rule.
“The idea is that a ship is its own best lifeboat,” said John Hicks, the vice president for global passenger ships at Lloyds Register, the largest ship classification society. “The idea is to do everything to keep the crew and passengers on a vessel.”

“A ship is its own best lifeboat.” Where have I heard that before? Oh, yes:

The lack of lifeboats was the result of a combination of outdated maritime safety regulations and the White Star Line’s wish to leave the decks unobstructed so that the passengers could have better views, as well as give the ship more aesthetics from an exterior view . In addition, it was believed that in the event of an emergency, Titanic’s design would enable her to stay afloat long enough for her passengers and crew to be transferred safely to a rescue vessel. It was never anticipated that everyone would have to be evacuated rapidly at the same time.

(Yes, I know I’m citing Wikipedia, but that’s just because that’s the first reference I can easily lay hands on. The argument that lifeboats weren’t needed because the Titanic was her own best lifeboat is mentioned in pretty much every Titanic history I’ve read, so pick your favorite.)

While ships are becoming bigger, the burden on crew members is growing. The Queen Elizabeth 2, which was launched in 1969, had one crew member for about 1.8 passengers. On the Triumph, the ratio was one crew member for every 2.8 passengers. The issue is also complicated by language and communication problems, and a high crew turnover rate that can reach 35 percent a year.

Hmmmm. One wonders what percentage of that “35% percent” turnover is among ship’s officers, crew, and other people who are important for safety? And what percentage is among people like cooks, restaurant workers, maids, and other people who are, shall we say, less important to the safety of a cruise ship?

I hope you like poop.

Wednesday, April 10th, 2013

At the moment, I have about $121 in my pocket change container. I could probably scrape up another $30 or so.

What could I do with that money?

I could take a Carnival cruise!

A four-night trip on Carnival’s Inspiration, leaving Miami on April 22, costs $149 a person, including meals and some beverages, according to the cruise company’s website yesterday.

This might be kind of a fun adventure. Sitting on the deck, getting a little sun, reading a good book on my Kindle Fire

Of course, that price is FOB Miami. The cheapest Southwest round-trip I could put together adds another $248 to that price, and Southwest only flies to Fort Lauderdale, not Miami. And by the time you add it all up, tips for the staff will probably add another $150 to that price. And I’d be away from the blog and the job hunt for close to a week.

But it is kind of fun to think about.

(Subject line hattip.)