This is getting a bit far from shore, but the list owner goes along with
it. I don’t know what sizes of coal were used aboard ship, but I remember
watching steam locomotives being fired. The coal appeared to be lumps
averaging about 6 inches across, much the same sort as we burned in open
fires in England. One of the stoker’s tasks was to reach in with an iron
tool and break up the partially-burned lumps and clinker. When automatic
stokers appeared on locomotives in America, the screw of the stoker broke
up the lumps into smaller ones that were delivered onto a firing platform,
from which they were shot into the appropriate locations of the grate by
blasts of steam.

When I was 7 and 8, I lived in a house (#7, Longton Ave, Upper Sydenham)
that had a glass conservatory across its entire back, in which a fomer
resident had grown orchids. That had been heated in the past by a
coal-fired boiler plant, fed by coal along an underground passage that led
to a coal hatch (cast iron manhole cover) out near the street. Naturally,
that establishment became the engine and boiler rooms of the ship in which
we made imaginary voyages.

John Forester 408-734-9426
forester@johnforester.com 726 Madrone Ave
http://www.johnforester.com Sunnyvale, CA 94086-3041

>
>What no manual system can handle … simply … are ships’
> *individual* actions, once action is joined … if control is
> lost of the formation. The only Guadalcanal battle the Japanese
> really lost control in was the First Battle of Guadalcanal.
> Even in Esperance, they withdrew in formation. Even with our
> superior radio communications, we lost control much more readily.
> Superior training and discipline characterized the Japanese
> performance.
>
I sure won’t quibble with the proposition that the IJN was better prepared
for night engagements and kept better order than we did. However, as I
understand it, one of the reasons that Mikawa retired at Savo was that he
believed it would take over an hour to reform his cruisers. I’m not sure
whether he was being overly tidy or his formation had become scattered. It
may be that nobody knows. Chuck Haberlin from the Navy Yard went with the
Ballard people to Guadalcanal. He told me that all of the wrecks they found
were considerably distant from where they “should” have been according to
the records. It may be that a night surface action is a bad time for record
keeping.
Eric Bergerud, 531 Kains Ave, Albany CA 94706, 510-525-0930

In NAVAL ACTION, I’ve got basically a longrange low probability die
roll for radar, and a higher probability but shorter range die roll
for (Japanese) visual sighting. The ranges were much shorter at
night, of course, especially for initial contact, unless radar was
able to make contact out at sea, away from landform interference.

With closure at 8,000 yds (48 knots) per 5 minute turn, things happen
… quickly.

What no manual system can handle … simply … are ships’
*individual* actions, once action is joined … if control is
lost of the formation. The only Guadalcanal battle the Japanese
really lost control in was the First Battle of Guadalcanal.
Even in Esperance, they withdrew in formation. Even with our
superior radio communications, we lost control much more readily.
Superior training and discipline characterized the Japanese
performance.

There is also the question of mistaken recognition and friendly fire.

There are so many variables in “realistic” night combat, they
would require their own rulebook.

Probably the best American night-time performance, for its time of
the war, was Empress Augusta Bay (off Bougainville in Nov43) …
at least talking about cruiser actions. Our destroyers were
already starting to win consistently.

Note also in that battle how the comparatively long ranges and
wily American formation maneuvering threw off the salvoes of
Japanese “Long Lance” torpedoes, much as at Java Sea in early 1942.
Of course, travelling with “31 Knot Burke” — high speed — would
also lessen the chance of getting hit.

Lou Coatney, www.wiu.edu/users/mslrc/

(WWI – This is also going to the Mahan list.) An interesting question
was raised, in light of the claim that the LUSITANIA second explosion
was due to the ignition of coal dust knocked into the air of the bunkers
by the single German torpedo – if a shell hits an *empty* coal bunker,
is there a chance of an explosion? My suggestion:

A shell hitting a mostly-empty coal bunker might not set off an coal
dust explosion if the buker was not open. The shell explosion itself
would possibly consume all the available oxygen in the confined
space…. but the new question is does the blast or fragments from
the shell then rupture or pierce the bulkheads of the bunker, which
would make that moot.

Also, there might well be only a critical range of dust size and amount
suspended that is actually explosive – a mining engineer might
tackle that one….

