A few CVRR pictures and some other related pictures....2

[Rufus T. Firefly]

The Ammen





The Worden

[healey36]

Early USN destroyers (or torpedo boats, as they were first classified). USS Worden was one of three Truxton-class destroyers, all built at the Maryland Steel Company at Sparrows Point, Maryland, launched August 15, 1901. Here's a pic from the day she and her two sisters were launched:

http://www.navsource.org/archives/05/pix2/0501409.jpg

Both the Bainbridge-class and the Truxton-class (the first two classes of USN destroyers) were designed and built mimicking the Royal Navy's "turtleback" design, whereby the forecastle had a domed structure that mitigated water breaking over the bow at high speed. The Smith-class (some refer to it as the Flusser-class) that followed had a traditional flat foredeck and introduced steam-turbines (instead of the triple-expansion compounds that powered the Bainbridge and Truxton classes). USS Reid is an example of the Smith-class.

Worden was sold in 1920 to Nicaragua and converted to a banana freighter (how ignominious). She remained in service well into WWII, continuing until 1956 when she was scrapped. Banana freighters were typically refrigerated high-speed vessels specifically designed for transport of short-lived perishable items such as bananas.

[J. S. Bach]

"Flush Decks and Four Pipes" An interesting book if you can find a decent copy.

[healey36]

Thanks, I’ll look for a copy.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Another destroyer.....

[healey36]

The classic "flush deck and four pipes"; following conversion to a high-speed minesweeper in the mid-1930s, Long had a distinguished career in the Pacific, eventually being lost to a pair of Kamikazes off Luzon in January, 1945.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

[healey36]

The prewar American cruisers were some lovely ships. One of The Old Man’s best friends from high school served on San Francisco, a cruiser of the same class as Louisville and Salt Lake City. My recollection is he got killed in 1944 while fighting a fire in or near the float-plane hangar, one of the major fire hazards for these ships.

[robert.]

My grandfather served on the Salt lake City. That ship made him marry my grandmother. They decommissioned it on my grandmothers birthday. He said “ on Aug 29 he lost his first lady and gained his wife” or something along those lines.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

[healey36]

The prewar American cruisers were some lovely ships. One of The Old Man’s best friends from high school served on San Francisco, a cruiser of the same class as Louisville and Salt Lake City. My recollection is he got killed in 1944 while fighting a fire in or near the float-plane hangar, one of the major fire hazards for these ships.

I misspoke; USS Louisville was the third cruiser of the Northampton class, commissioned in 1931; USS Salt Lake City was the second of the two-ship Pensacola class, commissioned in 1929; USS San Francisco was the fifth ship of the New Orleans class, commissioned in 1933. The Pensacola class was the first class of heavy cruisers built by the US in accordance with the design limits of the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty, and were generally considered too lightly armored and too slow. The following classes, built within the limits defined by the London Naval Treaty of 1930, were generally similar in outline and configuration, but made incremental improvements in propulsion and armor-protection, ultimately resulting in the more balanced and successful New Orleans class. They, however, proved somewhat inferior to the larger Japanese cruisers in the early going, with three of the seven lost in a single action off Guadalcanal in 1942. By then, the USN design office had progressed to the Baltimore class (arguably the finest heavy cruiser design of any navy during WWII), the first of the 14 Baltimores commissioned 1n 1943.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

[Rufus T. Firefly]

[healey36]

USS New York was expended as a target during the postwar nuclear tests, but her sister, USS Texas, was preserved and currently resides in San Jacinto, Texas. I went to see her once many years ago, but I arrived too late in the day and the ship was closed. She's one of the action items on the bucket list.

I believe this Susquehanna is a photo of a steamer that operated out of Baltimore. I have a shot of her moored at the terminal of the Baltimore Steam Packet Company in Baltimore in the early 1900s, but I don't believe she was owned by that company. Other pictures I have of her show the ship flying a "T" pennant, the BSPC pennant had a large "B". Given the name, I suspect she might have operated on a route to Havre de Grace or possibly the Chesapeake resorts at Tolchester or Betterton. I thought I had a book around here covering the steamship lines that operated on the Chesapeake, but I can't lay my hands on it.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

I believe this Susquehanna is a photo of a steamer that operated out of Baltimore. I have a shot of her moored at the terminal of the Baltimore Steam Packet Company in Baltimore in the early 1900s, but I don't believe she was owned by that company. Other pictures I have of her show the ship flying a "T" pennant, the BSPC pennant had a large "B". Given the name, I suspect she might have operated on a route to Havre de Grace or possibly the Chesapeake resorts at Tolchester or Betterton. I thought I had a book around here covering the steamship lines that operated on the Chesapeake, but I can't lay my hands on it.

Pretty sure it was Tolchester News Co. that operated the Susquehanna.