Relative to this, Bill Schleihauf posted the following

> Just a quickie, as it’s rather off-topic, but I just want to correct
> something I posted yesterday. Now that I’ve *finished* reading the
> article “What Really Sank the MAINE” by Thomas B. Allen in the Naval
> Institute’s “Naval History” magazine (April 1998 issue), the conclusions
> are that based _solely on the physcial evidence + modern computer
> modelling_ it is deemed likely that a *mine* sank the battleship,
> instead of a fire in the coal bunker. The article states that a coal
> fire certainly *could* have setoff the magazine, but the position of
> one piece of plating (basically twisted the wrong way) suggests that
> it was an external explosion (ie a mine) which was the cause.
> The article is very thorough and laden with math and engineering-
> way beyond my ken! Certainly well worth reading for those interested,
> and it does not, IMHO, end the controversy. The article does NOT get
> into a discussion of *how* a mine could have been laid, etc… a very
> important point. It should certainly be read in conjunction with the
> Rickover book “How the Battleship MAINE was Destroyed”, which goes into
> this in detail.
>
> Bill Schleihauf
> Pierrefonds, Quebec
> CANADA
> william@cae.ca

This is as Bill says off topic for WWI list, other than in the prequel
effect of the rise of the US to world power status, but since he
mentioned
it….
This evening I too read the NAVAL HISTORY article Bill S. cited, while
sitting in a medical waiting room (I have a dreadfully painful
ear infection….) Having done some of engineering work (finite
element modeling of strucutres) of the type described in the article, i
was able to
reasonably follow it – but they seem to have totally mis-stated
something I
*think* I remember from Rickover’s book. I’ll have to dig that out and
look at it again, but:

Part of the underside of the hull of the MAINE was bent UP INTO the
ship, vice down. The original investigation after the raising of the
ship, considered that proof positive that a mine, external to the ship,
was involved.

What I thought i remembered of the Rickover investigation, concluded
that the *accidental* explosion of the magazine did blow the bottom of
the ship downwards, but that the *shock wave* of the blast *rebounded*
off the harbor floor, back up to the ship, and *this* loading bent the
hull
plates in question back inwards.

The article in NAVAL HISTORY states that the Rickover investigation
said that the *inrush of water flooding into the ship* caused the inward
deformation. Not the same thing at all, and the inrush of water would
likely have a much lower load applied to the hull plating than the
shock effect.

Unfortunately, like all too many other of my books, my Rickover HOW
THE BATTLESHIP MAINE WAS DESTROYED is buried at the moment, so I can’t
look it up. But if my memory is correct, the new investigation may
have
been flawed by assuming the wrong loading mechanism in modeling this.

Nonetheless, this effect is real. A slightly related effect is noted in
various editions of THE EFFECT OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS, various years – one
will
often find the paradoxical efect of broken off trees or poles or masts
bent
TOWARDS the blast, rather than away. In essence, the blast load breaks
the structures and tilts them outward from the blast – but there is a
reaction wind back toward the center of the explosion a few seconds
later,
as the overpressure has blown so much gas outwards that the area where
the
blast occured has now become rarified, so that air tries to rush back
in, to
equalize pressure. Thus, there is a reverse, lower magnitude, counter
wind that can flip the broken structures back the other way. This is
somewhat related i suppose to the NAVAL HISTORY article’s version of the
Rickover conclusion – which again, is not what I thought I
remembered….

I am going to post this to the Mahan naval history list, and prefer
followups there, since it is off-topic for the WWI list.

-Brooks

Thanks to Brooks Rowlett, Bill Schleihauf, Peter Skelton, David Snyder,
and all the rest who took time to answer my question regarding the
adoption of fuel-oil by the German Navy in World War I. From the
responses posted to the list, it apparent that many British and German
capital ships had dual-fuel boilers which were able to burn both coal
and fuel-oil, and in succeeding classes coal bunkerage was reduced in
favor of fuel-oil bunkerage and that Germany continued to utilize
coal-fired warships due to the fact that she lacked adequate fuel
resources to construct and deploy a fuel-oil based battle fleet. Again,
my thanks to all.

Now, on to another question. I’m still reading _Sea Power: A Naval
History_ by E.B. Potter and Chester Nimitz. The following is found on
page 656:

By this time the task of reinforcing Singapore had been
completed and an ABDA striking force had been formed of
vessels released from convoy duty. In it initially were the
United States cruisers Houston and Marblehead and four
American destroyers, the Dutch light cruisers De Ruyter and
Tromp, and three Dutch destroyers. Command was given to
Dutch Rear Admiral Karel Doorman. These vessels escaped
damage in the attack on Surabaya [an air attack launched
by carriers Soryu and Hiryu on 2/3/1942], but next morning
as Doorman led them forth to attack a Japanese force
reported reassembling at Balikpapan, they were discovered
by Japanese planes. In a prolonged attack in Madoera Strait,
the Houston received a hit that put her after turret out of
commission for the rest of the campaign, while the Marblehead
was so badly battered that she had to return to the United
States.

I’ve checked Samuel Eliot Morison’s _The Two-Ocean War_, Richard
Spector’s _Eagle Against the Sun: The American War Against Japan_, and
John Costello’s _The Pacific War: 1941-1945_ to try and determine
Marblehead’s ultimate fate with no success. I would like to know whether
Marblehead was overhauled and rejoined the war at a later date, was
she transferred to other duties such as training, or did the Navy have
her broken up and her crew sent to new construction? Also, where was
she sent for repairs? Morison and Spector indicate that she returned
stateside, while Costello states that she was routed to Ceylon.
Thanks in advance, Ed.

Edward Wittenberg
ewitten507@aol.com

In response to Ed Wittenberg’s query, and taken from Terzibaschitsch’s
_Curisers of the US Navy 1922-1962_:

MARBLEHEAD commissioned Sep 8, 1924, followed by a shakedown cruise to
England and the Med.
1925: cruise to Australia.
1927-8: surveillance of political events and elections in Nicaragua; then to
Shanghai with RICHMOND and TRENTON, operating on the Yangtze until
March 1928: sailed to Boston via Nicaragua.
8/28-1/33: operated along East Coast.
2/33-1/38: operated along West Coast.
1/38: detached to Asiatic Fleet, based at Cavite.
11/24/41: departed for Philippines with TF5.
12/7/41: in Philippines at outbreak of hostilities; convoy & patrol duty with
Dutch & Australian ships in Dutch East Indies.
1/42: covered withdrawl of Allied ships following attach on Japanese convoy
off Balikpapan.
2/4/42: badly damaged by 2 bombs, 15 killed, 34 injured.
2/13/42: began difficult passage with intermediate stop at Ceylon on 2/21,
where adequate repairs could not be carried out; left for South Africa.
3/24/42: arrived Simonstown; report work until
4/15/42: departed for East Coast USA.
5/4/42: refit at New York Navy Yard.
10/15/42: sent to South Atlantic Fleet; operations based on Recife & Bahia
until 2/44. Five months operations on convoy routes in North Atlantic, then
departure for Palermo, Sicily.
8/44: New York Navy Yard; began preparations 7/29/44 for landings in southern
France.
8/15-17/44: Fire support of landings then returned to USA; summer training
cruise with USNA midshipmen.
November 1, 1945: decommissioned.

So, she not only made it back, she stayed in the fight.

HTH,
John Snyder
John_Snyder@bbs.macnexus.org

This Week in Navy History: Feb. 17, 1776
The Continental Navy was put to sea on its first cruise.

-USN-

Status of the Navy: Feb. 18, 1998
Personnel:
388,439 active duty
55,519 officer
326,391 enlisted
4,027 midshipmen
202,057 civilians
219,733 Ready Reserve Force:
93,426 SELRES/125,984 IRR
Aircraft: 4,666
Ships: 348
Underway: 158 ships (46%)
Deployed: 107 ships (31%)
58,761 personnel
Exercises: 11
Carriers/Airwings at Sea:
USS Nimitz (CVW-9): in transit, Mediterranean
USS George Washington (CVN-73): SOUTHERN WATCH, Arabian Gulf
USS Independence (CVW-5) SOUTHERN WATCH, Arabian Gulf
USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69) COMPTUEX, west Atlantic
LHAs/LHDs/LPHs at Sea:
USS Peleliu/13th MEU: in transit, Pacific
USS Guam/24th MEU: in transit, Arabian Gulf
USS Belleau Wood: SOCEX 98-1, west Pacific
USS Essex: east Pacific
USS Tarawa: in transit, Pacific Ocean
USS Inchon: in transit, Gulf of Mexico
Ships assigned to Maritime Interception Operatons:
USS Young, USS Samuel B. Roberts
Other Exercises/Operations:
COUNTER DRUG OPS, east Pacific/Caribbean Sea
Information source: OPNAV Staff
-USN-

Tom Robison
Ossian, Indiana
tcrobi@adamswells.com
_|_
–X-X-(ô)-X-X–

Hello Folks!

I was recently asked if there is currently a vessel bearing the name of
the USS DEWEY.

Does anyone know the answer to this one??

Patrick McSherry

Mea culpa! I got my W___bergs confused. Teach me to send email after a
long day of grading midterms without the benefit of caffeine. My
apologies.

David Snyder
History Department, Texas A&M University
College Station, TX 77843-4236
(O): 409/862-1314 (H): 409/823-0715
das3050@pop.tamu.edu OR hokie@tamu.edu

Patrick McSherry wrote:
>
> Hello Folks!
>
> I was recently asked if there is currently a vessel bearing the name of
> the USS DEWEY.
>
> Does anyone know the answer to this one??
>
> Patrick McSherry

Patrick,

None currently on the Naval Vessel Register
(http://www.nvr.navy.mil). This is the data on ex-DDG 37

USS DEWEY (DDG-37)
Status: Disposed of by Navy sale
since: 04/15/1994
Builder: BATH IRON WKS CORP
Keel Date: 08/10/1957
Commission Date: 12/07/1959
Launch Date: 11/30/1958
Decommission Date: 08/31/1990
Custodian: SCHOOLS, ORGANIZATIONS AND PRIVATE ENTERPRISES

The Historic Naval Ships Association
(http://www.maritime.org/hnsa-guide.htm) doesn’t list Dewey so I don’t
know her custodian.

David Riley

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